Poll about CAD knowledge
Poll about CAD knowledge
(OP)
How many people here work at a firm in which they need to know how to use CAD themselves. I have know idea how to draw a straight line in CAD, but many engineering companies say you must be proficient in CAD in part of their job descriptions.






RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
At other firms I've done all my own drafting and had to be as proficient as necessary to draw my own stuff.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
Right now most Civil engineers work on cadd since all the alignment and profile functions lent themselves well to CAD work. I see the day coming when engineers will also do the same for structural details.
Regards,
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RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
Engineers here typically do not have licensed copy of AutoCAD. Usually they have AutoCAD file viewers with mark-up capability. It doesn't make business sense to buy the AutoCAD that will be used by engineers only 5% of the time.
If you have zero CAD knowledge, it will be good for your career to learn the basics. You will not be as fast or as good as the guys who are trained to do CAD work. In the days before CAD, drafters did the drafting and engineers did engineering. From time to time, engineers drew details by themselves to sticky-back them on the tracings. It will be good to have at least that ability today with CAD.
Personally, I also have zero CAD knowledge though I made attempts to learn 15 years ago. At this stage in my career, I don't need CAD knowledge to survive.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
Eric McDonald, PE
McDonald Structural Engineering, PLLC
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
A lot of the junior college regular drafting classes are also teaching what a blueprint is, what it means, and then teaching different industries: Construction, electronics, etc. If you're in engineering already, you should know what the drawings mean and what they look like, and don't need to know the out-of-industry stuff.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
But it's not CAD, it's CAE...
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
I do all of my own IN PENCIL on engineering pads... way back when, the university classes were EDG (engineering design graphics) and we used a drafting machine.
I do know CAD, but not AutoCAD (Vectorworks is my favorite, but whatever floats your boat.) The first version fo AtuoCAD I used was about V0.93 which was eventually updated to V1.06a or some such.
An engineer's time should typically be more expensive than that of a draftsperson. (Although a good draftsman should be properly paid, since they make you look good.)
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
I've done my own cad work - I've taken the basic, intermediate, and advanced classes at the local CC. Nice classes, 2 nights a week for 10 or 12 weeks, etc. Also took Pro-E just to learn what it does. I think that has been very helpful throughout my career.
I also had 4 years of hand drafting in high school, before CAD. I think learning those basics - what an isometric view is, how to project lines, how dimensions should be called out, etc. - should be mandatory for certain disciplines, especially structural engineering.
I've worked in estimating and I've worked with installers and I've seen bad drawings. The more you know about how things fit together (or don't...) and how to convey that on paper to another human, the better you become as an engineer.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
In the past when I was checking projects through hand calculations and did not agree with the cad tech, often there was not a way to resolve the problem. The tech would insist that the drawing was correct. So I would go recheck my work. Often I was forced to have the cad tech overide dimensions to correct the drawing.
Now that I know a little cad, if I don't agree with the tech I will pull the drawing up to resolve the issue. If I find a mistake I give it back to the tech and instruct the tech to redraw it.
Another advantage of knowing a little cad is that you can't be held hostage by the cad techs. At a large company this is not problem generally because of the size of their cad staff. If the company has only one cad tech and that tech is gone often times the project has to sit until the tech is back in the office. It is hard to explain to a client that he or she will not get his or her drawings until the tech gets back from France next week.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
I have drafted ink on linen. I have over 28 years experience in structural engineering. And I do CAD (or as DaveVikingPE says - CAE).
But I don't do it all the time.
Here's some observations:
1. A good engineer can learn cadd and do it well enough without techs and still continue to be a great engineer.
2. However, techs are good to have around to assist and create drawings rapidly.
3. A good tech is one who understands the basics of engineering and knows what the heck they are drawing (real objects and not just a bunch of lines).
4. A good tech strives to learn from the experienced engineers and is not threatened by the young ones and even tries to help them learn without feeling threatened.
5. A bad tech gets enamoured with the software and becomes an "expert" in CADD - thereby becoming a worthless engineering tech.
6. The great mystery in life: can an engineer whip out a CADD detail, completely noted and finished, faster and cheaper than he can sketch it out and have the tech put it into CADD?
(sorry - I'm in a colorful mood)
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
I have worked for some large consultancies however where you do no drafting, which is carried out by exclusively by Technicians. These guys typically find out what you are good at, and make you do the same task repetitiously.
