ENGINEERED SOFTWARE - Key Persons
Alfred Scott was president of Sequoia Aircraft Corporation (now closed) and is the author of the WildTools add-on for PowerCADD. Angus Enterprises, 5407 Patterson Ave, Richmond, VA 23226. (804) 353-1713 cell: (804) 690-4591 alfred.scott@me.com www.seqair.com
Job Titles:
- Engineer, Manager and CEO of the Achenseebahn Railway
Bernhard Marchi is engineer, manager and CEO of the Achenseebahn Railway in Bahnhof, Austria.
Bobby Payne was an architect in Richmond, Virginia. I first met him when we worked together on a condominium project. We were both interested in drawing on a computer, and we only wanted to use Macs, of course.
Bobby's office was a couple of blocks from my office, and we regularly went to lunch together. When I began working on some tools in PowerDraw 4, Bobby started making suggestions for things that were needed. The first was the Insulation Fill tool and he explained how the curves should change with a wide pattern. Then we worked on the Door and Window tools, and spent a lot of time talking about drafting problems.
I remember once Peter Carlsen sent me a note about the difficulty of dimensioning to the center of a wall. I couldn't make sense of it, and Bobby explained what Peter was talking about, and from that came the Wall Centerline tool.
Later we decided to do some electrical symbol tools, and Bobby just gave me a list of what was needed and so then we had the Switch, Receptacle, Junction Box, Ceiling Fan and all the other similar tools.
So he was there at the beginning of WildTools and he played an important role in the design and execution of the tools.
Bobby retired in 2006 after he developed Alzheimer's, and my old friend died on January 1, 2011.
I am a structural and miscellaneous steel draftsman working in Shoreline, Washington, a city that used to be considered unincorporated Seattle. I have been using Macs since 1984 when I bought a 128k Macintosh.
At age 55, I made three great decisions. Up to that point, I had never touched a computer key, but I decided to try drawing using a computer, to purchase a Macintosh, and to purchase PowerDraw. Some of my architect friends who were familiar with computer drafting using AutoCAD tried to discourage me from attempting what they considered to be very difficult.
PowerDraw and subsequently PowerCADD/WildTools changed my life. In only 30 days, thanks to the Macintosh and PowerDraw, I was producing drawings on the computer faster and much better than with graphite and ink.
Today with PowerCADD and the amazing WildTools, I can draw anything and draw it damn fast, but more importantly, I now love to draw using these great tools.
Cal Holcombe is an architect in Richmond, Virginia. (804) 358-7637 JCHolcombe@aol.com
I submit these these drawings with some reluctance. I am not a designer, engineer or draftsman.
I purchased PowerCADD with WildTools in July of 2000. I learned PowerCADD in the evenings and on weekends without any training other than the manuals and the PowerCADD forum. I was able to produce these drawings and many other working drawings in use every day. These particular drawings have been converted to DWG and installed in our company library.
Because of the ease and speed at which I can work, I was assigned the task of wading through our CAD library to replace, modify or create drawings of our field equipment which had become horribly inaccurate.
In real life, I am a shop supervisor. My company lays fiber optic and power cable on the sea floor all over the world. We design, build, modify, adapt, destroy, create and forcibly use about everything known to man to put cable on the sea floor. Years ago, we acquired two rotating turn-tables measuring 36' across and 20' high. We missed acquiring several projects recently because one costly key piece was missing. A mechanism was required to lift cable from the rotating tubs so they can be transferred to machines and equipment which ultimately bury the cable on the sea floor. This piece is called a Lifting Arm or Capra.
After taking a Mac for a "Test Drive" in late 1984, sitting up all night playing with this marvelous new computer, and breaking a promise I made to myself to never, ever, again touch a computer for as long as I lived (still reeling from countless hours sitting in the college computer center writing programs in Fortran IV, typing out thousands of lines of code on card punch machines, wasting even more cards due to typo/syntax errors, waiting for the "batch process" 360 mainframe to be run, discovering I needed to debug further, etc.), I knew that my life and opinion of computers would soon change forever. About a year later I bought my first Mac … a "Fat Mac" 512K machine.
From that time onward, I used my Mac primarily as a word processor, even though I bought MacDraw, MacDraft, MiniCad, PowerDraw, TurboCad, Vellum 3D … and a few other packages I can't now remember. Even though I wanted to do CAD with a Mac for years and years, I still designed and drafted manually, using every excuse in the book for delaying my serious entry into CAD. In late 1993 I decided to go whole hog, went hugely into debt, retired my old Mac and bought a new high-end Mac system, and started doing CAD seriously. I found that I had to get rid of virtually all my old drafting tools/tables, etc., for me to force myself into a new mode of thinking. And I've never looked back.
