Start here: what mechanical CAD is, how it differs from other CAD, core concepts, terminology, workflow and how to build a career in mechanical design.
Early in my career as a CAD manager, a project engineer asked me to explain, in one sentence, what my department did for the company. I said: “We turn decisions into information that a factory can act on.” He frowned,…
Every few years, the CAD world rediscovers an old argument and treats it as news. Right now the argument is parametric versus direct modeling. I have watched it play out in vendor presentations, in user forums and, most memorably, in…
Some years ago a colleague sent me a model and a polite request: “Could you just change the plate thickness from 10 to 12 mm?” The part was a simple mounting plate with a pattern of holes, two slots and…
My first job in this profession started at a drafting board. I had a parallel rule, a set of technical pens, a bottle of erasing fluid and a supervisor who could spot a line that was 0.3 mm too thick…
A few years ago I was called in by a small manufacturer that was struggling. They built custom conveyor equipment, they had four talented people in the design office, and every one of those people was working overtime. When I…
In the early 1990s, I was standing in front of a room of experienced drafters, each with fifteen or twenty years of experience, to introduce our first 3D solid modeling system. I will never forget the look on one man’s…
