Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to "at least a wash."

re: individualizing CAD
Fox — (archived)

There's an inhuman consistency to CAD drawings, a sort of barren perfection without the possibility of the occasional embellishments a good human draftsman might add. The good draftsmen I've known had recognizable styles, which you'd learn to see in signature marks like arrowheads and callouts, and of course distinctive block lettering. I always had a soft spot for Adobe's Tekton font for the way it captured the classic draftsman's style.

In my personal estimation, the best CAD op's started out, like I did, drawing by hand. They have an eye for layout on the page, and for legibility in the location and content of notes, and a "style" which transcends the software used to make it, whether or not the font looks like hand lettering.

After all, CAD is just another RAM-eating graphics program. The product depends as much on the artistic ability of its user than, say, something turned out in Photoshop. The lack of aesthetic in an architectural or engineering document isn't the fault of the software used to generate the plot.

On the other hand, having started back in the manual days, I know exactly what you mean about the personal touch. I worked on some church renovations whose original designs were done in the 1920s and therabouts. Now there were some draftsmen!

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