CAD users: How old are you? 3

[toffeet]

http://www.cadalyst.com/cadalyst

Too those of you who have already taken the poll. Is there a simple explanation for the big differences between age groups? A big surprise to me was the 40-49 group, compared to the 30-39 and 50-59 groups.

I am in the 30-39 group and can not imagine an engineering world without the use of CAD. Or are there people who feel different about CAD?

Solid Edge V18 SP6 on WinXP SP2

 

[toffeet]

Hello Plasgears,

That's a pity. The reason I was asking is that I do believe that the new generation 3D CAD has come a long way. A lot of drafting work is automated and you can spend more time on the creation of a 3D model.

Solid Edge V19 SP1 on WinXP SP2

 

[pdybeck]

I guess I don't fit into any classification that is given in this thread. What about engineers younger than 30? By the way, I am pretty proficient with SolidWorks and I tend to see a world of difference between myself and someone less proficient in an equivalent 3D MCAD program. I may not have all the years of experience in design, but I think b/c of my skills and knowledge of a program like SolidWorks I can arrive at answers to designs faster if I utilize the resources available to me of those more experienced in what works in designs. I find that I can work on more projects b/c I am able to get things done faster. Getting things done more efficiently allows me to be exposed to more and therefore learn design particulars at an accelerated rate. I also find that as I model particular parts in 3D, it forces me to learn about the particulars of a manufacturing process that may be used, or a method that may be used. So I see 3D MCAD as being a great enabler for me to learn and develop at a faster rate than what would have otherwise been possible.

 

[toffeet]

Hello pdybeck,

I can not agree more with you. I have been using Solid Edge for 4 years now and I can not imagine my daily life without such a tool.

Solid Edge V19 SP1 on WinXP SP2

 

[ctopher]

Interesting. I login to Eng-Tips everyday. First time this thread has shown.
Weird.
I'm in the 40-49 group. And no, I'm not going blind.

Chris
SolidWorks 06 5.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 10-27-06)

 

[dik]

I'm in the upper reaches and have been using a personal computer since the first XT came out. Used to use an IBM 360 at university that would be sluggish compared to my laptop... and my desktop is faster yet... it's been driven by my kids gaming requirements... Although I'm not as fast as some CAD operators, I use AutoCAD frequently and can hold my own with an average CAD operator. Use 2002LT and started with ver 2.15 (if anyone has that good a memory). I program in half a dozen languages as a hobby (sort of) although most of the stuff I do is in Delphi, now. Some of the programs have over a meg in source code. Although I've written relational databases, I'm just picking up MS Access (setting up a new project that can use it). I've always been an info junkie and love learning. My laptop is running an AMD Turion ML-40 at 2.2 gHz, with 2 gig RAM and 100 Gig HD and a wide screen. It has faxmodem, USB, Firewire, Bluetooth, WiFi, and regular LAN, etc. Because of my wife's illness, I use it far more often than my desktop...

Dik

 

[DaveVikingPE]

Born in 1963, by the time I was 18, I was heavily addicted to video games... circa 1981. Ten years later, my addiction hit the peak when I made it through the entire "Black Tiger" game on a single quarter. I heven ad an unfortunate lapse in 1998 when I spent an entire week of vacation playing Warcraft (I finished it all...). Computers in general came easy to me then and are even easier to use now.

Pretty much anyone who was in high school and below, once Pac-Man came out, has computer-geekness in their blood.

What the folks don't have (and what I am seeing less and less of in the younger engineers) is good drawing skills. That is, with pencil and paper. You can be a "whiz at computers" but if you don't have the learned talent for technical drawing, forget it.

Don't think of ourselves as doing CADD, think of the work as CAE: computer-aided enigneering. The production drawings, with tools like TitleBlock Manager (for MicroStation users) are a snap. Integration of good, quality technical drawings into Excel or MathCAD makes it all go together...

 

[swivel63]

it's definitely a weakness for me.

 

[csd72]

In my current job I do much of my own CAd, but I would much prefer to stick to hand sketches and hand calculations.

How do you discuss a tricky detail in a meeting if you are not able to sketch it up? I am a bit concerned about what happens when that generation of engineers that cant do hand calcs or hand sketches become senior engineers.

