RE: Double-Dimensioning

From: <Christopher>
Date: Mon Jul 24 2000 - 13:40:00 EDT

>Although I'm getting more and more engineers
>demanding double dimensioning and also repeating information
The refuge of lazy boneheads who won't read and remember technical references. And doubtless the excuse is that it's so easy to be redundant with CAD. Double dimensioning is like two pressure gauges on one tank. With one gauge, you always know the pressure--with two gauges you're never quite sure.

>The danger is people are getting so wrapped up in CAD technology that their
>forgetting basic draughting principles. These principles have evolved over
>time and some are just as applicable to CAD as they are to manual
>draughting.

Too true. I see it in the FEA end of the biz--doing what seems cool rather than what needs doing. A lot of people imagine that running CAD software (or FEA for that matter) _is_ engineering has transformed the engineering process. Not true--the engineering process is exactly what it's always been--organizing and communicating instructions, based on physical and mathematical principles, so artisans may take materials found in nature and give them a specific usefulness. CAD or FEA is only a tool which at best enhances the product (in this case the graphics). At worst CAD simply tarts up schlock so as to provide the illusion of competence. For better or worse--the underlying process and principles of design don't change.

Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant from <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=TMz-JEZKN14D_cAnzliy-k9cddGcjvJk6hrF57tfHxKLk2TrQjAK2Q0ifF9s293L3_LoXcLljtkscPhy">chrisw@skypoint.com</a> | this distance" (last words of Gen.

___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)

<a href="http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw">http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw</a> Received on Mon Jul 24 13:40:00 2000