Today, there is a wide variety of options to consider when purchasing CAD software including: 2D Drafting - Technical Illustration Software 3D Wireframe/Surface Modelers 3D Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) Solid Modeling 3D Boundary Representation (Brep) Solid Modeling 3D Hybrid Solid Modeling 3D Feature-based Solid Modeling 3D Parametric, Feature-based Solid Modeling 3D Dynamic, Feature-based Solid Modeling In principle, CAD could be applied throughout the design process, but in practice its impact on the early stages, where very imprecise representations such as sketches are used extensively, has been limited. There are some new software programs currently available which are trying to fill this niche. It remains to be seen how effective they will be and how widely they will be implemented. 2D Drafting In Mechanical Design, there are a few specific options to look for when choosing a 2D drafting package. They should provide: a complete library of geometric entities...