Why I think manual drafting still beats CAD for initial layout work

I know everyone raves about jumping straight into AutoCAD or SolidWorks, but I spent 6 months at a shop in Tulsa where we did all our rough layouts by hand on vellum first. The old lead drafter there showed me how you catch way more design conflicts when you're physically drawing lines and measuring angles with a protractor. I get that digital is faster for revisions, but for that first concept phase, I swear by pencil and paper. Has anyone else gone back to hand drafting for certain steps or am I just being stubborn?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana51211d ago

Physical drawing catches things the screen hides" is dead on, I always rough out clearances by hand first.

stellaperry11d ago

Do you scribble measurements right on the sketch or keep a separate notepad?