engineers: autocad?

In my experience, PRO/Engineer is more common. I think autocad is used commonly for civil engineering and related stuff where SolidWorks or SolidEdge and Pro/Engineer or used more for mechanical engineering stuff. I think they all have student versions available, but you probably have to get them through a university or something.

AutoCAD is an engineering software package which allows the user to create 2-dimensional drawings. I used autocad in high school about 5-6 years ago, and upon asking about its present day use at my new job, I was laughed at. Only 3-D design packages are actually used by any legitimate engineering firm.

but this is just my experience.

autocad is slowly becoming outdated for more 3D engineering software. the same company (autodesk) makes a software called Inventor which works in that area. My experience in the engineering field, is its a good idea to have relative competency with the programs to understand their capabilities, but actually sitting on a pc working with the program day in and out is a lower level job. Hence understanding what the people under you in the ranks are working with is beneficial. But with a degree win physics designing shit might be your deal and I'm sure it can be a big deal.

AutoCAD is still the industry standard for civil engineering. Autodesk Land Developement Desktop and Civil3D are used by most civil engineering forms. ProEngineer, Solidworks, and Inventor are the industry standards for mechanical / 3D modeling.

Having any type of CAD knowledge is helpful as an engineer.

As the others mentioned, you are more valuable having background with 3d modelling (Inventor, ProE, etc).

That said,...you don't necessarily have to take a class to learn the programs. They are just fancy software programs that someone who has good spatial and computer skills can pick up on their own. It's not really any different than knowing how to use Word or Excel.

I'm sure you could get free access to any of these software programs through your school.

kltilton wrote:

AutoCAD is still the industry standard for civil engineering. Autodesk Land Developement Desktop and Civil3D are used by most civil engineering forms. ProEngineer, Solidworks, and Inventor are the industry standards for mechanical / 3D modeling.

Having any type of CAD knowledge is helpful as an engineer.

My experiences agree with kltilton. I have yet to work in industry (currently getting M.S. in electrical engineering, but had most of a B.S. in mechanical done before I switched to E.E.), but when I've been looking at job postings, I generally see interest in AutoCAD in the civil engineering world, and interest in one of the 3D programs in the mechanical world.

My personal impressions are that SolidWorks is requested more often that Pro/E, and Inventor less than both. In undergrad we used Pro/E and learning to use it was slightly less fun than running a marathon while being kicked in the nuts at every mile marker. Friends of mine who later entered industry told me that SolidWorks was much easier to learn.

If you really want to learn, I would recommend seeing if you can find an intro-level engineering class that uses one of these products. I don't think I would have ever figured out Pro/E on my own, but once I understood the basics I managed to learn more advanced stuff on my own.

I've made a very good living doing mechanical & manufacturing type shop drawings for the past 15 years. To the point that as a draftsperson I make easily the equivalent of middle of the road engineers(I have an engineering degree also). 3D is becoming more prevelent for conceptual illustration but for manufacturing purposes there is still a large demand for 2D AutoCad.

You can download some good stuff from

http://students6.autodesk.com/?lbon=1

- Just register on the website using a school email.

AutoCad jock wrote:

I've made a very good living doing mechanical & manufacturing type shop drawings for the past 15 years. To the point that as a draftsperson I make easily the equivalent of middle of the road engineers(I have an engineering degree also). 3D is becoming more prevelent for conceptual illustration but for manufacturing purposes there is still a large demand for 2D AutoCad.

I trained a mech eng then as a industrial designer, starting off on drafting boards, then AutoCAD 12-14, moving on to proper solid modellers 8-9 years ago.

The majority of the work I do now, and as an instrumentation designer back in the day, starts off as a sketch or 2d layout, moves to a 3D model and then, if the geometry is halfway regular or easy to describe, ends up on a piece of paper for manufacturing.

Learn 3D - for anything beyond slightly complex it is massively timesaving.

Also learn how to do 2D (if not from 1st principles at least get into the habit of producing a beautifully laid out, sufficiently detailed and easy to understand set of views /projections from a 3D model) I'm not entirely sure about the last poster's comment about 3D for conceptualisation (you couldn't sensibly detail /document half the stuff I work on without it, and I bet those in the auto & aero industries aren't using sheets of vellum or much 2D AutoCAD) but he/she is spot on about it being utterly vital for manufacturing.

3D manufaturing documentation is on the way but it'll be slow, and the amount of time that it will take to get through to the typical rats-nest engineering shop doesn't bear thinking about (sheet metal vendors, anyone?)

