I had arrived in Munich two days early and was staying in a hotel near the centre. My CAD course was starting on Monday and I was keen to get started on some of the material to get a head start on the other students. CAD stands for computer-aided design and refers to the process of using computer technology to help with the design and drafting of a physical product or a part of a product. Design had always been a passion of mine and I was excited about learning more about CAD, and hopefully turning this passion into a career for myself.
The course I was attending was for 30 weeks full time, so I was going to look at more permanent accommodation options shortly. Surprisingly though, learning CAD in a Hotel Munich (Hotel München) was an easy way to get started as the hotel had good wi-fi access and a nice desk that I could sit down in and get lost for hours. I had done some general computer design work before, but nothing like this. When I first opened up my new textbooks and started the software applications that I would be using, it was a little intimidating to say the least. I knew that learning off my teachers in a couple of days would be so much easier, but I just could not wait to get started.
The first thing I learned about was the difference between two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) design, and the different applications for these different types of drafting. The 2D design process seemed to use a vector based system while the 3D design procedure used modellers that directly constructed the solids and surfaces of the design object. The program that I would be using most of the time in my course was really cool as it allowed for rotation of a 3D object in three dimensions, I could even look at it from the inside out! I spent a few hours just skimming over my textbooks and trying out a couple of simple methods on my laptop. It was really exciting and the technology was amazing, but I could see that the learning curve was going to be quite steep at first.
I was really into geometry and had always thought that the method of wire frame modelling sounded like lots of fun. If you’re not a design geek like me then you probably haven’t even heard about this before, but basically a wire frame model is a representation of an electronic representation of an object. It allows for an underlying geometric view of an object where you can study the vertices and edges of an object without all those other details getting in the way. I had heard a lot about this type of modelling before, but had never actually done any myself. What I found surprising was that it was fairly easy to implement. After a few hours when I was a bit more familiar with the software I was using I had a go at making a simple platonic solid and was partly successful, not bad for a first try I thought.
Learning CAD at a Hotel Munich (Tagungshotel München) may not be the normal route for a beginning student to go down, but I was having fun and could not wait for my course to get started on Monday. I had lots to keep me busy until then though, and with my laptop by my side I will probably work deep into the night.