A random thought: I work as a software engineer. Also, I can think about 3-dimensional structures and sketch them on paper sufficiently to record the idea for later thought or sharing.

But, darn, all CAD software seems incredibly tedious to me -- even that which people say is "easy" to learn. It kind of reminds me a lot of every time I try to use IDEs for developing software (I'm the sort of person who likes a good text editor and the unix shell for software development.)

I'm wondering if this represents a valuable insight into what is lacking in existing CAD software, or if it's an just a necessary learning curve I haven't climbed that's inherent to the problem space.

Two things I've noticed with Photoshop and 3D modelling software like Blender:

- There's always a faster way to do what you want, but you have to know about it. It seems like every photoshop tutorial I see introduces a new, difficult brush or technique. I guess the only way to be acquainted with these is to spend a ton of time in the software, messing with everything. Essentially, you need to make a career - or life-consuming hobby of it. Otherwise you have a very small set of tools which can do everything, but excruciatingly slowly.

- Artists spend hours doing even simple things, because it's a craft and they want it to be perfect. Programmers are used to knocking out quick iterations and seeing immediate results. I'm not sure if this takes a different sort of mindset, longer attention span, or just a real dedication to what you do. I suspect OP's dad has this mindset, because fine woodworking would be similar in this respect.

I've just accepted that I'm not cut out for art; I take photos, but I don't even have the patience to do post. It's a very foreign mindset to me - it seems tedious, but every choice really does require human interaction, and skilled interaction at that.

Full disclosure: I have almost zero experience in this area.

I'm under the impression that CAD users learn the scripting language that goes with the software to automate a lot of the tedium. They're also the people who buy those crazy mice with the eight macro buttons and extension ports.

Take a look at OpenSCAD or SolidPython. They're 3D cad programs where models are explicitly created as programs - it might be an easier way to think about it.