Stop doing detail drawings?

[design-engine]

Brad Fulghum: I would like to hear more. Not that we would ever stop teaching those non degreed folks 2d detail drawings I just want design engine students to be the leaders in technology.So if you ever see a Design Engine resume think hey. Lets look at this guy carefully.

 

[Mindripper]

In support of the position of dgs, let me expand on the pragmatic aspects of drawings versus simply displaying the 3D dimensions used to create the model:


I always make 2D drawings, although a STEP file is always appreciated by the fabrication shops (none of the shops I work with have Pro/E: they may have SW, but none have Pro/E). The drawings (in 2D PDF form) are the contractual tool used to ensure compliance with the requirements of the part. Most suppliers are not going to spend money on special software just to read the dimensions and tolerances on a part - especially some badly overpriced PTC product. 2D drawings are not going away any time soon, contrary to PTC's badly flawed vision of the future of CAD.


3D models are typically designed in the context of the assembly: the primary references are aligned to the assembly components or higher level assemblies. This makes the model dimensions of limited value when creating a drawing: the machinist needs to reference the outside of the part, not some internal features such as a bore, tapped holeor small surface. So all of my drawings have created dimensions ONLY, using the major external surfaces as the primary datums. This is actually less work than showing dimensions, trying to clean up all of the views and add feature control frames, etc. I can't imagine trying to do this in 3D: it would be even more work. PTC has been pushing the 'show dims in 3D' concept for well over a decade: it reflects their lack of understanding of the most basic aspects of engineering and manufacturing workflow and requirements. It seems that the decision-making process at PTC is dominated by people who lack real world engineering knowledge and experience: it shows in their products and marketing strategy.


But I can understand design-engine's desire to get away from teaching students how to make drawings. Many colleges and universities require little or no study of drawings for engineering students these days, so he is faced with teaching basic drafting skills to his students with a CAD system that just doesn't have a very good drawing package. I can see him trying to teach a student how to create a composite positional feature control frame for a hole pattern in Pro/E, but the student doesn't evenknow what a third angle projection is.

 

[dgs]

Exactly, well said. A streamlined drawing package would have served industry better than all the efforts toward 3D model definition.

Wait, did I jsut say that I agree with Mindripper? What is the world coming to!?!

 

[magnusod]

Well, as usual I don't believe there is a one solution only applicable for all areas of manufacturing.

Here is an extract from Volvo Cars guidelines regarding documentation.

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[dept664]

We still make drawings where I work, and I don't think they will be going away any time soon. Everyone talks the talk, but when the rubber meets the road, it skids to a stop.


We outsource many of our machined components these days, and although the vendors like, and use, the 3D models for programming their NC machines, they still rely heavily on the detail drawings to verify that what they are doing is wrong, but pass them along anyway ... They aren't ready, and won't be for a long time, to work from annotated models.


Even our internal shop, or what's left of it, has the capability to read annotated models, but they still prefer a drawing to work from. Getting annotated data from a model is still a clumsy proposition.


Bottom line is that there are still thousands of companies out there that have, and need skilled draftsmen.

 

[dr_gallup]

We work with some OEMs that (like the Volvo requirements above) have their own special systems that are totally non standardized and inflexible. Some companies will decide that's just the cost of doing business with these behemoths and comply, others will decide it's just not worth it and walk away. Some of these OEMs are in various stages of bankruptcy and you can't get anyone to answer the phone, solve a problem or make a decision. We still have PAPER drawings calling out OBSOLETE specs from some of these OEMs. It is very much a case of do what I say, not what I do.

2D drawings will still be around long after the last one of their vehicles has rusted away.

 

[dantheguitargod]

I once triedto get our in-house shop to extract data fromour solidmodels. They spun horribly out of control, so no, 2D paper will never go away here. On rare occasions our outside machine shops will request a model. But that is very, veryrare.


