Aerospace
You were hired to design the vehicle.
Not to spend Friday evening dimensioning it. Send the assembly from SolidWorks or Siemens NX and Drafter returns a fully dimensioned ASME Y14.5-2018 sheet for every part in it, linked parametrically to the model, with your title block and your tolerancing conventions, ready for you to check.
Seven drawings in thirty minutes, down from a day and a half.
“Drafter is really fast. It helps us move at the speed we need. The 7 drawings I made last week would've taken me one and a half days. With Drafter, it took 30 minutes.”
Drawing list
Strut assembly, forward
18 sheets · 1 assembly · 41 minutes
| Sheet | Part no | Title | Rev | Std | Drafted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | DFT-40120 | Bracket, forward mount | B | Y14.5 | |
| 002 | DFT-40121 | Fitting, feed line | A | Y14.5 | |
| 003 | DFT-40122 | Doubler, skin splice | A | Y14.5 | |
| 004 | DFT-40123 | Standoff, avionics tray | C | Y14.5 | |
| 005 | DFT-40124 | Cover, access panel | A | Y14.5 | |
| 006 | DFT-40125 | Clip, harness routing | A | Y14.5 |
One assembly in. A sheet for every part out.
Detailing forty parts by hand takes about two weeks, and they are the two weeks between design freeze and quotes coming back. Send the assembly and the whole package comes back, every part detailed and every sheet numbered, rather than the six somebody had time for.
Nothing lands on the sheet until you say so.
Your name goes in that title block, so Drafter only proposes. It reads the model, finds the features that mate, and puts up the datums and tolerances that control them to ASME Y14.5-2018, for you to accept, change or throw out.
See what ships on a sheet- Standard
- ASME Y14.5-2018
- Datums
- Proposed from the model
- Definition
- On the sheet or on the model
- Title block
- Yours
- Sheet
- Stays attached to the model
- Runs in
- SolidWorks, Siemens NX
- Reads
- STEP
- Review
- Before anything lands
Capabilities
What an aerospace team gets back.
Every part in the assembly
Send an assembly and get a numbered sheet for each part in it, down to the clips and standoffs.
GD&T to the 2018 rule set
Feature control frames, datum references and callouts follow ASME Y14.5-2018 on every sheet, so drawings read the same whichever engineer produced them.
Native in your CAD
Drafter runs as an add-in inside SolidWorks and Siemens NX, and reads STEP when a model reaches you without its native file.
Revisions re-run
A late design change regenerates the affected sheets and writes the revision block: what changed, what authorized it, and when.
Your conventions
Your title block, your tolerancing defaults and your sheet sizes, applied the same way across the whole package.
Nothing leaves the workspace
Models, drawings and design intent stay inside an isolated workspace. Nothing is trained on and nothing is shared, with AWS GovCloud or a locally hosted cloud deployment available for controlled programs.
The build waits on paper more often than on parts.
You cannot buy a machined fitting without a released drawing, and the drawing is usually late because the person who has to make it was hired to design the vehicle. Detailing is the one task on the program that scales with headcount and nothing else. Drafter takes detailing off the critical path. The engineer still decides what matters, but no longer spends the week dimensioning it.
The oldest job in manufacturingYour geometry does not go anywhere.
The model you send stays in your workspace, and you choose where that is: isolated AWS GovCloud, a private cloud, or on-prem inside your own facility. Nothing is trained on, nothing is shared, and nothing goes out to a third party.
How we handle controlled programsQuestions
What aerospace teams ask us first.
- Does it work on an assembly or only on a part?
- On an assembly. You send the assembly from SolidWorks or Siemens NX and Drafter returns a detailed sheet for every part in it, each one carrying your title block and the same tolerancing conventions.
- Do I have to accept the GD&T it proposes?
- No. Drafter reads the model and proposes the datums and tolerances that control the features that mate, and nothing lands on the sheet until you review it. You accept, change or throw out each one.
- Is the drawing still linked to the model afterwards?
- Yes. The sheet stays attached to the model, so a design change is a re-run: the affected sheets regenerate and the revision block records what changed and what authorized it.
- What happens when a supplier sends back a model with no native file?
- Drafter reads STEP. You do not need the originating CAD to get a standardized sheet out of a model that arrived on its own.
- Do our models leave our environment?
- No. Every workspace is isolated, nothing is trained on, nothing is shared and nothing goes out to a third party. Programs that require it run in AWS GovCloud or in a locally hosted cloud deployment of their own; see Drafter for Defense for how controlled work is handled.
- Does it replace our drafters?
- It replaces the part of the job that is transcription. Most aerospace teams we work with have no drafters left to replace: the detailing is being done by the design engineers, at night, and that is the time this gives back.