Caddie (CAD system)

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

It is used primarily by architects but has tools for mechanical, civil and construction engineers and similar. It was intially designed as a electronic drawing board, using concepts and tools clearly related to a physical board, but it gradually accreted more features to bring it closer to products such as AutoCAD.

The program was developed in South Africa and version 1 was released in 1986, running under DOS. In a time of international sanctions it developed an significant presence in its home market. Caddie expanded into the United Kingdom in 1987 and for a time established a position as the second most popular product in the market, although it was a very distant second to AutoCAD.

With the opening of the South Arican market in the 1990s the dominant position of Caddie was quickly eroded, not aided by the slow development cycle which did not see a non-DOS version until 1993. The company was acquired by a local software development company, Billcad in 1998. Billcad became Planit Technology in 1999 and in mid-2001 much of the core Caddie team left to form a new venture with Autodesk. Planit went into liquidation early in 2002. In November 2002 the British distributor, ACS, bought all the rights rights from the South African holders and also acquired the Caddie operation within South Africa.

The system has under 20,000 users worldwide. The current version is Caddie 9, released in late 2002.