When we first brought Pro in house 10 years ago, a trainer came in and gave us about a weeks worth of Pro "crash" course training. When it was all done, we could all make pretty shapes that we could all spin around and fit together in neat assemblies. Unfortunately, none of usknew how tomake a 2D drawing in Pro-E, or dimension it!! A slight over-sight. Please when you are giving your classes, don't leave out the basics.


With regard to "Drafters": I have engineers making new products with Pro, who admittedly dislike the detail aspect, because of the skills requiredto make a2D drawing.


That brings up another point; Any one can make a solid model, but now I am finding that some of the modelsare so difficult to work with, that I have to re-model it myself, in order to be able to easily make a 2D drawing out of it. There's many different ways to model a feature, but not all of those transfer to the detail aspect . On my work I can "show dimensions" in the drawing 90% of the time, on others work I have to manually enter the dimensions, which takes forever, and is not associative to the model.

 

[call_steve]

we will always be teaching detail drawings to our students. Maybe bart wanted to know how far into annotations should he go in order to make them streamlined in industry. We are always trying to keep the design engine four week students as experts in industry. in the end they always have the design engine staff in their back pockets.

Edited by: call_steve

 

[dickint13]

We are currently using Wildfire 5 and generating the fully annotated Model Based Enterprise solution. Fully thought out start part files establish base combined states to initiate the process. ANARK advanced 3D solutions can be used to generate, publish and distribute secure 3D PDF documents. The solution still has some limitations. PTC, Anark and Adobe are still refining the MBE solution. We are almost there and this will be industry standard going forward into 2012.

 

[dr_gallup]

Too bad Adobe abandoned 3D PDF creation. The files were such bloated turkeys nobody wanted them anyhow.

 

[dross]

we will always be teaching detail drawings to our students. Maybe bart wanted to know how far into annotations should he go in order to make them streamlined in industry. We are always trying to keep the design engine four week students as experts in industry. in the end they always have the design engine staff in their back pockets.

How can you call a person with 4 weeks of training an "expert"? At best, they are barely out of training wheels.

 

[Roger]

I cut my engineering teeth on the drawing board in '68. Yea, I'm an old fart. However, this old fart can design circles around the "experts" that steve talks about! Expert!? How dare you! It's like someone saying they are a Pro/E expert. Yea, right. There ain't no such animal.


As to doing away with 2D drawings, I had a boss tell me one time that when you cut a corner, you loose something. Another old adage, "Pay me now or pay me later" still holds true. If you teach a kid how to do arithmatic with a pencil and paper, he will be productive even when his calculator battery dies. As a previous poster said, not all shops can deal with solid models. What if they don't have Pro/E compatible software? "Back to the drawing board!" That is, 2D drawings. Complete ones!


Let's get back to basics people! I really like Pro/E, but, if the system goes down, what do we have? They're not even good boat anchors now!

 

[moriarty]

There's more to this discussion than just CAD and CNC
machining - there's also CMM measurement.

The latest CMM systems can take the CAD model, extract
the GD&T and use it for QC. Just one more reason to
get rid of the drawing.

There is a lot of work going on with vision scanning
systems as well - lasers and white light scanners. The
way things are heading, we are not far off scanning for
low precision(>50micron)and CMM for higher precision
(<50micron).

Interesting times ahead ...
Edited by: moriarty

 

[AJansson]

The only company I know of how actually has done thisis a Swedish construction equipment manufacturer that has a paperless assembly line. They use ProductView instead on the factory floor and they don

 

[Roger]

AJansson:


As you say, "the only company..." is the key phrase. The huge corps. can do this. They use CMM for inspection. What's not to like.


Now, for the rest of the world....

 

[eServ]

I know some companies have already converted ALL of their drawings to very detailed3-D models. As a military contractor back in early 2000's, we were responsible for converting all the drawings to 3-D models. This included putting all the notes, tolerances, etc... into the model, so that all you had to do is "show" the dims, notes, etc... when you got to the drawing.