Engineering drawing software uses rasters and/or vectors to create illustrations in 2D or 3D, these illustrations are usually portrayed in images, diagrams, charts, and graphs. This type of engineering drawing applications also has information regarding processes, materials, & dimensions, and includes technical drawings drafts.
CAD (computer-aided drawing) is the first and oldest engineering drawing software. CAD was primarily created as a 2D drawing software with few tools for drawing like simple lines and circles drawing tools. Since then, this engineering application has useful extensions like Wire Frame that allows users to easily create 3D drawings.
Engineering drawing applications like Solid Works or Auto-CAD allows drafters and engineers to create and develop electrical and mechanical drawings. One of the most important features of an engineering drawing software is that it saves time and stress that usually comes with building drafts for engineers, technicians, drafters, and other scientists. The uniformity of the drafts that this software can produce is also a noteworthy feature. Most engineering drawing applications has an in-built collection of components and parts that are available to be dragged and dropped onto the screen.
Thanks to the existence of software like Solid Works, engineers can create 3D drawings that are more interactive and responsive than drawings from older engineering software. Aside from drafting illustrative diagrams, engineering drawing programs sometimes include process diagrams and flow charts. Microsoft Visio can be used to execute these types of engineering drawings, Visio and a little bit of software programming has been singlehandedly used by companies to completely build assembly procedures and part descriptions.
There are several engineering drawing applications with some being able to carry specific tasks while others are multifunctional. MCAD Software (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design Software) is mainly used by mechanical engineers, Solid Works is one of the outstanding MCAD software currently available. File formatting is stored in Microsoft Structured Storage. This file type includes several files interwoven into each other such as images, metadata files, previews. Engineering drawing is usually handled by technical illustrators or drafters but engineers spend more time studying drawings and making calculations related to such drawings.
Best software applications used as aids in engineering drawing
There are lots of good engineering drawing software available but choosing the best depends on what task(s) is expected to be carried out. Some of the best engineering software include:
- Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM)
- Computer-aided design (CAD)
- AutoCAD
- Mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD)
Other drawing and image editing software like Ms Paint, Adobe Photoshop, and GNU image manipulation program (GIMP) are used alongside the above-listed engineering drawing software to give out excellent results.
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