Poll about CAD knowledge 7

[Lion06]

How many people here work at a firm in which they need to know how to use CAD themselves. I have know idea how to draw a straight line in CAD, but many engineering companies say you must be proficient in CAD in part of their job descriptions.

 

[PMR06]

I work at a very small firm where the engineers do about 75% of their own drafting. We are all experts at 2D CAD, and have a very detailed, almost artful drawing style. I actually take some pride in putting together my own set of plans from concept to engineering to plot.

 

[miecz]

Here, engineers do all the drafting. AutoCAD for civil projects, Microstation for transportation projects.

 

[UcfSE]

We need to know ACAD and knowing MS helps. We don't necessarily have to be tech's ourselves in addition to being engineers but we should be useful and able with CAD.

At other firms I've done all my own drafting and had to be as proficient as necessary to draw my own stuff.

 

[Lion06]

Am I less marketable having all design experience and absolutely ZERO CAD knowledge? I would love to know how to do CAD, but don't want to invest the time to learn (how to do it efficiently and effectively) when I have so many engineering things to learn and read about.

 

[Qshake]

It's my feeling that in today's world you are less marketable not knowing CAD. If you didn't gain insight from College when pursuing your BS degree (nearly all US universities have a mandatory engineering drawing class) then you should enroll in a local community college (or 2 year technical school) to pick up a simple three month class. You'll be surprised at what you can learn to do in that time and will be more marketable to boot.

Right now most Civil engineers work on cadd since all the alignment and profile functions lent themselves well to CAD work. I see the day coming when engineers will also do the same for structural details.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

 

[whyun]

StructuralEIT, move to California. I can't speak for general practices of "structural" engineering firms in other states but here structural engineers do mainly engineering and most small to mid size firms have CAD department that handle around 95% of CAD work.

Engineers here typically do not have licensed copy of AutoCAD. Usually they have AutoCAD file viewers with mark-up capability. It doesn't make business sense to buy the AutoCAD that will be used by engineers only 5% of the time.

If you have zero CAD knowledge, it will be good for your career to learn the basics. You will not be as fast or as good as the guys who are trained to do CAD work. In the days before CAD, drafters did the drafting and engineers did engineering. From time to time, engineers drew details by themselves to sticky-back them on the tracings. It will be good to have at least that ability today with CAD.

Personally, I also have zero CAD knowledge though I made attempts to learn 15 years ago. At this stage in my career, I don't need CAD knowledge to survive.

 

[miecz]

Don't get too proficient at it though. We had a case where an EIT got so proficient at CAD that everyone, including other departments, wanted him to draft for them. He eventually had to leave the company to pursue his engineering career.

 

[McSEpllc]

I took CAD course at the university with the intent to make me more marketable. My first job did not require any CAD of me. My second one it helped me get the job. On the beginning I did quite a bit of CAD. My boss was intending to learn CAD himself too. Over time it became clear that one can not be a master of everything and I did maybe 2 hours of CAD a year the last six years. In any case you should know how to access drawings, get dimensions and plot as a bear minimum. In the beginning of my self employement I did more CAD again. Now I used CAD sub contractors.

Eric McDonald, PE
McDonald Structural Engineering, PLLC

 

[JStephen]

I took an "AutoCAD for Professionals" class at a local junior college. It was 8 hours a Saturday for 4 weeks. That pretty much gets you going on the 2-drafting. It takes a long time to get completely up to speed, though. I think our AutoCAD supplier also offers similar classes.

A lot of the junior college regular drafting classes are also teaching what a blueprint is, what it means, and then teaching different industries: Construction, electronics, etc. If you're in engineering already, you should know what the drawings mean and what they look like, and don't need to know the out-of-industry stuff.

 

[archeng59]

I've been using CAD for about 20 years. Lots of hand drafting too in the old days. I don't do all of my own CAD work now and am not as familiar with the latest AutoCAD as I was ten years ago. But I know enough to get things done. Learn to copy, paste, edit. Makes things go fast when you need to go fast. I can plot and set up sheets when I have to, but it's slower when I do it than when my cad tech does it.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

I do all of my own CAD work and am in charge of interpreting and enforcing CAD standards...

But it's not CAD, it's CAE...

 

[grandcasita]

It varies greatly in Dallas - some places say "no drafting by engineers", some say "do your own", and where I am now I should do my own in self-defense, but there is one draftsman for four engineers.

