Manual drafting on vellum still beats CAD for initial layout work

I know this sounds like I'm stuck in 1985 but hear me out. I spent 6 years doing everything in AutoCAD and when I switched to a firm that still does schematic roughs by hand I thought it would be a pain. After 3 months I'm actually faster for concept phases. The computer lets me jump around too much and second guess. Pencil on vellum forces me to commit and move forward. Anyone else finding that the old way works better for early stage stuff or am I just getting old?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole_flores4411d ago

Did you ever try going back to autocad after doing hand drafting for a while? When I was helping my buddy frame out his basement, I sketched the whole layout on graph paper with a mechanical pencil before we even touched any software. It made me realize how much I was overcomplicating stuff on the computer just because I could. The physical act of erasing and redrawing a line made me think harder about whether I actually needed to move it versus just messing around.

west.casey12d ago

The time I spent at a small firm in Portland that still uses Mylar sheets taught me the same lesson. There is something about the physical act of drawing a line that makes you think about it before you put it down. On AutoCAD I would draw five versions of the same wall detail in ten minutes and waste the rest of the morning picking one. Hand drafting forces you to solve the problem in your head first, then commit to paper. It trains your brain to see the whole layout before you start, which is a skill I lost for years using layers and undo commands.

lily_torres3111d ago

Had a friend who redrew the same wall section three times on velum before he finally got it right, no safety net of a delete key.