I dont think this is a good approach, as the knowlege of some of the graduates I worked with suffered bacuase thay did'nt have a very good appreciation of 'buildability' which is developed by drafting work.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
Do you have to do the drafting to understand buildability? I mean you are still reviewing the details to make sure they make sense, right? How does drawing it in CAD, help you understand the constructability? I sketch it by hand and hand it off to CAD, then check it after they draw it.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
I am not talking about not knowing how to draw a detail. I draw details all the time, but I hand them off to CAD after I draw them by hand. I certainly know how to communicate what I want, but I don't see how that relates to actually USING CAD.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
I agree with the comment made by michfan that learning drafting by hand teaches a better understanding of the basics.
Regards,
-Mike
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
My point was that young engineers nowadays usually have some CAD experience because hand drafting isn't widely used any longer. How much that experience helps them in their day-to-day engineering work would depend on how well they learned and understand the process of DESIGN, not just drawing. Simply knowing how to draw lines in CAD won't necessarily give you the experience you need in learning how to design correctly. You can be an expert at CAD and know all the shortcuts and be lightning-fast, but if you don't understand the basics of a good design, just knowing how to draw in CAD won't make you a good designer.
But I think the reason a lot of companies want you proficient in CAD is two-fold: (1) you have the technical ability to understand a cad drawing when it is sent to you; how to open it, manipulate it, turn layers on and off, incorporate it into your work, plot it, etc. -- especially in smaller companies without a dedicated CAD staff, and (2) it shows you PROBABLY have some DESIGN experience. If you took classes to learn AutoCAD or another program, you likely have some design sense, or are on your way to acquiring it, and hopefully it's good sense and not non-sense. You may not actually even use AutoCAD in the position you are applying for, but if you have the ability to use it, it adds to your overall "value" to the company. (And they can always make you a CAD monkey if things get slow...)
I'm at an age where I learned on a drafting board through middle and high school, and CAD was just starting when I hit my college years. I used a drafting board all through my classes for my architecture degree, but used more CAD by the time I went for my CE degree. I really value the hand-drafting experience, as much as I value knowing AutoCAD, and I'm fairly proficient at both. Just being able to draw something in CAD doesn't mean it will work in the real world.
I get plans across my desk nearly every day that aren't worth the paper they are printed on. HVAC running OUTSIDE the roof structure, incorrect details referencing other incorrect or even missing details, etc. Dimensions that don't actually go to anything, that's always nice. Whether these were drawn by an engineer with poor CAD skills, or a CAD tech with poor engineering skills, I'll never know - but either way, it reflects poorly on that company, and no owner or manager wants people to think their company isn't the best.
Personally, I wouldn't care whether you are proficient in CAD and can do your own sketches, or if you hand sketch and give it to a CAD tech, as long as your design really WORKS in the real world. But, if I were a boss looking to hire, and I had the choice between someone who was proficient in CAD or someone who had no experience with it, all other factors equal, I'd go with the CAD experience.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
This is your quote.
"How much that experience helps them in their day-to-day engineering work would depend on how well they learned and understand the process of DESIGN, not just drawing. Simply knowing how to draw lines in CAD won't necessarily give you the experience you need in learning how to design correctly. You can be an expert at CAD and know all the shortcuts and be lightning-fast, but if you don't understand the basics of a good design, just knowing how to draw in CAD won't make you a good designer."
Are you saying that designing and drawing are virtually one in the same? In my experience, designing is sizing the members, welds, etc... as well as making sure the detail will perform as desired (e.g. that a "pin" connection will allow sufficient rotation to make this assumption). None of this designing (by my definition), requires any CAD knowledge at all.
I am not disputing your assertion that CAD knowledge is good, that is the whole reason I started this thread - to get everyone's opinion on the matter. What I am questioning is the idea of knowing CAD making you a better engineer or how drawing a detail that an engineer (possibly yourself) came up with means that you are a designer. I'm just not following the logic.
This is your other quote
"But I think the reason a lot of companies want you proficient in CAD is two-fold: (1) you have the technical ability to understand a cad drawing when it is sent to you; how to open it, manipulate it, turn layers on and off, incorporate it into your work, plot it, etc. -- especially in smaller companies without a dedicated CAD staff, and (2) it shows you PROBABLY have some DESIGN experience. If you took classes to learn AutoCAD or another program, you likely have some design sense, or are on your way to acquiring it, and hopefully it's good sense and not non-sense."
