CAD Schroer

MPDS, the MEDUSA Plant Design System (since 2006 MPDS4) is a suite of plant engineering applications for 2D/3D layout, design and modelling of process plants, factories or installations. The system's history is closely tied to the very beginnings of mainstream CAD and the research culture fostered by Cambridge University and the UK government as well as the resulting "Cambridge Phenomenon" MPDS was originally developed for 3D plant design and layout and piping design. Today the software includes modules for 2D/3D factory layout, process and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID), mechanical handling systems design, steel design, ducting (HVAC) design, electrical design and hangers and supports Design. The latest version, MPDS4 5.2.1, was released for Microsoft Windows and Sun Solaris in February 2014.

MPDS’ history is tied in with the Computer-Aided Design Centre (or CADCentre) which was created in Cambridge in 1967 by the UK Government to carry out CAD research.

Famous British computer scientist Dr. Dick Newell worked there on a file-based macro language driven 3D plant design system called PDMS (Plant Design Management System). Together with colleague Tom Sancha he left the CADCentre in 1977 to form a company called Cambridge Interactive Systems or CIS and primarily concentrated on 2D CAD. CIS had developed an electrical cabling solution initially called CABLOS, which was first purchased by Dowty Engineering in about 1979. Another early adopter was BMW, which used the system for car wiring diagrams. CABLOS soon became known and sold as the MEDUSA drafting system under CIS. The proprietary programming language with which MEDUSA version 1 was developed was known as baCIS 1. Around this time, the company also began developing its own 3D modelling kernel for MEDUSA.

Around 1980, CIS partnered with Prime Computer, a U.S.-based computer hardware provider. Prime had an option on the MEDUSA source code should CIS ever fail. In 1983 the U.S. CAD company Computervision purchased CIS.