Re: 3D CAD Piping Software

• Original Message ----- From: "Hawco, Paul R." <PHawco@NGNS.com>

> As for hand drawn - depends on the situation - I see nothing wrong
with
> it - I had to do on a big construction job because of time
constraints -
> long story.

The problem with "electronic drafting" as compared to manual drawing has always been that it is tedious and much more time-consuming if a designer does it. You really need a piping-experienced CAD guy to transform design sketches if the designer is not actually working in 3D.

Designing in 2D with CAD requires the designer to waste lots of time trimming elements/symbols so that the "drawing" is easily understood at the later stages whether by the original designer or by others. Too much fussing with the machine (don't get me wrong - CAD is great, it just forces the designer to be more precise than is needed at early stages) slows down the creative process.

CAD drawings convey an aura of authority. Everything looks perfect; no scribbling in the sidelines, no NTS dimensions, etc..

A spur of the moment idea usually results in something like:

• OK, I think I have a great solution
• Wait, what layer am I on? OK, got it
• Oh, crap, if I draw that up here, it'll appear to be part of the real drawing, so I'll have to trim those existing bits (trim, zoom out, undo, compare)
• Change layer, colour, and (aw, shit, that was a block)
• Wait, what was I thinking about again?

Zooming is probably the biggest evil "feature" that CAD forced on us. Zooming to different places within a document causes a loss of perspective. Maybe with affordable 24"x36" LCD-based drafting tables with tablet/pen ability all us old fart drafters will make a comeback. By then we'll all be already dead though.

Paul Received on Fri Feb 27 20:12:00 2004