CAD or computer-aided design is the act of using computers in creating, modifying, or optimizing a design.
There are a variety of CAD programs used by industrial designers, engineers, architects, draftsmen, video-game developers, and digital artists depending on what kind of model is to be created. Some CAD programs available are used to create purely visual models while some are used to create models of products that are to be machined/injection molded/printed and everywhere in between.
At Enhance, we use Solidworks and sometimes Rhino, to create 3D models and sometimes 3D printed prototypes of our clients’ concepts. Solidworks allows a user to create 3D geometry through a variety of different tools and commands for example: the extrude command elongates a shape from a plane based on a contour drawn by the designer to a desired length on one or both sides. Extrude-cut does the same but takes away from the solid instead of adding to it. Each of these features in Solidworks can have multiple options/parameters, giving its user thousands of different ways to build a model. Once a model has been finished in Solidworks, we use a stand-alone rendering software to apply textures/materials/lighting to make photo-realistic renderings of what the finished product might look like. If the product is to be 3D printed to test its functional aspects, the designer will build the correct tolerances allowed by our 3D printer while modelling the product as to make sure all of his parts move freely/snap closed etc. the way that they should.
CAD software is a valuable tool for a designer because allows one to quickly see and make changes to a design before it is finalized. It can also help provide some clarity when having trouble visualizing a shape in 3-dimensional space.
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Enhance Product Development is a professional design firm that specializes in launching new products for inventors, entrepreneurs and start ups. For product development inquiries please contact Enhance Product Development at https://enhancepd.com/contact/ or call us at 877-993-6426.
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