Engineering sketching

[milo]

Hi. I am a Mechanical Engineer and do a lot of drafting and design on my desktop machine. However most of my work begins on site with sketches and measurements that are taken down on paper.

I am getting a ppc so that I can do the sketches and record the measurements electronically for easier transfer to AutoCAD back at the office.

So far I have not been able to find a program which is dedicated or optimised for this purpose. I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge of this field? PockCAD seems to be the go but it would require starting from the opposite end of the process... ie you need the measurements to do the sketch. Parametric drawing similar to Pro-Engineer or such would be more convenient where you can do the sketch then it adjusts for dimensions and relationships as you input them.

Cheers for any help.

[rhmorrison]

Sounds like a Tablet-PC might be a better choice for your purpose.

[Kowalski]

i am an electronic engineer and like you i sometimes have to draw schematics but like morrison stated ppc is not convient here.
so i always carry good old friend a pen and a paper.

[Sven Johannsen]

I agree with rhmorrison...Tablet.

[milo]

Yeh, I'd considered a tablet but a lot of my work is done in arduous environments. A tablet is a little too easily damaged whereas a 2210 fitted with a waterproof armor casing is quite rugged. Plus, the tablet is a little too bulky for most situations. One example is the other day where I was taking measurements of a bolting and meshing platform 30m down a raisebore with a 40m drop below me. To get to the platform I had to climb down an oil and dirt encrusted ladder with the only light from my caplamp. I needed all the free hands I could muster.

Another example is just this morning where I was taking measurements on a paste plant while it was operating. Dirt, water, mud, paste and concrete (wet) were flying in all directions while I was crawling around underneath it. A tablet wouldn't have tolerated the water, would have got banged and scratched, and would have simply been too bulky to be convenient.

As Kolwaski said, the good old pen and paper is generally the best answer. It just seems to me that you should be able to start the drafting process right from the preliminary sketch that you do.