SIGMA-CAD: Some New Concepts in Design of General Purpose CAD Systems

SIGMA-CAD is a general purpose CAD system based essentially on two new ideas: - construction of the PROTOTYPE of an application, which facilitates the implementation of an application by using techniques of computer assisted construction, allowing an incompletely defined system to fonction in simulation and thus permitting close collaboration between the builder and the furure user. - adaptation of this PROTOTYPE to the final run structure defined by software - hardware - firmware facilities (choice, for example, of method of data management, structure of working station, connections with OS, use of special processors, etc...). This paper presents several concepts which permit the implementation of these ideas.