: 3 CAD HARDWARE 3.1 CAD HARDWARE CAD hardware has progressed steadily from slow specialized systems to fast standard ones. {tis important to understand the difference between a CAD system hardware & hardware for a conventional computer system, The difference lis, in general, in the specialised input & output devices typically required by CAD system to handle interactive graphics inputs & display, Input devices may include alphanumeric Keyboards, programmed function keyboards, digitizing tablets, Hightpens, electronic styluses, trackballs, mouse systems and touch input devices. Output devices ‘may include conventional ploters, hardcopy printers and more importantly graphics display terminals, ‘These terminals are quite different from the conventional video display or video terminals usally ‘eferred t0 a5 computer terminals, which generally display only text or passive graphics. Graphice splay terminals possesses various local processors & controllers that can perform various graphics functions such as transformations and graphics generation locally at the hardware level to reduce the Interactive time response between the user & the system. A complete CAD system arrangement is shown in Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.1. Cad System, ‘The typical system arrangement is interactive. This means that a person must cause the interaction between the CPU and the graphics display station. An alphanumeric keyboard or other input equipment will aid this process. After the design and/or drawing on the CAD unit has been completed, the information may be transferred to various output devices. (@ Input devices. The input devices are mainly classified in two main classes based on the Possible ways of inputting (feeding) the information viz (Q) Text input device 2) Graphics input device () Text input device. ‘The slphanumeric (character oriented) keyboards is the input device. Keyboard. The keyboard of the computer is the most important device for communication ‘between the operator and the computer. Your keyboard has got the following displays and controls: Displays : + Num Lock Indicator — Lights when numeric keypad is numeric mode, o—_ ez Computer Graphics Including CAD, AutoCAD and C + Cape Lock Indicator — lights when keyboard is in Caps Lock mode. Lights when keyboard is in Scroll Lock mode. Controls : "The keyboard (controls) is divided into following four sections: + Alphanumeric Keys 2 Numeric key pad/cursor movement keys + Special keys + Function keys + Windows 95 Keys ‘Space Bar (he longest key in the last row ofthe Keyboard) shifs the euror one positon 19 the Fight Fig. 32. Keyboard. (@) Graphics input device. Graphics input devices are sed to input parameters of graphical quantities. There are three subclasses of graphics input devices Viz. (@) Locating devices or locator ©) Digitizers (©) Image ~ input devices (scanner) (@> Locating devices Locating devices or locators provide 2 postion or location on We serene These include lightpens. mice, joystick, trackball thumbwheels, touchscreen. The Fie sre cI hese devices. Out of all these locating devices, mouse is used extensively in CAD spehcaion. Mouse become fairly popular du to its convenient use with icons & pop-up an Poll down menus. ‘Mouse is locating device used to control cursor location on the screen, The mouse generally comes aa] ‘witha varying number of buttons. Each one of these TRttoe cua be progammed fo different inp ales jist Mouse works 0m any smooth tbleop. I has to itr located on its Base, one xed perpendicular 0 ry the other. When itis rolled onthe tabletop the relative |" positions of the rollers are converted to electronic Signals and the position of a cursor associated with sepia. nome the mouse on the sereen is moved. The movement of earere on the tabletop thus moves a cursor on the screen for drawing and menu selection, AS daly the movement of rollers make the cursor to move picking up the louse and reloating Ion the table top will not affect the position of the cursor on the sereen.CAD Hardware 63 (b) Digitizer Digitizer» board isan clecttomagnetic graphic input device that resembles diafing. A digitizer can be used to copy the exiting drawing and send the geometric data directly tothe computer. The operation of a digitize is similar to that of a mouse. The user moves the stylus across the flat surface of the table. The surface of the lable is magnified and is embedded with wires in X & Y directions. The physical motion ofthe stylus ‘sconvened bythe wires int digital location signa ‘which is then routed to computer & displayed on the graphic terminal (0) Image scanners. A sanner is a device, which ean diretly convert a picture or text on & paper to corresponding graphics or text image for tse by a computer Ie picks up the object seanned nf 48a Bit image, consisting of pixels, which ate then iat ees converted 10 special formats by using appropriate software. Generally (wo types of scanners are available called Optical scanner and Magnetic scanner. In optical scanner optical lights are used and in magnetic seanner magnetic Feld is used to can the object. Optical scanners are of two types hand held and table mode. 3.2 CPU. The details regarding CPU is mentioned in chapter 1, 34.3 Output Device. CAD applications require output devices to display graphics to the user. The graphics output devies can be divided into soft and hard devices Graphics ouput doves Soft Dovice Hard Device ‘Soft output device refers to the graphic displays which only display information on a sereen. Hard output devices refer tothe hardcopy printers and plotters that can provide permanent copies. Of the displayed information. In the Fig. 3.6 details of computer workstation with specific input and output devices are shown. ‘Work Station ‘Graphics deplay Hard copy device Interactive deco Fig. 3. Overall view of the sytem.