From the first years of the last century, engineering and design methods have witnessed the evaluation of support tools that enabled the engineer to find solutions to complex problems. An engineer sees and will always see the word "complex" as a challenge against which he can measure his own technical-scientific mettle when supported by his tools. So during the early 1900s draft drawings were made by hand with a pencil or ink and calculations were made with the mythical square rule, resolving "complex" problems that today still number among the themes that continue to challenge engineers.
Little by little, computers arrived and revolutionized these methods. Automatic calculation programs written in different languages and based on the Principle of Virtual Work began to spread among professionals, enabling them to speed up their calculations and verifications at levels never before imagined. Meanwhile, the first software of so-called analytic drawing, based on calculation codes that translate the lines traced on the computer monitor into command strings, offering a speed and precision that would be impossible to obtain with a hand drawing. The development of such software took place at an impressive speed, to the point of providing an irreplaceable tool for any engineer at any level of planning.
Certainly, the ties with classical methods of engineering and design remain strong and limited by a sense of respect and recognition for the origins of the engineering profession, but in consideration of the present and looking towards the future, it will be increasingly necessary for new generations to offer services that are always more complete and punctual with a global view of the work in progress.
