Posted in Architecture | Building Systems | Education by Chip Beam (C.A.D.D. Coordinator) on October 5, 2012
An LDG project created with CADD.
When people ask what I do and I say that I’m a CADD Coordinator, the response is invariably “What is CADD?” When working in the engineering industry, it’s easy to forget that the terms we use on a daily basis might be mysteries to other people. CADD stands for Computer Aided Design and Drafting. This is a type of computer program that allows users to interface with commands that mimic the pen and paper. CADD is frequently used by engineers, architects, and other design professionals to create 2D and 3D objects to portray a project. It is a generic term used to describe many different programs, just as ‘word processor’ describes Microsoft Word.
As with pen and paper, with CADD you can draw anything you can imagine. It is also possible to sculpt objects, similar to working with clay. When you combine these objects they make buildings, roads, bridges, etc. CADD is, however, more than just a drawing tool; it is an environment where the objects have information attached to them for further design. You can simulate natural forces like weather, gravity, or even air and water movement, which can change the objects you have drawn to better suit the intent of the design. When you finish drawing or designing you can relay this information on paper, or simulate on the computer screen. CADD is a real world environment where things measure the same as if you were actually building them.
Imagine looking into the night sky, vast, dark, and lit with stars. CADD is not much different; it is an endless space, three-dimensional, never-ending in all directions; but it is also capable of looking into the future. Most everything built today starts in this blank canvas, a device used to create anything you can imagine. From its inception, CADD’s potential has been overlooked—how can this seemingly empty space create everything that is built or manufactured while being intuitive to real-world factors? Did CADD replace the two dimensional drawing, the artist’s sketch, the blue print? I say no. It replaced the limits of one’s imagination with a medium to express it in an artificial three-dimensional world.
In the late 80′s, I was approached by a well-known supermarket chain who wanted to show how their store looked from the street for a board meeting. They asked me to portray the supermarket from a street view. After spending some time in the empty space of CADD, I revealed the fruit of my labor, not just from a street view, but from every angle in a 360-degree view. At that time, such renderings were almost unheard of, and I could tell by the board members’ reactions that CADD would be a force that would change the design world forever.
So beside this environment of static objects, is there a real-time component to this world called CADD? Can I see the air that moves through this space? What would it feel like if I walked or drove through it? You might not know this, but most car commercials are not real; they are created in the CADD environment. Augmented reality is now possible where only the limits of our imaginations are known. When it is time to create a world where the extraordinary exists, where every possibility is realized, and where you can feel the atmosphere of the imagined world as you move through it, CADD helps to make your vision real.
Related links:
What Do Bridge Engineers Do and Why Do We Need Them?
Take a Virtual Tour of a Wind Farm with LDG
Understanding the Smoot
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