[Nfb-science] 3D engineering software

[Bryan Duarte]

Hello Mike,

Before I became a software engineering major I wanted to pursue mechanical engineering since it was my life long goal as a high school student. I loved being able to create working drawings using board drafting and auto CAD. When I became blind I searched and searched for a way to continue this dream but ultimately gave up when I found the limited options for blind CAD users. To be honest it was not really a matter of the limited tools which forced me to change my mind in this area it was when I began conducting labor market research for a blind mechanical engineer. Please  do not mistake my opinion here. I am in no way stating that a blind person cannot become a mechanical engineer or equivalent if they so choose, but for me the gratification of being a mechanical engineer was in watching my work evolving into a complete solution. As a blind drafter or architectural designer I felt it would be nearly impossible for me to market myself as a blind artist if you will, even if there were tools available which allowed me to interact with my drawings.

I would guess there are tools available by this time which provide some level of accessibility for a blind person but keep in mind if this student does not have at least some usable vision reviewing their work or efficiently interacting with their work may be a bigger challenge than accessing the tools. For developing simple drawings there is a text based option called open scad which allows the user to write code to build an object but as I stated above this is of little use when they cannot compile it and see what they have created. There is a woman named Lindsay Yazzolino who does a lot of work with 3D printing and maybe she has a better or more options for this as a blind person. If she does not see this post and does not respond I will reach out to her and provide her your information.
> On May 16, 2016, at 10:29 AM, Mike Plansker-ESC via Nfb-science <nfb-science at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Mike