The story of founder Michael Collins and the evolution of modern packaging CAD.
This timeline traces how RulesSoftware & Michael Collins guided a sequence of packaging CAD innovations, from the earliest Ashlar-Score! work to today's SampleMaker platform. It is a record of pepole ideas, and tools that shaped box design history.
Michael Collins begins the journey with Ashlar-Score!, exploring digital dieline creation and precision drafting for packaging.
It began in the late �80�s, when Marin Newell, the original developer of Vellum software and founder of Ashlar, worked with Michael Collins to develop Ashlar Score! for the box design industry.
Introduction of Rules (1997), focused on packaging structural designs and rule-based parametric thinking, laying groundwork for faster box development.
SteelRules CAD refines manufacturing-aware tooling, bringing improved accuracy for die-making and production-prep workflows.
AlphaCorr expands the concept into broader packaging solutions, delivering template-driven design and practical production outputs.
Zund Design Center employs the same box library used by SampleMaker, and Zund has added more of their own using SampleMaker.
Uses Collins’s / RulesSoftware Box Library and the Constrain Resolver from SampleMaker to allow box and display templates to be imported into any graphics program, with a web-based version also available.
SampleMaker continues the philosophy of rapid, parametric packaging CAD with a modern, lightweight experience focused on speed and simplicity.
Acknowledgment: The throughline across these products is a commitment to practical, reusable box standards that empower designers and steel rule die-makers without the noise of sales or marketing.