4 Reasons AEC Professionals Choose Architectural CAD Drafting Over Manual Drafting In 2022
Top building service providers have wholeheartedly adopted the Architectural CAD drafting and design process, almost completely abandoning the erstwhile manual design drafting process in the twenty-first century. There has been a paradigm shift in the way the design intent is communicated now due to numerous advantages offered by CAD drafting; the manual pen and paper process, on the other hand, was time-taking and cumbersome, besides being pretty inaccurate. One had to regularly monitor the precision and quality of drawings in those days since the traditional way of design drafting was iterative and often inaccurate. Employing CAD drafting standards has changed life for AEC industry professionals making the process very efficient, accurate, and convenient.
Benefits of Architectural CAD drafting:
Architects perform a high-pressure job in this era of skyrocketing construction costs and very complex structural systems. To make matters even more complicated, clients today demand more bang for their buck. CAD design and drafting promise to make life much easier for the fraternity, some of the main advantages of this modern method are discussed below.
1. Efficient and more accessible data storage system
The requirement for large storage space and the risk of drawings getting damaged were a big cause of concern during the days of manual drafting. Despite all your care, some drawings were still lost due to poor management or the decaying process of the paper drawings. CAD makes it very convenient since the drawings are saved on computer disks and now even on cloud-based platforms and easily accessible from anywhere. These drawings allow you to avoid paper and are thus more environmentally friendly.
2. More precise and accurate
You always faced difficulty in ensuring that all the objects were of the correct size and alignment in manual drafting. There was a need to manually verify and dimension all the objects since the slightest of errors could spoil everything. When some manual drawings were initially converted into CAD documents, people were amazed to find that hundreds of errors were located. Architectural CAD drafting standards ensure through numerous tools and techniques that exact dimensions are obtained, thus accuracy of your drawings is improved.
3. Minimizes turn-around time
CAD software like AutoCAD ensures greater speed considerably reducing the turn-around time. You are also able to complete important jobs like preparing quantities of materials, reports, scaling, and so on, faster and more efficiently. Just a few mouse clicks are needed to accomplish the task a manual draftsman took hours or even days to complete. CAD software eliminates repetitive iterations saving a huge amount of time. Architectural CAD drafting standards allow data related to a component or its family to be associative in nature; when you make a change, it’s reflected automatically across all associated documents.
4. Lifelike 3D views
CAD software incorporates countless powerful tools and intelligent features that enable you to extract breathtaking three-dimensional views from every conceivable angle. Draftsmen were of course able to create 3D views even during the days of paper and ink drafting, but they consumed a good amount of time and were not as accurate or attractive as the ones produced by CAD software. CAD process greatly aids the visualization process making the client interface much better, and helping market the building by including these lifelike views in brochures and hoardings. This allows you to virtually represent a structure through 3D views for the benefit of clients, partners, contractors, and buyers.
CAD drafting is a powerful tool for AEC industry professionals making the design and drafting process faster, more accurate, and less error-prone, and providing a better client interface. It is far better than the erstwhile manual drafting process, eliminating errors, simplifying revisions, and reducing the turnaround time.
