Rant: 3D drafting software is making us lazy drafters

I been at this for 20 years in a small shop in Dayton and I swear the young guys coming in now cant even read a set of plans without a computer doing half the work. Last week a kid tried to tell me the dimensions were wrong on a steel beam layout and it turned out his model had a snapped reference line. We used to catch that stuff by eyeballing it on paper. Anyone else feel like we rely too much on the software to think for us?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaret_taylor4222d ago

On a related note, the kid probably had his grid lines set to 'snap to nearest' instead of 'accurate' in the settings. That little toggle catches me out sometimes too. Your mileage may vary, but I've seen it cause a lot of confusion in models.

the_john22d ago

Read an article last month in some engineering newsletter about how new drafters are skipping the whole "check your work" step because the software makes things look perfect. They called it "overreliance on parametric modeling" and it stuck with me. These young guys trust the computer TOO MUCH and forget that garbage in means garbage out. Margaret makes a good point about snap settings, that little toggle has caused MORE problems in our shop than I can count. The problem is the software HIDES your mistakes until something crashes or someone gets hurt. Paper drawings forced you to think through every detail because there was no undo button.