3D CAD!

I get criticized for making the distinction between the drawing and the AID. But you just do not create a drawing when you design in 3D. I created manual drawings for years, and the AID is something very different and much, much easier.

On a drawing you design by "drawing" separate orthographic project views on a 2D plane. I even hate to use the 2D reference, since it is so obviously redundant. We did the manual drawings on a drafting board, calling it a 2D drafting board would be just silly. If you could read a drawing you could see the real world 3D part. Today, I have been told of young engineers that need an Isometric view just to understand the part.

For years 3D CAD was in the realm of the draftsman. I would like to say that when Pro/engineer showed up in 1988, that was the time the engineers started using 3D CAD. But it wasn’t so. While on contract at Solar Turbines in 1985 they let all of the 3D CAD draftsman go. They told the engineers that they had to get trained on Computervision CADDS 4X. They balked but Solar management said “Get on the CAD system or you are fired”. I was the last of the contractors left and trained the engineers. They became very good users when they finally put their minds to it.

I was introduced to PC based 3D CADKEY while on contract at Boeing 747 Flight Deck. I was told there was a PC based 3D CAD system on a couple of Compaq’s. It sparked my interest since I was working on the board. CADKEY was 3D wireframe and very similar to Computervison. I was up to speed in 2 weeks of lunch hours and convinced the supervisor to start a test project  We designed the first observer’s station, passing 3D wireframe graphics back and forth to Catia 3 using IGES. We would get the station loft lines from Catia to do our design. I was instrumental in introducing CADKEY into Boeing. They would have been miles ahead if they would have adopted CADKEY instead of Catia.

I saw the writing on the wall. Computervision cost $250,000 per seat with a minimum system consisting of 3 Seats. CADKEY with a PC, 19” Monitor was around $9000. The only difference between both Catia and Computervision and CADKEY was a bit of rudimentary surfacing. Which was soon included in CADKEY. I founded TECH-NET, quickly becoming a CADKEY VAR and proceeded to supply not only Boeing but all of their suppliers in the NW. I think because of Boeing the NW quickly adopted 3D CAD, mostly bypassing the Autocad electronic drawing horror show.