CAD assignment 1

Using traditional methods of drawing (pencil on paper) for design:

The advantages are mainly the low upfront cost and lack of maintenance costs after purchasing all the
equipment for drawing. Additionally, there is no subscription cost as well, most CAD software like
Solidworks requires a yearly subscription to a company or you, and individuals must pay.

Another advantage to traditional is also the ability to draw in rough environments given the worker is
given a flat surface and the minium drawing equipment (a pencil and paper). Meanwhile to draw in the
same environment with CAD requires a fragile and expensive laptop costing around £300, a rugged
design adding to the cost.

CAD software often takes months of training and learning to become proficient and able to draw most
products in the market. This is taken up by the number of advanced tools an individual must learn in
order to create a 3D drawing, an example is solidworks which contains (under each drop down) around
30 tools a designer can utilise into the drawing process.

What CAD offers that traditional cannot:

The whole advantage to using CAD is the ability of the personal computer to do maths more efficiently
and accurately than Human. The correct software and hardware coupled together has the computer
display work in a more interactive than traditional drawings, 2D physical drawing can’t be drawn in real
time to show different points of view that CAD can do.

The difficulty to draw some models traditionally plays a role

as detail and the skill of the worker involved hinders the
general accuracy of that drawing, meanwhile CAD uses
math to display the drawing in real time as long as the
hardware and software can work together. An example of a
drawing that will be difficult to draw traditionally is done in
the fraction of the time (the drawing consists of the cross
section of a fresnel lense).

CAD, especially Solidworks has rendering to depict the outlines of the model, the material and its effect
on light in real time (though limited due to optimization reasons). The ability to zoom into a 3D model to
see small details in the model that traditional drawing would require identical, upscaled version which
costs additional time and several management costs.

Animation/ live playback of the model in simulated use to

predict how well a product will do, especially when the
product itself has hundreds of moving parts. The computer
can hold many simulated physical constraints like turning,
collisions, environmental forces, etc, while of course
traditional drawing cannot simulate or otherwise the use of
expensive and bulky equipment to simulate different
environments such as wind tunnels utilised in aerospace
workshops.
Internal software and hardware requirements (Personal Computer/ laptop) for CAD:

A general requirement for all software is Windows 10 as the operating system.

Blender 2.8x (recommended) system and equipment requirements:

​ 4-bit quad core Central Processing Unit​ (CPU) - Used to process the calculations dealing with
6
shape, modifiers, and overall gives the ability to change the model itself.
16 GB Random Access Memory​ (RAM) - Short term memory for the locations of each point /
dimension of a given object.
1080p High Definition display (​HDD) - Important for the user and modeller to be able to see the model
itself in real time, especially for modifying the model and generating simulations.
Three button mouse or pen+tablet - General equipment to use the software effectively.
Graphics card with 4GB of RAM​ - Draws and helps display the drawing and takes the weight of
drawing ever complex models off from the CPU.

Autocad (2020) system requirements:

Microsoft Windows​ 10, 8.1 and 7 SP1 (64-bit only for all).
Processor/ CPU​ - 2.5 GHz (GHz+ recommended).
Memory (RAM)​ 8GB minimum and 16GB recommended.
Disk space​ (for software + your work) - 6GB.
Display​ - 1920 x 1080 resolution with “True Colour”.

Solidworks (2020-2021) system requirements:

Operating system​:Windows 10 or 7 (both 64-bit)

Supports virtual environments/ reality
Processor​: 3.3 GHz or higher
Memory​: 16Gb or more
Graphics card​: all quadros and radeon pro’s or anything higher.
Storage​: Solid State Drive (at least 30GB space free)
Microsoft Excel and Word ​(2013, 2016, 2019
Antivirus

External equipment coupled along with the PC:

Sites used:
https://www.urcadservices.com/post/2018/01/04/five-advantages-of-manual-drafting-and-cad-drafting
https://www.javelin-tech.com/blog/2019/10/solidworks-2020-hardware-recommendations/
https://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/SystemRequirements.html
http://www.designmaster.biz/support/autocad-system-requiremen.html
https://www.solidworks.com/support/hardware-certification