I spent the first five years of my career on a drafting table. You remember what they are? Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch was an Architect and he had one. I would take large sheets of paper (vellum) and tape it to the drafting board. Then I would sharpen up my #6 pencil and start laying out my drawing. Lines so thin that they wouldn’t show up on any blueprint. After spending many an hour laying out my drawing, the F pencil would be next. Drawing beautiful subject lines that represented the object(s) that I needed to have constructed. Add in a little 2H graphite for some hidden lines to make sure things were graphically clear and the drawing would be complete. More hours meticulously dimensioning the object so the people who would be reading the blueprint would have enough information to bring my creation into being. Measuring using a scale and not accepting anything but a ±1/64” tolerance. As time went on and my skill increased, I might even take the time to create a 3 point perspective drawing. It was an art form.
At the beginning of the next 30 years of my career, my drafting table was taken away and I was told that, from now on, I would be using a computer and AutoCAD™ v1.14 to create drawings. Having never even seen a real computer before in my life, I was, to say the least, a little apprehensive. I quickly found out that drawings were easier to create using this futuristic machine. Objects were created actual size. No need for that old scale any more. Things could be moved around the screen again and again to layout drawings better. No more electric eraser burning holes through the paper. One click and the object was gone. No more worrying about which pencil to use. Objects that were red printed out thin and objects that were blue printed out thick. I could even create drawings that printed out in color! Complex drawing entities could be copied with a couple of mouse clicks. The time savings would be significant. What a breakthrough! I remember senior management coming in to my office to watch me put the Calcomp 1043GT plotter through its paces. Everyone was amazed at how that machine took the drawing that was on my monitor and created a hard copy drawing in only minutes.
As software and hardware improved, things like color monitors came on the scene, more powerful hardware was developed and CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) took off. It seemed that the sky was the limit. I started modeling objects in 3 dimensions. Drawings were actually created from the 3D model. We would create “hidden line” versions of the model that would be placed on a virtual drawing sheet and then dimensions added after the fact. I can remember taking complex models and setting them up to render a hidden line drawing that would be processed by the time I came in to work the next day. God help me if something went wrong while I was at home sleeping and the process had to be repeated!
For the last 15 years of my career, I have been involved with some of the most complex 3D modelling software available. Companies like Autodesk™, Bentley Systems™ and Intergraph™ now have fully intelligent, integrated suites of software that enable the building of virtual plants in the computer environment. This software is connected to databases that hold the data on every object in the model. This data can then be used down the line from the design process in procurement and construction management. This development has spawned, over the years, a whole new group of “experts” in the field. To be a “CAD Administrator now almost requires a university degree in computer science. Most of the software now have built in capability for programming in Visual Basic™. Most have some sort of database back end that needs to be configured properly to work, not only with the CAD software but, enable the gathering and transfer of that data to numerous other systems. As the complexity of the systems has increased, so has the need for proper training of the end users. No longer are designers working on their designs by themselves on a single computer. Now different facets of the design are viewed in real time by other disciplines as well as other non-engineering groups. Data that is originally entered by the design team flows though the design cycle from conception to construction.
So, with all this said, I ask “Are we any further ahead with all this computing power and advanced software than we were back in the 70’s when we created drawings on the drafting table?” I ask this question because, in my experience, many companies are still using the software the same way I was in the mid 80’s. As an electronic drafting table. There are few companies, with the exception of the large, multi-national engineering firms, that are utilizing the software they own, let alone what’s available, to its fullest capability. Of course, there is also the added expense of having someone with the knowledge to configure, customize, deploy and maintain the software. Investing this kind of money on advanced computer power, highly advanced computer design software and the people to manage it, should be producing a greater return on investment.
So, we spend all this cash on technology and then use it as an electronic drafting table. Are we getting our money’s worth? Are we just lemmings following the crowd to the get the “next big thing”? There are days that I think that we would be better off with a drafting table. Do we need to go back to that day in the mid 80’s and reverse the events that led to my drafting table being taken away and replaced with a computer? Should we be saying, “Come, take away these confounded boxes and give me my drafting table back.” Or, should we be looking at how we’re currently using the software we have and seeing if there aren’t ways we can fully utilize the capabilities they have?
They say you can’t go back. Should we even consider it?