I do all of my own IN PENCIL on engineering pads... way back when, the university classes were EDG (engineering design graphics) and we used a drafting machine.

I do know CAD, but not AutoCAD (Vectorworks is my favorite, but whatever floats your boat.) The first version fo AtuoCAD I used was about V0.93 which was eventually updated to V1.06a or some such.

An engineer's time should typically be more expensive than that of a draftsperson. (Although a good draftsman should be properly paid, since they make you look good.)

 

[michfan]

I'll speak as someone who has been on both ends of a drawing.

I've done my own cad work - I've taken the basic, intermediate, and advanced classes at the local CC. Nice classes, 2 nights a week for 10 or 12 weeks, etc. Also took Pro-E just to learn what it does. I think that has been very helpful throughout my career.

I also had 4 years of hand drafting in high school, before CAD. I think learning those basics - what an isometric view is, how to project lines, how dimensions should be called out, etc. - should be mandatory for certain disciplines, especially structural engineering.

I've worked in estimating and I've worked with installers and I've seen bad drawings. The more you know about how things fit together (or don't...) and how to convey that on paper to another human, the better you become as an engineer.

 

[RARWOOD]

A big advangage of being able to do a little bit in cad is your ability to check the cad tech's work. At the company I work for correct geometry and dimensions is very important.

In the past when I was checking projects through hand calculations and did not agree with the cad tech, often there was not a way to resolve the problem. The tech would insist that the drawing was correct. So I would go recheck my work. Often I was forced to have the cad tech overide dimensions to correct the drawing.

Now that I know a little cad, if I don't agree with the tech I will pull the drawing up to resolve the issue. If I find a mistake I give it back to the tech and instruct the tech to redraw it.

Another advantage of knowing a little cad is that you can't be held hostage by the cad techs. At a large company this is not problem generally because of the size of their cad staff. If the company has only one cad tech and that tech is gone often times the project has to sit until the tech is back in the office. It is hard to explain to a client that he or she will not get his or her drawings until the tech gets back from France next week.

 

[minorchord2000]

our structural engineers do not do CAD in our office. It i tough enugh keeping up with the ever changing code requirements. I let our CAD guys, who are extremely proficient, do all the line work.

 

[JAE]

Hmmm...well - a confession.

I have drafted ink on linen. I have over 28 years experience in structural engineering. And I do CAD (or as DaveVikingPE says - CAE).

But I don't do it all the time.

Here's some observations:

[blue]1. A good engineer can learn cadd and do it well enough without techs and still continue to be a great engineer.[/blue]
[red]2. However, techs are good to have around to assist and create drawings rapidly.[/red]
[green]3. A good tech is one who understands the basics of engineering and knows what the heck they are drawing (real objects and not just a bunch of lines).[/green]
[purple]4. A good tech strives to learn from the experienced engineers and is not threatened by the young ones and even tries to help them learn without feeling threatened.[/purple]
[maroon]5. A bad tech gets enamoured with the software and becomes an "expert" in CADD - thereby becoming a worthless engineering tech.[/maroon]
[teal]6. The great mystery in life: can an engineer whip out a CADD detail, completely noted and finished, faster and cheaper than he can sketch it out and have the tech put it into CADD?[/teal]

(sorry - I'm in a colorful mood)

 

[valleyboy]

I think it depends where you work - where I am now, I do all my own CAD drafting.

I have worked for some large consultancies however where you do no drafting, which is carried out by exclusively by Technicians. These guys typically find out what you are good at, and make you do the same task repetitiously.

I dont think this is a good approach, as the knowlege of some of the graduates I worked with suffered bacuase thay did'nt have a very good appreciation of 'buildability' which is developed by drafting work.

 

[Lion06]

valleyboy-
Do you have to do the drafting to understand buildability? I mean you are still reviewing the details to make sure they make sense, right? How does drawing it in CAD, help you understand the constructability? I sketch it by hand and hand it off to CAD, then check it after they draw it.

 

[DRC1]

I think it depends greatly on what you are doing. If you are doinging comltly new structures, you may not have as much need for it. I do a lot of construction and temporary work, so i find it useful for interfacing with existing conditions and working with survey data. It is a tool and a very useful one at that, but it does not make you a more competent engineer. I would suggest getting a copy of Autocad LT and have someone help get you started and fool around with it. Like most programs, once you get into it and discover the logic behind the basic steps, the rest of it unravels pretty quickly. You may not be making finished drawings right off the bat, but you can see how a tricky joint might fit together.