Expert: Brian Mazejka - 8/4/2009

Question
I was planning to enhance my skills of Engineering Drawing in which I am very much interested. Please tell me is it beneficial to practise more and more Engineering Drawing altough Autocad is also available? Or is it time-wastage and futile keeping in view its applications in Mechanical and Civil Engineerings? Or shall I stick to Autocad only?

Answer
Hi,

In my honest opinion, the CAD tool you pick to learn depends greatly on what you plan on using it for.

For Mechanical Engineering, I would strongly (and obviously) suggest SolidWorks over AutoCAD.  And speaking from my personal experience (by the way, I'm not a licensed Architect ... I designed a 2 car garage with a breezeway addition for my house), I would still highly recommend SolidWorks.  I don't think the contractors care what CAD package is used, they're only interested in seeing the drawings.

In my opinion, SolidWorks is a vastly superior tool compared to AutoCAD.

As far as Civil Engineering goes (which is out of my field of knowledge), I've seen some models, layouts and drawings using AutoCAD.

The next topic for discussion would be "ease of use" or the learning curve ...

Now I have been using CADD since 1990 ... CV CADDs4, CV CADDs5, Personal Designer, SolidWorks, CATIA

I used AutoCAD back in college (1987 or there abouts) and didn't touch it until I tried to learn it again in 1998.  I picked up several "how to" books including "AutoCAD for Dummies" ... I couldn't figure out anything.

On the other side, I know people who, with mininal instruction from someone, were up and running using SolidWorks in a short period of time.

AutoCAD is still popular because it's less expensive than SolidWorks.  But as I stated at the beginning, it all depends on what you plan to do with it.

I hope that helps ...


Cheers and good luck,
Brian