"" You need to think outside the box a little.""
Oh I do, that's why they pay me.
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"" By sketch I didn't mean on a piece of paper, I meant on the computer. ""
I know you did.
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"" You can sketch up Ideas in the cad programs you know. ""
But that is NOT a required step to design, as you indicated, never has been.
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"" Also by draft, I do not mean the old days of drafting.
But going from design to full blow production CD's.""
That's been the definition of drafting for at least the last 35 years. Drafters take a design and make CD's. What I'm trying to tell you, and as others have posted, is that production CD's are no longer required in many facets of design. You go from the design model straight to fabrication. Try thinking outside YOUR box for a minute.
Your trite little "one must think to design, then one must sketch to draft, then one must draft to build", may have been true at the turn of the "last" century, but certainly hasn't been the case for several decades. At least it hasn't outside your little box. Many major engineering companies don't even employ "drafters" anymore, taking the design straight to CD's using programs other than AutoCAD Some programs don't even use CD's, but go from final FEA to fabrication. But then again, that's outside your little box.
But hey, that's just me.
Randall Culp
Civil-Structural Design Technician
(aka CADaver)