Or, if you have a little money to burn, go to journeyed (www.journeyed.com) and have a look at the mechanical design software.

There's a good textbook & Pro/E bundle available (that's how I started on that particular exercise in pain after years of SolidWorks) and ultimately got me a job running Inventor (don't ask)

Cheapy SolidWorks licenses are available (including fully tooled upo CosmosWorks analysis bundles)

You can also download Alibre Xpress and CoCreate OnespacePLE freebies as a taster. Alibre behaves in a similar manner to SolidWorks, Inventor and Pro. CoCreate is a bit different in how models are assembled, possibly slightly harder to learn, but a lot more powerful than Alibre.

Along with Microstation, Autocad is the standard for buildings type of engineering (architectural) work, as well. 3D is included in the current versions, with the exception of their "lite" package.

It's kind of pricy, but I'm sure there are student versions. I don't know how their products compare with software for machine design or other applications, but they do have a variety of software packages.

If you become familiar with one vendor's software, you can easily make the transition to another.

agree with kltilton:

depending on the state either AutoCad or Microstation is still the standard in civil engineering design - MA uses Autodesk LDD, but is moving toward 2008 Autodesk Civil 3D

I am your evil twin...not an engineer but an architect

I use AutoCAD every f#ck'n day...but am told that both engineering and architecture are both leaning towards programs like Revit.

"a picture is worth a thousand words but a model is worth a thousand pictures..." Werner Seligman.

While on the subject of CAD software, how widely used is CATIA in industry?

AutoCad jock wrote:

I've made a very good living doing mechanical & manufacturing type shop drawings for the past 15 years. To the point that as a draftsperson I make easily the equivalent of middle of the road engineers(I have an engineering degree also). 3D is becoming more prevelent for conceptual illustration but for manufacturing purposes there is still a large demand for 2D AutoCad.

Amen. It makes you wonder how many "engineers" who've posted here actually have jobs? Without 2D Autocad working shop drawings, NOTHING is manufactured and NOTHING is fabricated. If nothing gets built then nothing gets billed. If nothing gets billed then the only engineers left will be kids in college playing with their software.

I majored in physics and engineering in college and am currently a structural engineer. We use autocad at work. Most things are modeled in 3D, but as was said above everything gets turned into 2D when it goes on paper so that it can be built. If you are going to work as an engineer you don't need to be that good at autocad or any other drafting software, but you should have a basic idea of how to use it and what its capability is. I draw most of the drawings I need by hand and then one of our CAD guys will do the drafting. Its much more efficient that way. If you stick with physics I can't see any reason why you would need to learn autocad. I would imagine that any college engineering program would offer an introductory level CAD class.

If it was me I'd go theoretical... I hate engineering.

I got out of highschool with good marks all around, figured engineering would be a good idea. I loved the physics classes... in first year when they were more theory. As the learning became more applied and less theoretical, less pure, I became less and less interested. Three years in, in the midst of frustration and depression, I said f*** this and dove straight into a mathematics major... never looked back. Ahh... pure science is beautiful. Applied science is it's ugly cousin.

But if you like engineering go for it. Just be sure. I wasn't sure, and it ended up cisting me time. So whatever you do, make sure it's what you actually love.

^costing me time

¬

Been there done that wrote:

Amen. It makes you wonder how many "engineers" who've posted here actually have jobs? Without 2D Autocad working shop drawings, NOTHING is manufactured and NOTHING is fabricated. If nothing gets built then nothing gets billed. If nothing gets billed then the only engineers left will be kids in college playing with their software.

Really?

Last 2 sets of mouldings (that's the UK spelling, take note) I sent out to China were 3d models accompanied by Adobe PDFs containing annotated 3D views. No 2D 'AutoCAD' prints (admittedly the tool shop did churn out some beautiful assembly drawings, but given the insanely short time it took them to get to first sample moulds, I don't think they did much in the way of detailed part drawing)

Having slagged off sheet-metal shops earlier, the last run of a chassis prototype (domestic machinery) was also made direct from SolidWorks, with no 2D prints at all.

The CNC bits for the same rig were machined from IGES files dumped into MasterCAM. Yes, I did a few prints, but only where I had to make sure that the fab wouldn't miss some threads.

The casework (swoopy moulding) prototype parts were printed in an SLA machine and then painted.

Quite a lot can be built without 2D...