References

http://www.drawingtable.org/
Drafting vs. CAD Drafting
Drafting is technical drawing done manually with rulers, t-squares, stencils, triangles, large
paper, a large work space, and much more. CAD Drafting is technical drawing done with
computer software such as AutoCAD or CorelDRAW. CAD stands for Computer Aided
Design.
Prior to 1979 all technical drawing was done manually or with the help of machines. In 1979
a small program was released called Interact CAD AKA MicroCAD. Shortly after in 1982
AutoCAD was released and has been the standard computer software for technical drawing
alongside CorelDRAW (previously known as Corel DESIGNER) ever since.
So which is better? Manual or CAD? Well much to the annoyance of many old fashioned
hand drafters, CAD wins out in most categories.
Ease of use/speed - CAD wins here. Despite CAD having a steeper learning curve than
hand drafting, once you learn CAD it will be much faster and easier. When technical drawing
by hand you have to draw (or trace) everything, every time. With CAD you can save and
load existing objects or templates into new projects, but the best part is when you have to
modify or correct an existing project design. Making corrections in CAD is fast, easy, and
clean whereas making corrections or modifications on paper can be tricky and tedious.
Cost This is a trickier subject. The startup costs for each can vary greatly depending on
what features you need.
Technical drawing manually requires several things. You can buy a kit on amazon to get
started for around $36 but if you want a nice setup (proper tools and pencils, a drafting table
or board, and proper lighting) you can spend anywhere from $300 $2000 or more.
CAD Drafting is the same in that it can cost anywhere from nothing to several thousand
dollars. If youre just starting out there are
!
free CAD programs out there for personal use to get your feet wet. The more useful
programs can cost you between $97 and $1000. You will also need to buy a large printer
that holds reams of paper for printing your designs unless you work for a company that has
such a printer or you know someone who does. You will also need a computer but Im
assuming you have one of those. If not then that can cost anywhere from $100 to several
thousand and while CAD will run on almost any computer you will notice a huge difference in
the speed of the program depending on how good your processor is.
Security CAD is generally going to be more secure assuming you do proper backups. You
can also encrypt CAD files. With manual drafting you basically have a large piece of paper
and its security will depend on how secure you can keep a piece of paper. If you have a
large safe with guard dogs and an alarm then I would say you win, but if not then Id go with
CAD.

Accuracy You can be pretty accurate with a pencil but you will never be as accurate as a
computer. CAD wins.
It may seem a bit unfair that CAD wins every category but the truth is its just better in most
areas. Many people Ive spoken to say they still use manual technical drawing for the early
stages of project and idea development. They say its easier to feel the direction a project
should take or to feel an idea forming when they do it by hand. They say they just think
better at the board. Its still a very good idea to learn both manual drafting and CAD drafting
as employers generally value that and having both skills will make it easier to move up in a
company. Also, both skills play off of each other so by building one skill you are improving
your ability in the other.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Computers are great tools for architects, but don't let CAD go wild
Architects can now design buildings without lifting a pencil, thanks to computer technology.
In fact, digitally conceived architecture can be too complex to draw by hand or to develop
using conventional drawings, even those printed by machine. Yet there may be risks in
abandoning the pencil and relying so completely on the computer. Drawing manually used to
be an indispensable architectural skill, and not just for mechanical drafting. Drawing by hand
was how historic architecture was documented and analyzed, and how incipient design ideas
were recorded and explored graphically. For many architects, drawing by hand is both
inherently pleasurable and integral to critical design thinking, a way to directly and
creatively connect the eye, brain and hand. But today, computers enable architects to do
little or no manual drawing, and drawing less by hand may tempt some architects to think
less critically.
In architecture offices today, you rarely find a drafting board with a parallel bar, rolls of
tracing paper, measuring scales, triangles, drawing templates or boxes of pencils and
markers. Instead you see a workstation with a flat-screen monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Many designers use computers for "drawing" everything: diagrams, preliminary design
studies, three-dimensional views and construction documents. Produced on large-format
printers, drawings can even be made to look like hand-drawn sketches.
Computer-aided-design (CAD) has transformed architectural design methodology, not
because it eliminates manual drawing, but because it allows architects to compose stacks of
drawings at every stage of design. Architects can show clients countless design variations,
create realistic renderings and graphic simulations, and produce detailed construction
documents.
Once preliminary design studies - site plan and massing studies, floor plan layouts, sections
and elevations - are undertaken and a preliminary digital model is created, the architect can
obtain three-dimensional views, including animated walk-throughs or fly-throughs. The
designer also can modify any part of the project, whether a house or a high-rise, and CAD

