In the mid-1980s, The Boeing Company invested in three-dimensional
CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing) technology
for strategic reasons. By the end of that decade, a single strategy for
applying this capability emerged after numerous pilot programs were
conducted.

The pilot programs clearly demonstrated the benefits of modeling
airplane parts as three-dimensional solids in the CATIA (computer-aided
three-dimensional interactive application) system. Developed by Dassault
Systemes of France and marketed by IBM in the United States, CATIA,
along with several Boeing-created applications - allowed Boeing
engineers to simulate the geometry of an airplane design on the computer
without the costly and time-consuming investment of using physical mock-ups.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/777...computing.html




Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
"Franck" writes:

........ are made by french soft : catia (from dassault systems)

read made using a french CAD software : catia (from dassault systems)


Amusing. When I was busy developing Information Interchange protocols
between CAD systems and documentation systems, (Mid '80s) CATIA was
Boeing's baby, and a troublesome one at that. If they conned
Dassault into buying it, it would have to rank as the Comic Deal of
the century.