Ashlar-Vellum

Ashlar-Vellum, a dba of Ashlar Incorporated, is a developer of Computer-aided design (CAD) and 3D modeling software for both the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum’s interface, designed in 1988 by Dr. Martin Newell and Dan Fitzpatrick, featured an automated Drafting Assistant that found useful points in the geometry and allowed the artist to quickly connect to locations like the "midpoint" or "tangent".

Their original 2D product, Vellum, underwent numerous upgrades and gained 3D surface modelling capabilities over time. This product is now known as Graphite. In 1998 Vellum was joined by Solids, which added full solid modeling support. This product is now known as Cobalt, and is also offered in several sub-versions with different feature sets and price points.

Founded in Sunnyvale, California, Ashlar Incorporated is now headquartered in Austin, Texas with additional offices in Kiev, Ukraine.

The Ashlar-Vellum product family features the Designer Elements including Graphite, Cobalt, Xenon and Argon.

Graphite offers 2D and 3D wireframe drafting.

Graphite is the modern successor to Ashlar’s earlier Vellum program, originally released in 1989. Introduced in 2001, Graphite competes with AutoCAD LT and VectorWorks.

Cobalt is Ashlar-Vellum’s top-level product for 3D modeling and CAD on Mac and Windows. It integrates parametric wireframe, freeform surfacing, feature-based solid modeling and photo-realistic rendering all using the Vellum interface. Everything in Cobalt is history-driven with associativity and 2D equation-driven parametrics and constraints. It offers surfacing tools, mold design tools, detailing, and engineering features. Cobalt also includes a library of 149,000 mechanical parts.

Cobalt is the successor to Ashlar’s earlier Vellum Solids program released in 1998. Debuted in 2001, Cobalt competes with Solid Edge, SolidWorks, CATIA, NX, and Pro/Engineer.

...
Wikipedia