software can automatically edit and update all parts of the design affected by the
modification.
CAD software can manage a vast amount of layered data, keeping track of and coordinating
all digital model components and systems, such as the structural skeleton, windows, doors,
interior partitions, floor finishes, ductwork and plumbing. These programs can alert the
designer if components conflict geometrically and can instantly recompute dimensions, floor
areas and material quantities.
It gets even better. When a design is finalized and fully defined in a three-dimensional digital
model, CAD programs can print annotated, two-dimensional drawings for bidding, building
permits and construction. For highly complex designs that cannot be adequately represented
and interpreted using conventional documents, the digital model itself can become the
primary documentation.
Architect Frank Gehry's work epitomizes and necessitates this approach. His design concepts
begin as sketchbook squiggles or crumpled paper and are ultimately transformed into
volumetrically complicated, expressively curvaceous buildings impossible to draw. The
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the
Stata Center at M.I.T. and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park could not
have been designed and constructed without using digital models.
Contractors for these projects directly accessed Gehry's digital models, not conventional
drawings. That was the only way they could calculate and price the enormous quantities of
materials and labor necessary to fabricate and install the thousands of steel structural
members and metal panels that make up the complex exterior skins of these buildings. Only
with advanced computer technology could Gehry's idiosyncratic approach to design have
evolved and his projects been implemented.
Yet if every architect emulated Gehry's expressive approach, a lot of bad architecture would
result. This is because CAD can seductively induce "I can, therefore I shall" thinking. Because
architects can digitally model almost any form they can dream up, CAD can lead to
excessively complex, overwrought building designs - form for form's sake. Such CAD-gonewild buildings may be inappropriate for their sites, functionally inefficient, difficult to
construct, way over budget and perhaps even ugly.
During the preliminary design phase, CAD programs also can yield machine-printed
drawings that make a schematic design idea appear more precise, refined and resolved than
it really is. Before CAD, concepts drawn by hand often were sketchy and loosely delineated
with wavy or fuzzy lines laid down by soft pencils, felt-tip pens or charcoal. The art and
technique of manual drawing ensured that schematic ideas looked schematic.
The computer is a powerful tool, but still just a tool that must be used properly. Designers
who never draw manually still must engage in critical thinking and rational invention, as if
they were drawing and designing by hand, even though their hand grasps a mouse instead
of a pencil.

Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor emeritus of architecture at the

University of Maryland.

http://www.brighthubengineering.com/
Ten Reasons Why you should use CAD rather Than Manual
Drafting
written by: Suvo edited by: Lamar Stonecypher updated: 3/16/2010
CAD tools are used widely across the industry. But why they are so popular? Why is CAD
used rather than manual drafting? This article will discuss these points and more.

The full form of CAD is Computer Aided Design. There are many
reasons why CAD is used rather than manual drafting; the ten most important among them
are discussed below.

Three Dimensional Modeling: Creating 3D models manually

is a very difficult and tiresome job. 3D CAD packages have many more powerful features
for creating the 3D models easily.

Easy to Modify: Modifying the CAD geometry is easy; you will

always have copy, cut, paste, delete, move or some similar editing
options available with each of the packages.

Easy to Reproduce: Draftsmen used to take days to complete

a drawing by manual drafting, and reproducing the drawing meant recreating the
drawing from the beginning. But, in case of the CAD, you can reproduce the drawing in
no time and make as many copies as you want.

Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM): The 3D CAD

geometry is used as input for the CAM packages for generating NC codes. The manual
drawings cannot be used for CAM packages.

Computer Aided Engineering (CAE): The 3D CAD geometry

is used as input for the CAE packages. The CAE packages can simulate the loading
conditions and tell whether the CAD geometry can withstand the real loading or not. The
drawings created manually cannot be used for CAE.

Simulation of the Mechanisms: The 3D CAD geometry can

be used for simulating the mechanism, thus you can check the functionality of a
machine without investing in prototype building. Manual drawings cannot be used for
mechanism simulation.

Database Creation: The CAD files can be used to create

a PDM/PLM database. Once created, the CAD database can be accessed through a wide
area network. The drawings created by manual drafting can only be stored locally.

Logical: CAD models or geometry entities are logically

connected, or in other words you cannot create a CAD model which is not possible
practically. The drawings created by the manual drafting method do not have such
checks, and you can create anything.

Environment Friendly: Manual drawings are necessarily

created on paper, but the CAD drawings can be stored and used electronically without
using paper.