Chris Black is an engineer and architectural designer. Black, Atwood & Associates, Inc. 1581 Ogden Street, Denver, Colorado 80218 (303) 830-1459 ChrisBlack@hypermall.net
PowerCADD is an elegant tool. It does not try to be everything (like 3D Modeling) and this enables it to remain intuitive and easy to learn. What I am finding now, having used it for a few years, is how versatile and powerful each tool is. My approach in learning PowerCADD has been "there has got to be shortcut." Taking the time to learn the tools and how to control them has helped me find a technique for drawing that is fluid and satisfying. Knowing each tool brings confidence and speed and ultimately, higher quality drawings.
I am convinced, so far, that 3D modeling should be just that, 3D. I am also convinced that constructing 2D drawings using conventional techniques on PowerCADD helps one understand the building more thoroughly because it requires coordination between views that must be confirmed manually. My process for DESIGN works best when both are used: 3D physical models and 2D computer drawings. I find 3D model construction on the computer slow. It is more difficult and less satisfying to view and discuss a computer model. A simple physical model is easier to read spatially and this enables you to get on with design. The process is different for PRESENTATION. Quick hidden line perspectives generated in FormZ can be brought into PowerCADD where detail is added. Next step is to bring perspective line drawing in to Photoshop and/or Illustrator for colour and texture. Final output may be direct or may be included in a Quark presentation document.
David Scott was born in Glasgow, and brought up (raised) in Edinburgh. He graduated B ARCH (hons) at Edinburgh College of Art/ Heriot-Wall University, Edinburgh in 1982, and registered as a chartered architect in 1984. He is an associate member of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. On completion of his academic courses he worked for four years with WN Thomson & Co Architects Edinburgh, and since 1987 has been employed by Orkney Islands Council (www.orkney.gov.uk), a local government organisation in the Orkney Isles of northern Scotland. He is engaged in the design and maintenance of a wide range of public buildings throughout the isles. David, his wife Jacqueline and their two boys Erlend and Samuel make their home in Kirkwall, Orkney. Email: david.scott@orkney.gov.uk
I began working with computers in my student days in the 70's with Apple IIs and Commodore Pets. Back then, computer drafting was something out in futureland. I later worked for a private architects firm in Edinburgh in the 80's when AutoCAD started to be used by some of the larger firms. My boss though was a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist, and we still used T-squares! Mine had 1939 stamped on it and was so worn; long lines had a downward curve to them!
I first encountered the Mac in 1984 at a home show (of all places). Up to that time I, and the architectural designer I worked for, were die-hard Apple II users. We spent long hours with VisiCalc and Basic, getting the machine to do what we needed. My first thought was that the Mac was a great idea, but slow and impractical. Ironically, it was a demonstration of Excel a year later that pushed me squarely into the Mac camp. I thought, "This is the future!"
It was a year after that when I began experimenting with CAD, and after several disappointing experiments with MiniCad, MacDraft and others best forgotten (but never PowerDraw!), I settled for using MacDraw along with a clever add-on called Sizer and Adjacency. The add-on allowed precision dimensioning and positioning, something not possible then with MacDraw. I struggled, but there was no way I was going to use the pokey, counter-intuitive AutoCAD on a PC. Forget it!
After a stint in graduate school, I tried ClarisCAD and then finally settled for a time on Blueprint, the 2D version of MiniCAD. But I still wasn't satisfied. Finally, a few years ago, Mike Charek persuaded me to try PowerDraw. I thought it was good, but it was like that first Mac I saw: "Will this cut it?" And then with Mike's prodding I discovered WildTools. It was like seeing Excel run on that early Mac. "This is it!", I thought, "Finally, somebody who really knows about drawing is writing tools!" The power and productivity gains were astonishing.
Today, with fast faster processors, large memory spaces and speedy hard drives, the Mac and PowerCADD/WildTools make a powerful, yet fun-to-use engineer's workstation. I regularly run up to a dozen applications, including frame analyzers, spreadsheets, word processing documents and drawings. It's the power and flexibility I could only dream about ten years ago. Part of the Mac's promise then was a computer that didn't get in the user's way, opening the door to creativity. PowerCADD and WildTools deliver on that promise for CAD. There's nothing else like it.
Ed Cundy was an engineer [now retired] in Norway, Maine
Job Titles:
- Ed Jaworski Is Project Manager With Eagle Iron Construction, Fontana, CA, One of the Largest Steel Erectors on the West Coast.
Ed Jaworski is project manager with Eagle Iron Construction, Fontana, CA, one of the largest steel erectors on the West Coast. (909) 357-1171 ed@eagleiron.net www.eagleiron.net
I began my career working on the drafting board with mylar and plastic lead. After a few years had passed and the Macintosh had evolved, the firm I was with purchased its first workstations. We quickly realized that CAD would replace the old methods of drawing production. We began using PowerDraw and WildTools for production of construction documents and presentations.
