The Computer-Based Design Process

The topic known as computer-aided design and manufacture has developed rapidly over the last 20 years. The range of hardware configurations and supporting software on offer to the potential user is bewildering. This extends from the inexpensive single-user micro-based system, through to the vast industrial networks which are supported by many remote mainframe machines and have been reported to service up to a thousand workstations. This advance in technology has been driven by, and in its turn has fuelled, the development of ever greater computing power and graphics capability. It is these features that all working in the field would now recognize as essential to any CADCAM system. Effort has thus been put into developing a range of structural and solid modellers which, in conjunction with the appropriate terminal configuration and ray tracing graphics technology, can construct pictures of uncanny realism. Complicated analysis programs have been developed that can calculate the stresses in complex structures and display the results as colour shaded maps upon the surface of a pictorial view of the object. If the time to process and the system cost are ignored, then the apparent ease with which these systems perform such analysis and generate such high quality images, leaves the observer awe struck.