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Thinking in 3D

mgnt8

New member
http://www.solidsmack.com/fabrication/microsofts-3d-plans-may-affect-everyone-else/

"Secondly, those using the 3D tools will become accustomed to the idea of 3D. I cannot understate how critical this aspect is, because many people find it challenging to “think” in 3D. It takes a kind of mental leap to “get it”. Obviously most readers of this publication have likely done so, but this is not the case for the general public. Now that may change."


The mental leap they mention was supposed to happen before with gaming- the digital generation or something like that. Then it was supposed to be CGI movie effects, 3D TV, 3D printing, free 3D CAD.The critical mass wasn't reached with any of them. Maybe when it's finally on smart phones the cafone will all see the light.

I remember when it first clicked for me. Early on when I first learned Pro/E I was noodling around trying to figure out curves, and then- straight into the dumpster.

How about ya'll, did the penny drop for anybody else out there? Or was it just a slow and steady grind up from one D to the next D to the next D?
Or maybe it was just turtles all the way down, you sat down behind the screen for the first time like you were putting on a new pair of pants?
 
I got a job at a company once that had been using Cadkey since the 80s. It didn't do anything for me either. I got out of it by teaching everyone there Pro/E. I showed them an industry salary survey and promised to show them everything I knew during lunch. After 6 months nobody would even look at the old CAD system anymore.
 
I went from paper drafting to 2D ACAD then straight to Proe. I never looked back, I guess it all just made sense from day one.

I'm not sure if my mind was just wired to think n 3D or if my Industrial Design training had me better prepared or what, but the leap came easy for me.
 
I went from paper drafting to 2D ACAD then straight to Proe. I never looked back, I guess it all just made sense from day one.

I'm not sure if my mind was just wired to think n 3D or if my Industrial Design training had me better prepared or what, but the leap came easy for me.

Some peoples minds work differently. I have "thought" in 3D for as long as I can remember and it wasn't till just a few weeks ago when my boss introduced me to someone and commented "He thinks in 3D" that I realized that was something special. Mechanical drawing concepts came really easy for me back on the board in high school but I got consistent C's in drawing classes because of "messy" drawings - I'm the first to admit I'm no artist. Fortunately this was at the beginning of CAD so there was hope for me. "Auracad" - a $300 Mac based program - was the easiest cad program I've ever learned. No tutorials, no manuals - the program was amazingly intuitive and in a couple of days I was being productive. After a few years I met ProE and was in a totally new dream world - that was version 16. It all went smoothly with consistent improvements until Wildfire came along. I was the last one in the office to make the transition. I wish I could have stayed there - I don't remember the version number at the time. I had to use Wildfire because all my co-workers did. That transition was customer driven incidentally - we were doing just fine with the previous version. Fortunately for me when Creo came out I had moved on to other pastures (not always greener) and now I'm the only designer in the place so I can use what I want - that's why I'm still on WF3 - because I want to. I see no reason to invest a lot of time just to learn how to do the same thing in a different way. Creo has nothing to offer me that I don't already have.

I'm sure there are situations when the capabilities of Creo over WF are a blessing, but fortunately for me I have yet to run into anything that I couldn't handle.
 
I wish I could have stayed there - I don't remember the version number at the time. I had to use Wildfire because all my co-workers did. That transition was customer driven incidentally - we were doing just fine with the previous version. Fortunately for me when Creo came out I had moved on to other pastures (not always greener) and now I'm the only designer in the place so I can use what I want - that's why I'm still on WF3 - because I want to. I see no reason to invest a lot of time just to learn how to do the same thing in a different way. Creo has nothing to offer me that I don't already have.

I'm sure there are situations when the capabilities of Creo over WF are a blessing, but fortunately for me I have yet to run into anything that I couldn't handle.

Pre-Wildfire would have been version 2001. I liked it too!
 
As kids we started out w/ 3d blocks. Legos or even the preschool blocks w/ numbers and letters. We were always thinking in 3d. Then drafting teachers got us off 3d and onto 2d thus thinking in projections. I found it's the AutoCAD 2d people that are the hardest to get onto Solidworks or Creo. From a non ME degree perspective give me a mechanic any day.

Interesting side note on IQ & Specific to 'Spacial Ability' (which is what we do playing in 3d Creo)
There is some interesting research out on intelligence. In the past it has always been assumed that we are born w/ an innate intelligence. ei. Humans have a specific IQ and that ability to learn is genetic. Recently with MRI technologists one Neuroscientist doing research has categorized thousands of brain scans and noticed subsequent folds in the brains grow over time. Comparing an 8 yo boy MRI brain scan & the same person each subsequent five years noticed specific folds grow in various places.

With engineers & Physicists specifically it was noticed one place in the back right half a 'U' shaped fold (first noticed in Albert Ernestine's brain) specific folds over other persons brain. Later research shared that maybe humans can gain in IQ where it was once thought your genetic makeup did not allow IQ to change after birth. The 'U' shaped fold was attributed to spacial ability that engineers and Physicists gain from 'SPACIAL ABILITIES' as research gained more and more examples or data analytics.

Ill see if I can locate some information online if anyone cares.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2016/feb/03/the-physics-of-brain-folding < this article is interesting on folds but is not the one Im looking for.
 
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The 'U' shaped fold was attributed to spacial ability that engineers and Physicists gain from 'SPACIAL ABILITIES' as research gained more and more examples or data analytics.


I guess the "U" shaped folds is what makes engineers and Physicists "Spacial"
 
I went from paper drafting to 2D ACAD then straight to Proe. I never looked back, I guess it all just made sense from day one.

I'm not sure if my mind was just wired to think n 3D or if my Industrial Design training had me better prepared or what, but the leap came easy for me.

I found 2D ACAD to be incredibly frustrating, just a slightly automated version of paper drafting. Then I saw Pro/E release 1 and knew I had to have it. It was like the first time I saw a Hewlett Packard RPN calculator. It was just the right way to do things. I'm still using both.
 

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