Drafting Software Key Terms

Understand drafting software terminology to impress your vendors
By Howard Robertson A drafting software package helps the design engineer to communicate about the industrial product or construction project. Depending upon the application requirements, various types of drafting software are available in the market.

Whether you want to buy drafting software for drawing views of industrial products or for preparing plans for construction projects, you must understand various technical terms relating to it. This guide intends to explain key terms relating to drafting software, such as 2D, 3D, CAD, CAAD and tolerances.

2D (2 Dimensional)

2D drafting involves providing views of an object or model with only 2 parameters from length, width and height. Conventional drafting represents any object in 2D, however, 2D views are not so popular in modern drafting software.
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3D (3 Dimensional)

Unlike 2D, 3D drafting software provides views of an object or model with all the dimensional parameters: length, width and height. Drafting software that provide 3D views are gaining popularity, as the viewer need not interpret 2D images to get an idea about the final product.
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CAD (Computer Aided Design)

CAD (Computer Aided Design or Computer Aided Drafting) is one of the most important types of drafting software. CAD is useful for producing drawings of industrial components and construction layouts. Various CAD software packages are available in the market as per requirements.
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CAAD (Computer Aided Architectural Design)

As the name indicates, the CAAD software is special drafting software for architects and civil engineers. These software packages are useful for storing and maintaining records of construction projects.
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Surface modeling

Surface modeling is an important feature of CAD software for automotive industry products. It is a 3D modeling method, in which the model geometry is defined by its surfaces.
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Accuracy

Accuracy is the most important feature of any drawing. For a drafting software, its accuracy is more important than any other feature that it offers.
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Tolerances

For industrial components, tolerances are very important for assembly. Drawings of industrial components mention the tolerances for each dimension. In many drafting software programs, you can define tolerances directly for a set of dimensions and save the time to calculate tolerances for each dimension.
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