Access Control: Some of the drawings and design documents

are very crucial for a companys business, and such drawings should not be accessible to
all. Providing access controls of such drawings are easy for the CAD drawings, and the
access level can be defined for each CAD drawings. Strict access control and maintaining
confidentiality is difficult for the manual drawings.

Conclusion
All the advantages of the electronic documents are available with CAD geometry, but that is
only one of the reasons why CAD is used rather than manual drawings. The CAD packages,
especially the 3D CAD packages, come with many more advantages, but the most important
among them were discussed in the article.

http://landarchs.com/
Is Drawing Dead?
Its an exciting time to be a designer or developer, and a growing number of new touchscreen tools to make the work more fun are being released every day. Its like being a kid in
a candy store! Given the rapid pace of technological change, individuals with careers deeply
immersed in the visualization of design concepts increasingly have the freedom and
necessary tools to explore all the new possibilities that tablets, software, and apps have to
offer.
Which is why were asking the question Is Drawing Dead? what will become of the hand
skills that have formed the basis of our profession, with everything and everybody geared to
towards fast and accurate results.
Digital Graphics
Pros:
1) Accuracy
Needless to say, software programs can translate practical measurements to high visual
accuracy without having to fuss with the time-consuming act of measuring with a ruler!
2) New Technology-New Possibilities
These days, new software such as AutoCAD WS enables you to view, edit, and share
AutoCAD drawings with anyone, anywhere using your mobile device. Tablets are also

becoming increasingly popular. For example, Wacoms drawing tablets try to mimic the
experience of drawing on paper. Some students say this kind of mimicry allows their
ideas and drawings to be more visionable.
3) Forget Paper!
No more fumbling with awkward paper plans and laptops; the onslaught of so many planning
and drawing apps and tools expedites the process of creating perfect structures.
Cons:
1) New Technology is Seductive
We can easily become bedazzled by what a program can do and forget to insert our own
individuality. This is a trap for producing robotic, similar designs.
2) Lack of Spontaneity
Every program requires us to learn the technical how-to processes before being able to
execute our ideas visually. This can be a time-consuming and frustrating process.
So, where does hand graphics fit in this process? The ability to express yourself as a
designer using a pen on paper is an essential emotion of thought from your brain to the
paper. The key word that Im hanging on is process; that hand drawing is an
essential expression of the design process.
Hand Graphics:
Pros:
1) Control
As you use your hand, you gain great control over your own movements, which in turn
benefits your vision. Creativity becomes a process that is not inhibited by the boundaries of
software programmers but by your own self-expression.
2) Preserving the Human Touch

A great drawing has many layers that go beyond technical skill and captures the unique
touch of the designer. That in itself is special and should not be lost as we advance toward a
more technological age.
3) Increase in Observational Skills
What is the depth of the object? How is it standing, moving? What kinds of details are there?
What you observe as you draw and the thoughts that conjure from the process can make
you appreciate the life within your designs and help you see the relationships between
different features in the physical environment.
Cons:
1) Unpredictability
Lets face it your hand is not a mechanically trained tool. Your drawings may not always
turn out the way you envisioned in your head. You have to be prepared to go with the
flow; this unpredictability can be an exciting thing. However, your unpredicted
outcome requires flexible adaptation.
2)

No Undo Button

Theres no undo button if you mess up, especially when drawing in other mediums besides
pencil. This might become problematic in larger, important drawings.
Hand Graphics vs. Digital?
I find that a balance and understanding of both is necessary to be a competent designer in
our fields of practice. Ultimately, where we work, what our company culture is, how we
execute, are all factors that will determine how we create and what is appropriate for our
space. Drawing isnt dead. Its evolving. There are certainly differences in how you
interact with a watercolor brush or a charcoal pencil or a computer. All Im saying is those
differences are essentially negligible when looking at what designers do for a living.
So, if you are a young designer who aspires to be a principal designer someday, I strongly
recommend that you develop your sketching ability at the same time youre playing around
with computer visualization. Both of those skills should be fully integrated, with a strong
conceptualization and three-dimensional visualization ability.
For a great book on hand drawing check out our review of Freehand Drawing & Discovery by
James Richards
Article written by Win Phyo

