Computer Aided Design

Articles on Computers | Topics: computers, computer

by Ida Vincent

When I was going to school, computer aided drafting and design was in its infancy. Back then, it was little more than a novelty. It would work on only the most expensive and fastest computers, and is only good for certain specialized applications. computer aided design, it seems, would never replace the slide rule.

Back then, architects, engineers, electronic engineers, and programmers did all of the work by hand. In some ways, it was satisfying work for them. I have a lot of friends in that field, and they enjoyed checking and rechecking their work, making sure that everything was perfect. Yet it was also frustrating. One tiny mistake could ruin everything. You could take hours upon hours to find the cause of the error, and if you did not find it before the project got out, that project would be defective.

Nowadays, computer aided design has come a long way from where it once was. It is used in everything. From drafting and architecture to animation, from electronic engineering to sound engineering, computer aided design is where it is at. There are dozens of different specialized programs, as no single one can handle all of the different things that have to be modeled.

Historical Quote

The archetype of all humans, their ideal image, is the computer, once it has liberated itself from its creator, man. The computer is the essence of the human being. In the computer, man reaches his completion.

—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)

My daughter is right now going to school to be a computer aided designer. I have to admit that I'm a little bit jealous. It wasn't a particular field that fascinated her, but the software itself. I used to tinker around with computer aided design programs. I had some free AutoCAD software that I had downloaded from a BBS in the 80s, and I used to let her play with it. She absolutely loved it. It was pretty primitive by today's standards, but she could use it to draw buildings, setup landscape designs, and layout basically anything of she wanted. It was basically like a sketch pad but better to her. It inspired a lifelong love of computing.

One of the big problems was that she couldn't decide what area to get into. Should she become a mechanical engineer, an electronic engineer, or an architect. Then she realized that her passion was for the computer aided design software itself. She loved what it could help people do. As such, she got a background in programming, mathematics, and the hard sciences. Now she is training in computer aided software design to be write the programs. I couldn't be more proud of her.

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