I agree with what JAE said about it stunting engineers growth - it flattens the engineering learning curve.

csd

 

[pdybeck]

csd,

While I agree that hand sketching and hand calculations are useful and sometimes more efficient tools, there are times when it just doesn't cut it and not adopting newer technology holds you back as far as capability, creativity, and the ability to look at more design variations. You may be coming from a different background being from the structural/civil realm. A lot of the discussion here is centering around 3D MCAD for the product design world. Because of the advent of better 3D MCAD tools, it allows me to model and analyze a much broader range of possiblities for products. Initial ideas start out as sketches and quick hand calculations, but it eventually ends up on my screen. There are probably a number of people in this thread that are involved in designing things that can't easily be sketched properly, but can be accurately modeled - non-prismatic shapes (think of a computer mouse, autobodies, the handle to your favorite cordless drill.) The job of the engineer is to be able to decide when to use the best tool. I tend to be much more optimistic about the engineers of the future.

Pete

 

[csd72]

Pete,

I dont understand 3DMCAD is it a design program or a drawing program?

 

[GSTeng]

I am just barely still in the 20-30 range and I have been doing CAD since early university classes (10 years now) I use it regularly in my work but I don't do official drawings. I do what I call CAD sketches and hand those of to Drafters to spruce up and put into real drawings. I could not imagine working without CAD, but I am by no means a drafter (even thought I have done a complete drawing package a few times when our drafters were too back up).

I too still do hand sketches regularly when I am in the field and have no computer, I also do hand calculations all the time, but I use excel a lot.

I recently did a scale 3D CAD model of some very confusing piping changes we had for a plant in our area. It went through about 20 revisions with our client before we were both satisfied with the product. To do this by hand would have been tedious, time consuming and impossible in the time frame that we did it. To have a drafter do it would have be frustrating, since I know the flows pressures restriction... that the different piping flows have and I could avoid trying to explain this to someone else by doing it myself. When my client was satisfied I gave the model to the drafter and he made it into three plan views and 6 detailed elevation views. The model could be viewed and talked about on one 11"x17" piece of paper and was a great tool in optimizing the design and insuring all our criteria were met. I did the model to scale in about a day and it took about 1 hour to revise it from hand scratches the customer and I did on while we were discussing our options. You would need one hell of an eraser to do this by hand and by the end the paper would be thinner than a napkin. Every revision I made was clear and crisp just like a new drawing.

I think that, in my industry at least, the ability to do CAD is almost a necessity for an engineer. Not that you can't be a great engineer without it (I know of many), or that being good at CAD makes you a good engineer but it is an excellent tool. The way CAD is progressing, being an engineer and not having the ability to do CAD will put you at more and more of a disadvantage, but this of course totally depends on your industry and your position.

 

[pdybeck]

CSD,

http://www.solidworks.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LstOExJ2oGs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyMciBk5nco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9c5QHGuNu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4DfYtGCvy4

http://www.cadjunky.com/tag/solidworks

that should give you a good idea...

Pete

 

[csd72]

There is a bit of a discrepancy in what we are referring to when we refer to CAD.

In my industry, the term is generally used in reference to an electronic way of producing drawings (such as Autocad).

This 3DMCAD, I would refer to as a second generation of CAD combined with Analysis package. It makes sense for the analysis package to also produce drawings in this case.

Similar packages are available in my industry, but they are still not the norm.

csd

 

[pdybeck]

"There is a bit of a discrepancy in what we are referring to when we refer to CAD."

- My point exactly. CAD is a catch all generic term that people use in many ways to mean different things. When you write the letters "CAD" - I have a different idea in my mind than what you have been used to. They are like apples and oranges. Your industry will eventually move to the newer generation of programs, its inevitable. For some reason(s) the civil architectural world seems to lag a little bit in that area. They don't seem to be the norm as you say, but then again the product design world has seen a lot of changes in this arena within the last 10 years - even the last 5 years. AutoCAD was probably the norm 10 years ago in product design. Now, if you are still using AutoCAD in the product design realm, then I would have to question a person's sanity/judgement. I understand this is different in civil/architectural, but I would look into emergin technologies in this area and watch them closely.

Pete