http://www.nytimes.com/

Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing

Princeton, N.J.
IT has become fashionable in many architectural circles to declare the
death of drawing. What has happened to our profession, and our art, to
cause the supposed end of our most powerful means of conceptualizing
and representing architecture?
The computer, of course. With its tremendous ability to organize and
present data, the computer is transforming every aspect of how
architects work, from sketching their first impressions of an idea to
creating complex construction documents for contractors. For centuries,
the noun digit (from the Latin digitus) has been defined as finger,
but now its adjectival form, digital, relates to data. Are our hands
becoming obsolete as creative tools? Are they being replaced by
machines? And where does that leave the architectural creative
process?
Today architects typically use computer-aided design software with names like AutoCAD and
Revit, a tool for building information modeling. Buildings are no longer just designed
visually and spatially; they are computed via interconnected databases.
Ive been practicing architecture since 1964, and my office is not
immune. Like most architects, we routinely use these and other software
programs, especially for construction documents, but also for
developing designs and making presentations. Theres nothing
inherently problematic about that, as long as its not just that.
Architecture cannot divorce itself from drawing, no matter how
impressive the technology gets. Drawings are not just end products:
they are part of the thought process of architectural design. Drawings
express the interaction of our minds, eyes and hands. This last
statement is absolutely crucial to the difference between those who
draw to conceptualize architecture and those who use the computer.
Of course, in some sense drawing cant be dead: there is a vast market
for the original work of respected architects. I have had several one-man
shows in galleries and museums in New York and elsewhere, and my
drawings can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt.
But can the value of drawings be simply that of a collectors artifact or a
pretty picture? No. I have a real purpose in making each drawing, either
to remember something or to study something. Each one is part of a
process and not an end in itself. Im personally fascinated not just by

what architects choose to draw but also by what they choose not to
draw.
For decades I have argued that architectural drawing can be divided into
three types, which I call the referential sketch, the preparatory study
and the definitive drawing. The definitive drawing, the final and most
developed of the three, is almost universally produced on the computer
nowadays, and that is appropriate. But what about the other two? What
is their value in the creative process? What can they teach us?
The referential sketch serves as a visual diary, a record of an architects
discovery. It can be as simple as a shorthand notation of a design
concept or can describe details of a larger composition. It might not
even be a drawing that relates to a building or any time in history. Its
not likely to represent reality, but rather to capture an idea.
These sketches are thus inherently fragmentary and selective. When I
draw something, I remember it. The drawing is a reminder of the idea
that caused me to record it in the first place. That visceral connection,
that thought process, cannot be replicated by a computer.
The second type of drawing, the preparatory study, is typically part of a
progression of drawings that elaborate a design. Like the referential
sketch, it may not reflect a linear process. (I find computer-aided design
much more linear.) I personally like to draw on translucent yellow tracing
paper, which allows me to layer one drawing on top of another, building
on what Ive drawn before and, again, creating a personal, emotional
connection with the work.
With both of these types of drawings, there is a certain joy in their
creation, which comes from the interaction between the mind and the
hand. Our physical and mental interactions with drawings are formative
acts. In a handmade drawing, whether on an electronic tablet or on
paper, there are intonations, traces of intentions and speculation. This is
not unlike the way a musician might intone a note or how a riff in jazz
would be understood subliminally and put a smile on your face.
I find this quite different from todays parametric design, which allows
the computer to generate form from a set of instructions, sometimes
resulting in so-called blob architecture. The designs are complex and
interesting in their own way, but they lack the emotional content of a
design derived from hand.
Years ago I was sitting in a rather boring faculty meeting at Princeton. To
pass the time, I pulled out my pad to start drawing a plan, probably of
some building I was designing. An equally bored colleague was watching
me, amused. I came to a point of indecision and passed the pad to him.
He added a few lines and passed it back.

The game was on. Back and forth we went, drawing five lines each, then
four and so on.
While we didnt speak, we were engaged in a dialogue over this plan
and we understood each other perfectly. I suppose that you could have a
debate like that with words, but it would have been entirely different.
Our game was not about winners or losers, but about a shared
language. We had a genuine love for making this drawing. There was an
insistence, by the act of drawing, that the composition would stay open,
that the speculation would stay wet in the sense of a painting. Our
plan was without scale and we could as easily have been drawing a
domestic building as a portion of a city. It was the act of drawing that
allowed us to speculate.
As I work with my computer-savvy students and staff today, I notice that
something is lost when they draw only on the computer. It is analogous
to hearing the words of a novel read aloud, when reading them on paper
allows us to daydream a little, to make associations beyond the literal
sentences on the page. Similarly, drawing by hand stimulates the
imagination and allows us to speculate about ideas, a good sign that
were truly alive.
Michael Graves is an architect and an emeritus professor at Princeton.