Again, what does being proficient in CAD have to do with design experience? The CAD guys draw EXACTLY what you give them. They are not designing connections. You don't give them a beam and say, "pinned-pinned" and let the CAD guy design the connection - You, as the engineer, design the connection. Again, I am not following the logic.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
There's something else important to remember and consider about drawings: Most of the time, your final product is a drawing. That's all anyone ever sees or cares about. Not only are the drawings important now for proper construction, but 2 years from now when the client looks back and maybe wants to rehire you, and 10 years from now when an owner needs to modify the structure you designed. Having as much knowledge as possible about what information the drawings contain, and how they were created will only make you a better engineer, later a better engineering manager, later a better engineering firm owner, etc.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
After 20+ years of drafting, originally with pencil on vellum, now using AutoCAD and MicroStation, it's my opinion that if you do your hand skecthes to scale and as quickly as you could learn to do them in CAD there would be no real gain in design engineering ability. The key is that in detailing complex structures, it becomes really helpful to get a sense of actual scale and proportion which is sometimes lost in a schematic sketch.
I've found that what works best for me is to do the main structure layout and details in CAD and then ship them to the drafter, with red-lined notes, to finish. The degree of detail that I'd have to provide on a hand sketch and time in explaination in order to get the same final results would take far too much time.
That's my 2-cents.
-Jack
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
Thought about this for a while and my answer is to some extent designing and drawing are one in the same. Drawings are the medium through we communicate our design. Before cad, plans were artfully drawn and were clear and consise. Now we have thick rolls of stanard details, modified to meet the site conditions. I find plans are getting less clear as more engineers allow drafters to do it all. Supose you were a brillent composer, who could create great symphonies of music, but did not know how to write them down. So every day you go to your music scribe and hum while he jots it down. He might capture the overall melody, but do you think he can completely capture the music in your mind? The same is true of drafting and designing. We need to be able to be able to draw well enough to capture the music, not just hum.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I started this thread as a simple poll to find out how many engineers do their own CAD work and it has somehow turned into a debate as to whether engineers should know how to do CAD work.
DRC1-
As ron9876 points out, "that is what red pencils are for". The drafter doesn't need to understand how the detail works, just draw it the way I show it - nothing more, nothing less. All this talk about being a composer is nonsense. As long as the detail is drawn (and subsequently built) the way I show it, it will behave the way it is intended to (regardless of the drafter's ability to understand it).
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
It must be nice to not make mistakes (or at least not have anyone point them out).
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
Now, I personally do not advocate engineers spending the majority of their time drafting, even though my current company tends to. However, I do believe that as EIT's, spending some time on the CAD and learning the basics of creating a drawing is beneficial. They are paid less, are more open to learning new technology, and are in the mindset of soaking up knowledge. Not only is CAD valuable for something as simple as calculating trib areas or grabbing dimensions, but a tremendous amount can be learned by drawings plans and details in true scale and organizing designs into a coordinated drawing set.
StructuralEIT, I think your simple question has been answered. In my opinion, you are limiting yourself. If you ever applied for a job at our firm, and didn't know any CAD, you wouldn't even get a first interview. We would use the back your resume to do some hand sketching though.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
I suppose that some limited time when you first start out of school may be good but would you substitute that training for starting the steep learning curve that transitions from school to the real world. I am also curious how much time a new grad would be willing to spend drawing instead of engineering. When I got out of school that would have been a big minus and I would be looking for a position that was looking for a full time engineer.
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
Let me assure you that yuo wouldn't have my resume on any desk in your company if I knew that you required your engineers to do drafting. It seems that virtually everyone has a differing opinion on this, and I prefer to spend my time engineering, not drafting. As ron9876 points out, there are many things that new grads must learn when coming out of school and spening that time drawing instead of picking up valuable engineering experience is a waste in my opinion.
I only have 10 months of full time engineering experience and while I feel like I have learned a ton, I know there is so much more that I need to learn. I take books and papers home to read on weekends to help understand any number of things better. If I were spending my time drafting I would be so much further down on that learning curve that ron9876 references that I probably would be looking for a new job that would allow me to do more engineering.
The best example I can think of is the new 13th edition steel manual. I learned ASD in school and we used ASD at my office until last week when we switched to LRFD using the new manual. This is a big transition and if my employer wanted me to be drafting instead of getting up to speed on the ins and outs of the new steel code, I would be wondering what is wrong with my boss!
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
1. Company/office policy on Engineers Drafting
2. Availability of drafters to meet deadlines
3. Competency of drafters for structural drafting
4. Complexity of design in correlation with #2 & #3
5. Cost-effectiveness of engineer drafting on specific projects
RE: Poll about CAD knowledge
We have one very talented designer that drafts and preps basic building layouts for the engineers as well. He also is in charge of double-checking constructability issues. He has a calibrated eyeball... and he hand drafted about half of the buildings we are renovating now.
We use college engineering interns for draftsmen when we can get them.