Round Table Discussion on The Value of Computer Aided Design

Abstract

Publisher Summary The use of computer aided design (CAD) in industry will almost certainly depend on the economic justification of the approach although there are reasons to believe that the opportunity it provides for the industrial designer to more easily attempt alternative approaches, in effect closing the so called gap between theory and practice, may also be an important factor. In education, incorporation of computer aided learning packages with CAD will allow students to proceed at their own pace, to revise material when necessary, and to solve a broader spectrum of problems. The first program packages were developed as an aid in the curriculum of control engineering. These program packages had only modest facilities by which a question/answer approach turned out to be a nice way to realize the conversational mode between program and designer. The choice of means to improve the system behavior is left to the designer. The computer can also be used to take care of some calculations.