Caddie (CAD system)

Caddie is a mid-range Computer Assisted Design (CAD) software package for 2D and 3D design.

Caddie is used widely by architects, mechanical, civil, landscape and construction engineers, surveyors and similar. It was initially designed as an electronic drawing board, using concepts and tools clearly related to a physical board, but it has evolved into a state of the art drafting system, whilest retaining its principles of being easy to use and quick to learn.The program was originally developed in South Africa and version 1 was released in 1986, running under DOS. Caddie developed a significant presence in its home market and then expanded into the United Kingdom in 1987 and quickly established a position as one of the leading products in the UK market. In 2002, Caddie was bought by UK company Advanced Computer Solutions who until then were the UK distributors. The new owners immediately ramped up what had been a tail-off in development and since then Caddie has thrived.

Caddie 10 was a milestone in the development, with the introduction of full 3D capabilities and interoperability with other major CAD systems by using the OpenDWG drawing format. By utilising this format Caddie has the ability to open drawings created with other DWG based systems such as AutoCAD without need for any import or conversion utilities. This makes Caddie a real alternative for people not wanting to go down the Autodesk route, but needing to communicate on a day to day basis with other DWG based systems, and even to utilise Caddie workstations in a mixed environment.

As well as being a very easy to learn and cost effective system, Caddie has many advantages over other CAD systems. The support is second to none - Caddie users are supported by telephone and email directly from the development company, who also offer training courses form new users and those migrating from previous versions. Caddie comes complete with a range of industry specific applications, with tools specifically designed to take the repetition and tedium out of drafting and design. There are applications for Architecture, Surveying, Mechanical, DTM, Civil, etc. When you buy Caddie Professional, you get them all - so you have the entire range at your disposal, rather than having to buy different versions for different types of work.

Caddie is protected against software theft by a dongle, however without a dongle Caddie can be used as a viewer and plot station for any DWG drawings with the limitation that it cannot save drawings. For use for plotting and viewing however, saving is not required, therefore this is not a restriction. The non dongled, non-saving version is free.

The current version (July 2008) is Caddie 12, which runs on Windows XP or Windows Vista. Caddie 14 is expected to be released in September 2008. Caddie operates a maintenance scheme where clients who have purchsed Caddie get all software upgrades and support for a small annual fee.

External links

* [http://www.caddie.co.uk/ Caddie Software website]