Resumen de Can open-source 3D mechanical CAD systems effectively support university courses?
Luca Di Angelo, Francesco LeaIi, Paolo Di Stefano
Most universities have introduced 3D CAD education and training in their engineering courses in recent years so as torespond to the actual needs of the industrial world for high-skilled design engineers. It is well demonstrated that theeffectiveness of such courses depends on teaching an effective design approach rather than training for the use of specificcommercial CAD tools. Since open-source CAD software has emerged in many fields as a promising alternative tocommercial off-the-shelf systems, the present paper investigates the possibility for universities to adopt open-sourceinstruments to effectively support their educational goals. Open-source 3D CAD systems are quantitatively evaluated byan original Compliance Index which considers the design tools typically used to model and draw industrial products andtheir weights in accomplishing the design tasks. The results obtained for the evaluation of a set of open-source CADsystems are presented and critically discussed.
