The computer aided design software or CAD has been introduced for some profound changes in building and manufacturing for the last 25 years. There are many brands and types of CAD software from automotive design to architecture.

CAD software is used on large scale basis by most of the engineering firms and design professionals for various applications.  Design and drafting is the most common use for this type of software application.  Here are some of the benefits in using CAD software systems in the companies:

1. Increase in the Efficiency of the Designer

As CAD software is used for designing, this will help the designer to visualize the final products that are to be made, its subassemblies and the constituent parts. The product can be given animation to see how the actual product will work, thus helping the designer to immediately make the modifications. The CAD software also helps the designer in synthesizing, analysing and documenting the designs. All these factors help in improving the efficiency of the designer to produce a fast pace designs, lowering the design costs and complete a certain project in shorter time.

2. Improves the Quality of the Design

Having CAD software, the professional designer and its team offered a large number of tools that help them in carrying a thorough engineering analysis of the proposed design. These tools also help the designers to consider large number of analysis. Since the CAD system offers greater accuracy, the errors are reduced slightly in the designed products leading to create a better design. Eventually, creating a better design helps out in manufacturing products faster and reduces waste of time if making a faulty design.

3. Better Documentation

The next important part after making designs is creating drawings. With CAD software, better and standardized drawings can be easily in without wasting time. The CAD software helps in better documentation of the designs, fewer drawing errors and greater legibility of the created product.

4. Creating Documentation of the Designs

Creating the documentation of designing can be made conveniently by the CAD software. The documentation of the designing includes geometries and dimension of the products, its components, its subassemblies, material specifications and bill of the materials.

5. Creating the Database for Manufacturing

When creating the data for the documentation of the designs for the project, the data of the manufacturing has also been made as like the products and other components been created. Same with the preparations for the materials required for the projects, their dimensions, its shapes, other components needed and etc.

6. Saving of Design Data and Drawings

All the data used for the creation of design can be easily saved and used as for future reference, thus certain project and drawings don’t need to be made again and again. Similarly, the drawings can be also saved and can produce number of copies whenever it is required. Some of the future project and components can be standardized and be used whenever needed in the future projects.

The benefit of AutoCAD software is by having a standardization of your projects. AutoCAD software is the de facto industry standard for Computer Aided Design or CAD, so those CAD packages emulate AutoCAD operation and ensure file compatibility across other industrial companies.

Long before the advent and widespread use of computers all design work was done by hand.  Whether you are looking at new buildings or designing machinery it was all done by hand.  The 1960’s and beyond brought the advent of what is the modern design process.  The main cog in the wheel of design, as far as tools are concerned, is the CAD or Computer Aided Design software.  CAD software allows the designer to create and replicate design items and pattern with precision so that each iteration of a design is the same.  CAD (sometimes called CADD –  Computer Aided Design and Drafting) comes in both 2D and 3D varieties.  The 2D versions run much cheaper than the 3D versions but are obviously much more limited depending on what the designer is trying to accomplish.

Paid or Free?

There are many options for both paid and free options.  Over the years there have been several consumer and business solutions to the problem of design.  One of the newest iterations is the cloud based CAD systems.  These cloud systems allow multiple designers to collaborate in real time and make all files available to the entire team.  Like all other cloud solutions this one allows the design team to know that their data is safe from being corrupted with the loss of one machine or one hard drive.  Each option, free or paid, brings different advantages.  Most of the time when it comes to software you get what you pay for and CAD software isn’t much different.  One of the more popular choices over the year has been AutoCAD which has since been replaced by CloudSCAD, providing a cloud based solution to design mechanical pieces and buildings in full collaboration with other members of the design team.  The paid solutions will be quite expensive and if you are doing it on the side the costs can be prohibitive.  Payment plans are available for if your credit history is clean.  If your credit history has problems or your score is low you can reach out to a credit repair company to help increase your score and possibly help you qualify to finance the paid software you are looking for.