After 13 years of employment, I left the firm to form my own business. With PowerCADD and WildTools on my side, I knew I could be successful. This software allows me to explore design possibilities while working efficiently. It operates intuitively, almost the same as if you were sitting at a drafting board, although much more accurately and with many more drafting tools at your disposal.
Although I have little experience with other drafting software, it's my honest opinion that PowerCADD and WildTools is the best 2D package available. It's easy to learn, the price is right, and it's fun!
All WildTools/TopoTools users owe a debt of gratitude to Eric Easter; without him TopoTools would not exist. Eric first contacted me about Paolo Rossi's Topography Tools, saying that Paolo had a lot of good ideas but that the concept could be taken much further. I began working on TopoTools, and we had many video chats with Eric discussing what was involved in topography, the critical topo survey data from total stations, how to import and then process this to show topo contours and slopes, what a topo point object should handle, interpolating topo points, etc.
Then many other people got involved in the development of TopoTools, but Eric was always my resident expert who made sense of it all. Once in California we visited with Eric at his office in Santa Cruz and had lunch on the restaurant on the pier.
In creating this entry for the Drawing Room, I tried to get in touch with Eric, and I was saddened to learn that Eric died in October 2013. Eileen Leary worked with him for many years and reported "Eric struggled for years with his health and passed away peacefully with his family by his side last October. He continued to work up until his last couple weeks without complaint. Eric was a good person, and I miss him most everyday."
Erik Mar in an architect in Santa Monica, CA and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture, University of Southern California. (310) 508-9390 erik@emarStudio.com www.emarStudio.com
Carde Ten Architects has used PowerCADD since PowerDraw 2. We have used WildTools since PowerCADD 3 and by now would not consider purchasing a PowerCADD package without a WildTools complement to go along with it. Although the majority of our work, from schematic design layouts, to full color presentations, to the contract documents, is completed almost exclusively within PowerCADD, we are beginning to use PowerCADD more to generate the base drawings onto which we then generate 3D models, 3D renderings, and final page layout and compositing in applications other than PowerCADD. In spite of the gains made in terms of ease of use in other competing CAD packages, most of us still find PowerCADD/WildTools to be the fastest way to generate the essential drawings necessary for more elaborate presentation work. Of course, for the 2D world of construction drawings, PowerCADD/WildTools is unsurpassed, in spite of occasional hiccups in drawing exchange with AutoCAD-wielding consultants. The speed with which we can respond with drawing information to the various exigencies faced in architectural work is due in no small part to the speed and low hardware requirements of PowerCADD/WildTools (although of course there's no such thing as a computer that's ever really fast enough).
A major advantage of the PowerCADD alternative must be the access one has as a user to the software developers and programmers. Bugs are addressed relatively rapidly, and new features are truly often the result of user input. One can scarcely imagine the same being said of AutoDesk or Bentley or even Graphisoft.
In spite of some rough spots and unresolved features, the overall solution presented by the use of PowerCADD/WildTools is unique and in our opinion highly beneficial to us in the last instance. And one always has confidence that those rough spots, if sufficiently documented, will eventually be smoothed over once brought to the attention of the relevant parties.
Many of the drawings shown here were done for Carde Ten Architects in Santa Monica, and they were created using a combination of PowerCADD, Form Z, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
Eugene Silva is an architect in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (780) 901-5359 eugene@e3architecture.com www.e3architecture.com
For many years my drafting work was focused on precision electromechanical machine tools and aircraft parts, but in recent years it's much simpler - mostly depictions of architectural elements in which I've always been interested. I use PowerCADD with WildTools because it's the most powerful and intuitive drafting software system I've ever encountered. Drawing is genuinely fun, and I never encounter a depiction I can't produce quickly and easily.
Frank Christensen founded Tempress Industries in Northern California in 1960 while finishing his last year at Stanford University. He learned of the needs of the then infant semiconductor industry and set up shop with some special-purpose machine tools. Among the first people he called on were Robert Noyce and Andy Grove, then obscure engineers at Fairchild Semiconductor. (Noyce and Grove were later the founders of Intel). Fairchild was the first company to find a way to produce semiconductor devices in volume, and they needed specialized production tools and machinery to produce the ultraminiature microelectronic devices. They gave Frank an opportunity, and over the next dozen years his company grew at a phenomenal pace to hundreds of employees.
