Talk:Computer-aided design/Basics

Dear reader,

I just started CAD/CAE/CAM course.

English is not my mother tongue and I know that inevitably I will make mistakes and my text will be clumsy. But I hope that others will correct it. BTW isn't it wiki spirit and strength? So, if you can help, please do so.

General idea is to start with basics and common topics.

Then we should create be step by step lessons. Here is the problem. There are many CAD programs. Universities usually has multi licenses, from different sources. AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Catia, I-DEAS, Pro/E, just to name a few. CAD tend to be pretty expensive, even for students. Open source CADs have not yet reached the quality and scope of commercial ones. Trial versions usually are too limited, either in trial period or functionality. The same is true in the case of CAE, CAM or mathematical software.

So student's access to software tools varies widely. We just cannot say “Let's use OpenOffice.”, knowing that in MS Office it will be more or less the same.

IMHO the best way out will be to create lessons for several major CADs, ideally using the same examples.

This daunting task cannot be reasonably achieved by one person, so I hope that somebody (yes, maybe you) will join.

--Vrecion 21:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I would be glad to help in what I can in this course. I've been a professional in this field for over 10 years, and hope my expertise can be useful.

I've added a few things on engineering drawings & tolerancing, hopefully I'll be able to expand on those later.

Omega 15:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)