Gable CAD was developed at the University of Sheffield in the mid-1980s[1] under the leadership of Professor Bryan Lawson.
[2] It was spun out into Gable CAD Systems Limited (incorporated in 1984)[3] and retained links with the university until its demise in 1996 when a court order was made for compulsory winding up.
[4] An early building information modeling application, Gable CAD was an advanced 2D and 3D design package with different modules, and was operated via a Windows-style interface and mouse running on UNIX.
It was possible to create detailed 3D models and then generate 2D drawings or rendered visualisations from the data.
[5] The assets of the company were acquired by Auxer in 1997 and aimed to complete the conversion of Gable CAD to Windows NT[6] but this does not appear to have ever been released.