Ashlar-Vellum is the world leader in user interface design for CAD and 3D modeling software. Supporting both Mac and Windows, they bring the best possible user experience to 3D modeling and computer-aided drafting products that automate and simplify the design process for drafting, design, and engineering professionals.

Ashlar-Vellum History

Ashlar-Vellum’s renowned user interface and family of powerful design tools have earned the loyalty of industrial designers and other conceptual thinkers since 1988. “From the beginning, Ashlar-Vellum has provided highly intuitive and easy to use tools that let designers quickly capture and present their ideas,” says Robert Bou, Ashlar-Vellum’s President. “They function literally as extensions of a designer’s creativity. More than just CAD and 3D modeling tools, Vellum® products become part of the designer and the designer’s process.”

Ashlar-Vellum Today

Today, Ashlar-Vellum and its partners continue to develop 2D/3D CAD and 3D modeling software products for designers who demand the freedom to concentrate on the creative process, not on the tools. Our unique Organic Workflow™ facilitates a non-linear creative process that allows designers to create outstanding products through easy design iteration, transparent tools, and hands-on control of the production process. Ashlar-Vellum’s latest products harness the potential of advanced surfaces and solids with an integrated, user-friendly design environment, letting conceptual designers create precision 3D models of complex, freeform designs on both Mac and Windows platforms.

Ashlar’s Vision & Tradition of Innovation

Martin Newell, the most influential person in CAD usability, founded Ashlar, Incorporated in 1988. At Xerox PARC during the 1980s, Mr. Newell researched the interaction between a computer terminal and the computer user contributing to the development of such important tools as the graphical user interface and the computer mouse.

After leaving Xerox PARC, Mr. Newell realized his vision of a “heads up” CAD interface, where the user was free to focus on designing without distractions from the application. He developed the Inference Engine and patented this intuitive technology as the Drafting Assistant™. The Drafting Assistant is the cornerstone of Ashlar-Vellum’s revolutionary user interface. Since the release of Vellum®, other CAD developers have tried to copy, but have never captured the Vellum magic.

Today Ashlar-Vellum continues to set the standards for usability and power in precision 3D design software for inventors, designers, engineers, architects and other heroes who change our physical world with their vision and dreams.