At age 34, Frank sold his company to an electronics conglomerate, purchased a ranch in Hollister, California, built a private airport, and "retired"; but he soon got the itch to design and build again, and he started Christen Industries to manufacture aerobatic aircraft accessory products (his inverted oil system for Lycoming aircraft engines has been the industry standard for decades). Frank is best known in the aviation community for the creation of the Christen Eagle II aerobatic kitplane, the first totally complete high quality aircraft kit to be marketed. The kit construction manuals are legendary - in all there are over 30 profusely illustrated 300-page instruction books that take you step-by-step through the construction of the aircraft. Christen Industries later acquired and operated the Pitts Special factory in Afton, Wyoming. Under Frank's ownership, the company developed the FAA certificated Christen Husky aircraft.
Frank subsequently sold his aircraft manufacturing company, but he doesn't consider himself retired. Rather, he describes himself as "between troubles." Because of his experience with drafting and producing the Christen Eagle II manuals, he has long been interested in computer-aided-drafting. He purchased an IBM Fast-Draft system for his aircraft design work in the '70s, but he eventually settled on the Macintosh and PowerDraw which he introduced to his crazy friend Alfred Scott. Since then, he and Alfred have been the principal unindicted co-conspirators in the creation of WildTools, often conferring by telephone on Sunday mornings on some new feature for WildTools. (Frank and Alfred both categorically deny being obsessive-compulsives.)
Frank Sandoval is employed at Bogner Pools in Riverside, California and oversees four designers using PowerCADD and WildTools. Frank personally designs some of the more intricate projects. (951) 688-5543 frank@bognerpools.
I always strive to separate myself from the pack. The swimming pool industry can be a rough and tumble proposition. Any edge against the competition is valuable. PowerCADD, WildTools and the Macintosh make it possible to be worlds above typical, tired, template pool designs seen again and again among the unenlightened. PowerCADD has the flexibility to create without thinking about the procedure of creating. WildTools is invaluable in this arena. I can't tell you how many times I have asked myself, "if there were just a tool that did _____." Every single time, WildTools comes to the rescue. I still to this day find new ways and techniques to create and improve.
If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit snobbish about my work. It's very simple. I'm the best because I use the best tools of my trade. Normally, the best tools are the most expensive; this is not true of PowerCADD and WildTools. I find these tools easier to use than any other CAD software at any price. I have no formal training in computers or CAD. The bottom line, it just works!
In running my own mechanical design firm, I must quickly generate drawings for a variety of uses, from conceptual drawings to the isometric drawings used in assembly documentation. PowerCADD is so easy to use, yet it has all the horsepower I need to create accurate CAD drawings for the electro-mechanical hardware I specialize in. With PowerCADD, my design cycle was easily cut in half. In other words, I have time to do it right the first time.
While I constantly hear about the 3D capabilities of AutoCAD and CADKey, I have yet to see users of these packages regularly create isometric illustrations. The reason - it takes too long and the 3D illustrations look terrible. On the other hand, generating isometrics in PowerCADD is quick and easy thanks to the many dedicated isometric tools and the true Macintosh interface; it does not require me to be a CAD expert to get expert results.
Job Titles:
- Building Designer in Cape Coral
Fred Weller is a building designer in Cape Coral, Florida. (941) 542-8891. Things@aol.com
I began at the age of 14 working with a teacher doing drafting for small homes and additions for Board of Occupational Educational Services (BOCES). My professional career began in 1969 at the age of 17 working for a New York architectural firm, I attended Delhi College and returned to work at the New York firm. With my varied and extensive background in architectural detailing, I progressed in 1973 to the position of design coordinator where I was responsible for project design, design development and construction documentation. In 1975, I attained the position of project manager.
The next few years I worked for several other architectural firms and then established my own firm to provide contemporary residential design nationwide in 1981. I formed a developmental partnership called Church Design Collaborative with a contractor and a semi-retired architect to do just religious facilities as a design/build team the same year. This firm completed several large religious facilities each year until January 1988 when both my residential practice and Church Design Collaborative were closed because I decided to retire. After not being involved in the building industry for a while and pressure from colleagues I had worked with to return to designing high end residential projects as a consultant, in January 1990 I developed a new firm with offices in Florida, New york and Pennsylvania.
Job Titles:
- Senior Instructor at the University of British Columbia
Greg Johnson is a senior instructor at the University of British Columbia, with a joint appointment between the School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture and the Department of Civil Engineering. He is also a principal and maintains a minor involvement in a Vancouver-based architectural firm which undertakes a variety of institutional, residential and commercial projects throughout the province of British Columbia. Greg Johnson, Principle Architecture, 1447 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1W8, Canada cell: (604) 897 5925 gwjohnson@telus.net
I have been using PowerDraw/CADD since version 2, primarily for architectural construction drawings, although with WildTools, the program's sophisticated 2D drawing tools and intuitive interface makes it a great tool for presentation drawings, renderings, annotations and the preparation of slides for Keynote presentations as well.