Its mission was to develop computer-aided design techniques and promote their take-up by British industry.
The centre carried out much pioneering CAD research, and many of its early staff members went on to become prominent in the worldwide CAD community, such as brothers Dick Newell and Martin Newell.
Martin Newell later went to the University of Utah where he did pioneering 3D solid modelling work; he was also one of the progenitors of PostScript.
Subsequently, the UK government, via the British Technology Group (BTG) established a separate company, Compeda Ltd, to exploit software developed and owned by the government and they took over the marketing and user support of PDMS, while the software continued to be developed by the CADCentre, with funding from Compeda.
Prime Computer decided that PDMS had no commercial value or future and returned the marketing rights for the product to CADCentre.