Computer-aided design (CAD) is a technical process by which an idea or invention is communicated and captured via computer software. Items all around you such as furniture, household appliances, your car, home, and even some jewellery, have all initially been laid out in CAD. These technical drawings, provide a visualisation of the concept, a so-called blueprint of the design.
But did you know that each part involves having its own drawing and therefore a complex product that contains numerous parts will therefore have roughly the same number of CAD drawings? All of which can be assembled, dissembled and modified, using CAD software. But that’s not all, the output drawing, for each part, also includes reference to materials, dimensions, tolerances and processes etc. Having gone to these lengths it is no surprise to learn, that in order to protect an idea, CAD drawings are an important part of the patent application.
Design engineers are usually approached to create a new drawing as part of the manufacturing process, or modify something that has already been produced and which does not effectively serve its purpose for which it was designed. But sometimes we are asked by our clients to help reverse engineer a part or transfer CAD drawings from one piece of software to another. This sounds straightforward I know, but the process although certainly doable, can be a bit tricky.
There are a number of CAD packages available on the market and I’m definitely not getting into a conversation about which one is best in this blog. Engineers and certain industry sectors have their own preferences. To best serve the needs of our clients, we have found that maintaining licences for PTC’s Creo, Dassault Systèmes Solidworks and Autodesk’s Inventor is the way to go. As well as keeping the latest version of each application, we also ensure we can access a number of older versions of each one. This process has indeed suited many of our clients over the past twenty years or so that Sanstec Design has been operating.
CAD drawings are like blueprints, a plan for how something needs to be designed. But plans can be altered or cancelled! New designs may need to be produced and reproduced. Robert Burns once wrote about “best-laid plans”, for the most part our mechanical engineering CAD plans work, if not a design engineer will certainly be asked to find a solution to the problem.
