Augmenting Mechanical CAD With Pen and Tablet Available to Purchase

Most designers and engineers tasked with creating concepts for a new machine or mechanical device do not first reach for their CAD station; they reach for pen and paper. However, designs generated on pen and paper often need to be redone in CAD systems and the prevalent belief is that capturing and processing these conceptual designs digitally from the start would save time, reduce errors, cut costs, prevent loss of prior concepts, add traceability, improve innovation and preserve expert knowledge. As preparation for a collaborative project building a tool to assist in the conceptual design of manufacturing/assembly systems, a broad current state of the art survey on pen-, table- and sketch-based design was done. This paper summarises part of that survey focussing on automated and/or interactive understanding of sketches of 3D systems, pen-based CAD, and existing systems exhibiting some of these technologies.