COMPUTER AIDED DRADFTING/DESIGN Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages of CAD
a) Reduced storage space required. Previously, paper drawings would have required whole rooms to store the drawings for a building. Now this information can be stored on a single disk.

Advantages of CAD
b) Corrections can be made easily. Before, whole drawings may have had to be reproduced on paper if a mistake has been made.

Advantages of CAD
c) Repetitive parts of the drawing can be saved and imported as part of a drawing library. Paper drawings require objects to be redrawn each time manually which is time consuming. Being able to call the parts in from a library saves the user time.

Advantages of CAD
d) It takes less time to produce drawings using CAD systems than traditional manual drawing methods.

Advantages of CAD
e) Drawings offices often produce their drawings using a standard layout so that people can immediately identify the drawings as belonging to that particular company. Templates can be set up on a computer to make this easier.

Advantages of CAD
f) Drawings can be drawn at any sizes. Objects drawn can later be scaled (up or down) with ease, but w/o loss of accuracy.

Advantages of CAD
g) CAD systems can be linked with CAM machines to produce objects straight from the drawings.

Advantages of CAD
h) Because 3D CAD designs are so realistic and can be made to look like the actual material they will be made from, clients can see exactly what is being made so a physical model is not required, reducing costs and the time it takes to design a new product.

Advantages of CAD
i) Designers can use powerful CAD computer packages to make digital mockup. For example, virtual reality simulations of the layout of buildings. This means that the client can have a look around the building before it is built and changes can be made at this early stage.

Advantages of CAD
j) Provides means for collaborative design work, especially through the Internet to share plans and designs with anyone in the world that also has an Internet connection.

Disadvantages of CAD
a) Expensive start up costs (hardware, software, and training). b) Training is required to become proficient draftsmen. The learning curve may be steep for advanced level. c) Not very useful in the conceptual design stage.