CAD
Five
Years
Down
the
Road
Where
will
CAD
creators
concentrate
their
future
developmental
efforts
and
what
can
the
rest
of us
expect?
By John
Connolly
CAD has
moved
from the
desktop
to the
network,
with
engineers
at
different
sites -
sometimes
in
different
countries
and
sometimes
even
working
for
separate
companies
-
applying
their
skills
to the
problems
of
design
and
product
engineering.
Pencils
and
drawings
have
given
way to
the
computer,
graphics
screens
and
plotters.
Even
with the
fundamental
limits
of
geometry
and
algorithms,
CAD
continues
increasing
in
importance,
especially
as
digital
designs
age and
are
transformed
into
generations
of new
products.
But the
million-dollar
question
out
there is
where
will CAD
be in
five
years?
What
will it
be
capable
of doing
for
users?
How will
it
affect
industry,
and
perhaps
the most
important
question
of all -
will the
same
people
still be
using
it?
"We
expect
there to
be a
growing
convergence
between
pure
industrial
design
tools
and
CAD/CAM
in the
next
five
years
because
companies
with
vision
recognize
that
integrating
these
two
disciplines
will
speed
time-to-market
and
reduce
development
costs,"
says
Robert
Fischer,
vice
president
of sales
and
marketing
for VX
Software,
Inc.
(Palm
Bay, FL)
- a
software
development
company.
"Smart
developers
are
concentrating
on what
users
will
need -
more
speed,
robustness,
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