What is CAD ? CAD or Computer aided design refers to computers being used to assist the design process in all sorts of industries. With CAD softwares, it’s possible to build an entire model in an imaginary space, letting you visualise properties like height, width, distance, material, or colour before the model is used for a particular application.

It was 1962 when the computer scientist Ivan Sutherland created the first computer graphic program, known as “SketchPad”, which allowed people to write or draw simple figures directly on a screen with the help of a special pencil. This marked the start of all future CAD software.

At first, CAD was used only for research purposes, but in the 1970s, big automotive and aerospace companies started developing their own software, expanding its applications to other industries in the 1980s. It wasn’t until the 1990s that tools like CATIA and AutoCAD were born, making it possible to be used in many professional sectors.

There are several benefits of using CAD as a design and analysis tool:

Visualisation: It allows you to create and visualise 2D or 3D objects and make as many changes as you need with less effort than drawing it on paper with a pencil.

Detail: Digital representation in CAD is very close to real life, making it accurate up to a certain level. You can also add as much detail as you need.

Optimisation: Finding faults during the design process is very difficult but CAD software can help in a very reliable way, even though they are not perfect. The more sophisticated CAD programs even allow you to run simulations to test for imperfections.

Specialisation: There’s CAD software for almost every professional sector with specialised features and tools for each one, making it widely applicable.

Realisation: You have the possibility of bringing your digital design to the real world in the form of a physical object with the help of fabrication technologies and CAM software, which would be more difficult and expensive with traditional fabrication methods.

What is CAD is a reasonable question that beginners in design ask! CAD is used in various creative industries such as engineering, architecture, product design, graphic design, as well as in fashion design. These courses in fashion design, interior design, graphic design and product design offered by JD Institute offer a thorough learning of CAD and its applications.