Is CAD Good or Bad?

In upFront.eZine, readers have debated whether CAD makes drawings better or worse. It's generally agreed that CAD forces new students to learn software commands instead of drafting principles.

Red Orbit reprints an article by Jean Thilmany in Mechanical Engineering: Pros and Cons of CAD that even includes quotes from John Walker. The conclusion:

Lewis praises rules that can now be included in CAD systems. Those rules automatically create certain aspects of a design-like a hole-in a company-prescribed manner, to standardize them. "That drives standardization without limiting creativity," Lewis said. "If you make it easy for somebody to make that hole, it becomes a no-brainer, and they can turn their efforts to the creative part of the design process."

Comments

[Randall Newton]

Saying CAD is inherently good or bad is like saying dogs are good or bad. Case in point: I was at the headquarters of a major MCAD vendor this week, and somebody mentioned the need to have a system that can compensate for poorly drawn 2D stuff, like lines that weren't drawn with snaps. For heavens sake, we were trying to educate our users at Generic CADD 20 years ago about the value of snaps. There's only so much a software tool maker can do to compensate for people who don't take the time to learn how to do things right. I guess that until CAD is invisible and idiot-proof, such issues will exist.