new computer aided tools applied on engineering design education (original) (raw)

Since the 80´s decade of last century, new graphic technologies changed dramatically the way of architects, designers and engineers work. Computer aided design is applied worldwide and for all design projects and so for engineering design. That meant an inclusion of CAD into the engineering curricula and so tend to apply CAD to every drafting and design tasks, since conceptual to detail. Paper and pencil drafting and sketching was then displaced, as it was understood as obsolete. As it is confirmed by several studies, consequences of this CAD abuse and sketching abandon was a decline of spatial abilities of engineering students and a lack of visual thinking skill, which are essential for engineering design practice. Some actions proposed, such as spatial abilities specific courses, and the return of sketching practice on engineering curricula. Proper use of CAD must be also considered at the university, as well as we understood the need for design engineers to work with geometric models in a computer-domain world, even at earlier design stages. Although CAD evolved to ease designers' creative work, in order to bring more user-friendly interfaces, it does not fulfil creative requirements. In addition, there is an alternative modelling software that must be under consideration: since simple modelling applications, based on constructive geometry, such as Sketchup, to other modelling software, closer to human creative practice, such as Digital sculpting and computer-aided sketching: Digital Sculpting is nowadays applied by artists and industrial designers. Computer aided sketching is an attractive solution for creative works, closer to usual paper and pencil sketching practice. According to future design engineer's needs, we studied these new design tools, more focused on the creative fostering than conventional CAD systems, and its application for engineering education purposes is analysed. The results of our study shows that unless these systems cannot substitute traditional sketching, means an interesting support, in order to quickly implement design ideas into a computational environment, also as a better alternative to use CAD at earlier design stages. As well as CAD is implemented on engineering curricula, new computer aided design tools, such as digital sculpting, computer aided sketching, must be taken into consideration. That helps the consciousness of a proper use of CAD. These applications shall be mentioned and taught in engineering education, in the same manner that CAD was earlier implemented.