CAD makes me feel dumb
I've been in the CAD business for about 25 years now. Most people who know me think I'm pretty smart. I have a confession to make: CAD makes me feel dumb.
My feelings of inadequacy started a very long time ago. AutoCAD version 1.4 was the last CAD program I can honestly say that I mastered completely – and only because the program did so little to start with. Over time, I've worked on a whole lot of CAD programs. I'm guessing maybe 50 or so. Though I've been able to use many of them sufficiently for my purposes, I've never really mastered any of them.
I remember in the late '80s, watching a customer of mine, Brett Graffin, moving so quickly with AutoCAD that I couldn't even follow the commands he was using. (To be fair, Brett was a two time national champion in the VICA drafting competition.) In '96, I remember Rick Chin doing the same thing with SolidWorks. In both cases, I felt like a beginning guitarist going to see Jimi Hendrix play for the first time. For a few moments, I felt like I ought to give up, and walk away. (For what it's worth, I've heard stories to the effect that guitarists such as Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton felt the same way when they first saw Hendrix play.)
Ultimately, I recognise that I'm not all that dumb. There are other people who are in the same situation that I am. One in particular comes to mind: A mentor of mine named Bob Attarian.
Bob is an engineer's engineer. He's had quite a career, ranging from working on the SR-71 Blackbird, to the Corona spy satellites. He even studies theoretical physics in his spare time (though he has yet to solve the grand unification problem.) Yet, when he uses CAD software, he finds himself more frustrated than satisfied.
The closest thing I've heard to an explanation of the problem with CAD was something Bob said to me at least 10 years ago: "you've gotta be too smart to use this stuff."
So, what do you think?
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Evan Yares
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
CAD doesn't make me feel dumb. It makes me feel angry. It makes me feel angry because I know the tools are inadequate. This is most prevalent when I'm working with imported data or with someone else's design and need to modify it.
Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology is the first tool I have seen that has an approach to CAD that makes sense to me.
Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA
I don’t get angry with CAD tho’ its a tool and the way to avoid its pitfalls is to design and draught in a medium that does not impede progress; lot to say here but that is a key reason 3D struggles (in peoples minds) and why 2D is so important – why is this so hard to see?
Don’t get angry with CAD, get angry with CAD vendors management; ‘fasionistors’ they are, followers of trends and too many users are too willing to be led by the nose by those who don’t design and draught but who desperately want to control their customer($) in preference to working with them and;
too many who design and draught complain about functionality but rarely consider the whole picture and don’t complain directly to CEO’s.
I have been roundly criticized for promoting flexibility over automation (complexity over simplicity) and for using a piece of CAD software (MDT) that can be used in many ways simultaneously;
Synchronous Technology looks great because it provides a missing level of flexibility, but the products that will use it are short in some very important flexibility. Look at AutoCAD/MDT, push and pull a model, solids and surfaces that ‘work’ together, sectioning, 2d&3D side by side and at the same time and parametric tools that can be used in 2D & 3D…etc, etc – missing is that these don’t all work together as they should, (synchronously). What we all should be angry about is that all too few users are willing to look outside their own application of CAD and consider the process of design and draughting as a whole, from cradle to grave, and the vendors oblige because users’ selfishness fuels change vendors can take advantage of, $s.
Nothing wrong with specialized tools but there is a lot wrong with an industry that has been allowed, by its customers, to fragment the skillful tasks of design and draughting into a costly nightmare for many companies and individuals.
Tackling ‘cradle to grave’ Evan with a set of tools that represent the tasks of 2D and 3D design and draughting, non industry specific tools, not necessarily ‘automatic’ tools, but tools that work synchronously and flexibly in 2D and 3D is the long term way forward.
Alternatively, having to learn microstation for me was like trying to learn Italian cos it's supposed to be more romantic. By the time I'm fluent enough to actually sound more sophisticated than I would have done in English the objects of my affection have all left the building!
Having said that I feel like a more well rounded draughtsman for being able to use microstation. But if there's some complicated geometry I will do it faster & be more confident of the results in AutoCAD.