subject: Design And Creative Experimentation Fun With 3d Cad [print this page] 3D CAD is famous, applauded for its technical achievements and loved for its fabulous flexibility, but nobody seems to have mentioned it's also a lot of fun. This is an unparalleled design tool. There has never before been anything remotely like 3D drafting software. It's a combination of all previous design technology, and a lot more of its own creation.
3D CAD, fun in progress
Professional designers will tell you that ideas take a lot of growing to get to the production stage. Even the most basic design concept has to evolve through a series of developmental processes. Sketching, working with design elements, and exploring new ideas is a complex process. It's now a lot easier with 3D CAD, which can take an idea to an advanced level quickly and efficiently. This has allowed extraordinary innovation and experimentation.
A good example of 3D CAD as architectural drafting software is the extremely demanding construction design industry. The fact is that some of the great modern buildings simply could not have been built without 3D CAD design and experimentation on a large scale. These huge, complex buildings started out as great ideas, but like all great ideas, they had to be brought to life by design.
It's a testimony to the versatility of 3D CAD that the very large, very new, and in some cases unprecedented technical problems involved in creating these designs were completely solved in the design process. Building Information Modelling (BIM) systems, the basal information systems of modern CAD, were developed to handle the issues. This was the archetypal design challenge, the sort all designers love to beat- The idea created the issues, and design provided the solutions and the methods. For professional designers, that was real fun on the grand scale.
Experimenting with 3D CAD
Every part of construction design is subject to rigorous professional scrutiny, and if you're going to experiment, you need to cover all the angles. 3D CAD is unique in its ability to process construction data. It can identify issues at the first draft stage, which in terms of cost efficiency for designers is invaluable.
It's at the experimental stages that 3D CAD really proves itself. From basic design elements to detailing and welds, 3D CAD can provide a raft of information which will tell designers everything they need to know. The graphics are another priceless asset. The simple rendition of a design as a 3D view can be more expressive, and far easier to recognize.
The designer's best friend
One of the most glaringly obvious of 3D CAD's abilities is that 3D Modelling and viewer software complements the designer's thinking, and makes experimenting a lot more fluent and efficient. Designers tend to think in progressions of logic, (some might say digressions) and 3D CAD can keep up with the thinking, supporting it with images and data. This is the perfect design tool for the real lateral thinkers, too, providing a lot of resources for alternatives and design options.
3D CAD is exactly what every designer needs- An endless palette, with all the design tools built in.
