It really helps me if I can visualize a system as well. It also helps point out potential problems in the design, and/or my ideas before I build it. As well as makes it easier to see ways to make it better and/or more efficient. Before I spend the money to build it. I love coming up with new designs, I have way more designs than I have money to build. But it's free to draw them up. I use a free 3D drawing program called
Google Sketchup to make the drawings. It's pretty easy to use, but does take some getting used to. They also have some
video instruction on how to use the program. you basically make one drawing in 3D, then you can zoom in or out, and rotate it to any angle you want, as well as add text if you want. Then you export as many angles as you want of the drawing as a 2D jpg. image. You just click "File" then scroll down to "export" and pick "2D Graphic," then just save it to any folder you want. You can save the 3D drawings as well, but other people wont be able to view them unless they have the Google sketchup program installed on their computer.
When I make drawings I will save it early in the drawing, then use the "save a copy as" option at different times as I progress in making the complete drawing. That way I have the drawings saved in different stages, rather than just the one saved as it was the last time I was working on it. Also if I want to go back to an earlier version, I don't need to erase all I did after that, And if I do something different with it, I still have the original copy saved. I can also easily compare both side by side.
I have downloaded and installed another free 3D program
3DCrafter, but I haven't really used it. I started a couple of times, but I'm just so used to Google sketchup, and haven't really wanted to take the time to learn how to use the 3D crafter program yet.