THE USE OF PARAMETRIC TRIDIMENSIONAL MODELERS IN THE FORMATION OF ENGINEERING DESIGN GRAPHICS AND SPATIAL REASONING COMPETENCIES IN DESIGN PROCESS

Abstract

This paper reports some reflections on the engineering design graphics (EDG) and product development current paradigms in the context of their teaching and learning processes. Such reflections are related to ongoing pedagogic experiments in industrial and mechanical engineering undergraduate courses. One of the main arguments is the inseparability of graphic representation and design process. This link between intrinsically related areas was not very frequent in the curriculum frame among architecture, design and engineering courses. Historically, the EDG area is positioned in an independent way and not integrated to the engineering contents and the design process itself. In this sense, this paper presents some reflections linked to recent aspects of the EDG learning process from a historic perspective of the Computer Aided Design tools. From those discussions, some teaching and learning experiments are reported with the use of three-dimensional parametric solid modelers.