By: M.S.Yatnatti: Editor and Video Journalist Bengaluru: The AutoCAD and Alternatives to AutoCAD like Draft site , FreeCAD , LibreCAD,NanoCAD, Skechhup Make and ZWCAD are ruling the drawing industry and with an IOT .smart-home and 3 D printing boom there is an impending explosion predicted in CAD jobs opportunities across industries . According to reports Computer Aided Design (CAD) has been a real breakthrough in the drawing and design industry by becoming the primary source of communicating design intent. Before the advent of CAD, the only source for draftsmen was pencil and paper for drawing sketches and engineers were to sit with complicated geometry tools and huge drawing boards . The traditional method of manual drafting is iterative and time consuming. However, now there has been a paradigm shift from traditional manual drafting to cad design and drafting.
The prerequisites understanding the physical need of the idea translating an idea into engineering challenge and then using CAD software to solve these challenges is critical element of being employable as an engineer as while 1.5 million engineers pass out and graduate every year in India in engineering and technology institution.Learning CAD is very important aspect of being an engineer. Depending on your situation learn CAD in a small or big institution or choose MOOCS platform like coursesera that offer courses on CAD VLSI CAD and you can utilize AutoDesk university .Another company that provides lot of resources is Ansys. Lot of software tools are available like commercial and OSS .The AutoCAD and Alternatives to AutoCAD like Draft site , FreeCAD , LibreCAD,NanoCAD, Skechhup Make and ZWCAD and fusion 360 TnkerCAD BLENDER and other tools .The job descriptions vary between drafters designers and Managers and real key to succeed in CAD is composed of thrtee things “Practice” “Practice” “Practice” .
According to experts some of the benefits of CAD drafting are -Data storing and Accessibility – One of the advantages of CAD drafting is that the drawings need not be filed and stored in folder unlike in manual drafting. CAD drafting can be easily saved on the computer server and can be accessed from anywhere with internet connection. The chance of losing the documents is higher in manual drafting. As CAD drawings can be saved electronically without the use of paper, it is also an environment friendly method.3D views – 3D drawings are the best way to virtually represent a structure. Though one can manually create a 3d model, it wouldn’t look as realistic as the 3D model generated by AutoCAD. AutoCAD breathes life in the 3D model and aid the visualization process. While creating 3D view manually is a challenging, time-consuming and tire-some job, it becomes much easier with software like AutoCAD.Revisions – While you create any drawing on paper or software, there is bound to be some amount of revisions or modifications. In manual drafting, you need to erase and redraw to make any modification to your drawing. CAD simplifies the revision process to a large extent with its various editing tools. With few clicks of mouse, you can undo, redo or delete your actions. You need not re-draw an object anytime later as you can modify the existing object by mirroring, stretching, rotating, scaling etc.Speed and Time – Technologies are invented to make our work easier, save our time and to complete the work faster. AutoCAD is significantly faster than the traditional method of manual drafting. It speeds up the task of preparing bill of materials, reports, scaling etc. The tedious task of drawing each line on paper can be done in few mouse clicks. As CAD software eliminates repetitive iterations, a substantial amount of time is saved. In AutoCAD, data describing a component or its family is associative in nature and hence revisions are automatically made to all places the data is used. Accuracy – In manual drafting, all the objects drawn must be of correct size and alignment. Each object need to be manually verified and dimensioned as the slightest error can be catastrophic to the entire project. With CAD, there are numerous techniques available to obtain exact dimensions thus leading to improved accuracy in the project.Owing to the numerous benefits in terms of speed, accuracy, data storage, revision CAD offers over manual drafting, it has become a standard for the AEC industries.CAD drawing services has changed the engineering industry in many ways, but all for the better. Those who use CAD outsourcing services for engineering find that they're more profitable and successful. Below, you'll find several more reasons how CAD has changed the engineering industry.Realistic Drafting. Before CAD, all drafts were drawn by hand. This means that all models and drafts were 2D (2 Dimensional). In order to make sure the structures were drafted properly multiple drawings were required to depict all sides of the model.Today, CAD software helps eliminate the hand-drawn drafts. With the use of CAD, engineers are able to create 3D (3 Dimensional) simulations of all drafts – whether it be a machine component, structure or other type of model. There’s even an option to take a virtual 3D tour of the structures being drafted with CAD.Networking Capabilities. Before CAD software, engineers had trouble saving and transferring files without worrying whether or not they’d become lost or degraded. Now, with the help of CAD applications like BIM (Building Information Modeling), engineers are able to store their work and findings in a system that saves and transfers files without any complications. Multiple engineers can locate this information and work on a project using the views, tools and access for the same project.