Any CAD geeks in here?

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Just wondering if there are any AutoCAD-obsessed folks in here (well, or Revit or Civil3d or even 3dStudio, whatever blows your skirt up)?


I also have enjoyed my dabbling in SQL server and vb.net programming, but, I'm a total noob there... most of my geek-out time is spent on CAD/BIM/CAFM topics, since I have the most experience with them.

I don't know about obsessed, but I've worked with it for the past 12 years. Ever since version 14.

Cool.

What industry are you in?

I work in facilities, so deal mainly with MEPFP content.

Oddly enough (since it was considered the first really good release of the software on windows), R14 is the one release I have not used.

I used 10-12-13 in high school, but, by the time I was working, they'd just upgraded to R2000.

AutoCad, Intergraph, MsPaint ... I use Visio almost exclusively these days.

Cool. I have never used Visio on a daily basis, but, a couple of the guys in our department work on it (and, by default, anything that involves electronics in this department, I am asked to support)... I found it to be really user-friendly when I have used it.

I do mechanical engineering. Mostly sheet metal construction for large factories and power plants. My drawings are catered to customers or shop personnel, so they're very user friendly.

Can't even remember what I used in high school, but it had the old mouse with the corsshairs and the giant mousepad/toolbar menu.

Very cool. I haven't worked with the sheet metal shop drawings too much, but, I do have some in our archives at work from past projects. Obviously, anyone who can prepare user-friendly drawings is aces in my book.

~laughs~ We'll, I've obviously spent way too much time reminiscing about the subject of 'first version of autocad' with my friends. The first version I saw was 2.something, when my Grandfather worked at McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) and showed it to me when I was in elementary school, so my excuse is that it is in my blood.

I just enjoyed that a community has sprung up around it and needed the peer group. And, since I don't get out much, I even met my husband on http://augi.com . ~shrug~ And, I don't know if you've ever attended an Autodesk University, but, if you want to hear people reminisce about old CAD software, and the detailed specs of the hardware it ran on, THAT is the place. (uh, it would be sad if the conversations happened anywhere else lol)

I work at a robotics company where I code software for the products and also manage the network and the PCs. We have a captive machine shop so I have to support SolidWorks and CAMWorks even though I have little familiarity with actually using either. About 20 years ago I recall writing some utilities to convert simple flat AutoCAD drawings to CNC files in order to cut the company name and logo into the surface of parts. The guys would also use it as a primitive CAM system to convert paths in AutoCAD into cutting paths in CNC. At that time I did a lot of the electronics work, and would take schematics done in OrCAD and P-CAD and lay them out as 4 and 6 layer boards. Early versions of OrCAD were pretty buggy, and I wrote some utilities to fix part definition files, and I wrote a PostScript driver to get printouts. (It came with a really simple-minded PS driver that generated humongous files that took forever to print.)

I deploy Linux on my servers and I really wish there was good open source solid modeling and CAM software. I know there's some reasonable stuff now for electronics work, but haven't had a chance to use it. Closed source is great when everything works exactly as documented. How often does that happen? Open source is great when things break and you need to get it fixed Right Now because you've got a customer breathing down your neck.

i use solidworks for most of my cad needs, i used to work for an injection molding company and it allows a quick workflow with easy correction of design changes.
a shame i cant remember the pathing program used to create the CNC paths, it was the most userfriendly i have ever seen.

Wow. Neat work.

LOL... I think you've said it all right there.

Does Autodesk Inventor count?

http://microprecisionautomation.com/

Click the "Manufacturing Facilities" link to see the machine shop.

that is one hell of a shop, is there any conectivity beyond the workable pallet stocker and the mill itself?

:-D But, of course. Inventor has got to be one of the coolest programs I've seen (I can say that because I don't have to deal with it's foibles and shortcomings on a daily basis ;-p But, I was just really stunned the first time I saw it and sat down to have a play with the sample files available.).

Wow.

I can only imagine how much is the worth of all of that equipment, software, hardware. ~whistles~

I'm not sure what you mean by connectivity. The shop has PC's at each machine with wifi and Internet access.

The owners are very shrewd buyers. And the manufactures of the machines will bring their customers to our shop to use as a showcase.

The customers are fastidious semiconductor equipment makers so it's natural to keep the place spic and span, looking almost like a clean room.

Right across the street is a railroad yard. We poured a new thick floor in the machine shop to isolate it from the vibrations from the railroad. It's a single pour so that we can relocate machines as necessary to accommodate work flow. No machine has to straddle two different slabs.