CAD (Computer-Aided Design) is a category of software program used by engineers and designers to create virtual models or drawings on-screen to communicate their ideas, often, used with construction software .
This type of software is used many professional disciplines today, including mechanical design, architecture, structural and civil engineering, electrical design, and many others. A mechanical engineer will create “solid models” of a suspension component or a piston inside an engine. An electrical engineer might use CAD to sketch out a circuit diagram, and a circuit board designer would use CAD to organize the layers of “traces” or lines that carry the signals in the circuit design. Even information technology professionals use CAD to “layout” all of the wiring and cable routing needed to connect all of the computers on a corporate network.
There are many advantages that CAD software has brought to the world of design and engineering, and the primary advantages are all based on faster flow of information and easier change in direction. Before CAD, an engineer would work with a drafter to draw, by hand, an idea on a two-dimensional piece of paper. The engineer and drafter would work back and forth until the “thing” documented in the drawing matched the mental imagery in the engineer’s imagination. Then this original hard-copy drawing would be duplicated and sent to someone who built or fabricated what was represented. The engineer would review the results, and then work with a drafter again change the drawing as necessary, if the physical result didn’t match the original concept or idea.
Now, a designer or engineer can use two-dimensional (lines) or three-dimensional (shapes) modeling software to “sketch” his or her own ideas on a computer screen, in a matter of minutes. In the example of a mechanical designer or engineer using the tool, a virtual object can be spun around to view it from many angles, and it can be assembled to other virtual objects, or analyzed for strength or weight, checked for fit and interferences. The idea can be presented to peers, supervisors, metal fabricators, assembly technicians, and even customers, to get feedback long before time and money are invested in formal documentation, prototyping or manufacturing, and so on. In this way, CAD software provides any number of opportunities for making a design development project significantly more efficient.
