In my experience, it often works / looks perfect in the head. But putting it to paper, it falls apart quickly. Imagine a bicycle, it is easy to imagine it accurately. Then draw it (or construct it), one usually struggles a lot. The step to materialize it, is where you need a lot of practice.
The worst are the the "idea" guys. They think they have already done all the work, and somebody else just needs to put it to paper. If you're that someone, expect lots of trial and error. He'll "know when he sees it", but can't give directions.
It might be the way my mind works but for me I "feel" the parts more then see them.
But I can't visualise with accurate dimensions, and for me I find that matters a lot in terms of manufacturability.
Even very simple designs I usually end up making several iterations on paper or in cad. It's only after dimensioning, doing some basic calculations (say, will this bit be strong enough), matching to available stock and parts, double checking the tooling I have to make sure I can actually make the things I've drawn, looking for interference and so on that I know what the design is really going to look like.
People who are really good, I think, naturally design parts to minimise setup time and with the jigs and workholding they'll need to make them in mind. I'm not there yet... I still snooker myself on workholding or order of operations reasonably often.
Have someone who knows how to drive sit in a chair, close their eyes and pretend to be driving. Ask them to make a lane change. Most people will turn the wheel slightly, then straighten it. A real lane change requires turning the wheel in the opposite direction to keep from moving past the lane you merge into.
Being able to see details like that in your head is highly exceptional, IMO.
> Doesn't everyone do this?
Furthermore, most people hit a very real wall when trying to imagine things that are too complex, limited by their working memory.
Even Tesla might have been stretching the truth. He can "see the balance"? Right - no. Either it's balanced due to being symmetrical (both from a conventional 'visual' perspective or in mass) or it's not. It's not a thing you discover by visualization.
Furthermore, I am trying to do this with a user story at work right now, and I am realizing that it's much faster to get it down on paper than try to re-run it in my mind.
That’s trivially simple, right?
Well, maybe if your name is Michelangelo.
I wish I had the ability of imagination like you describe.
I don’t think I have full-on aphantasia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia) but I definitely can’t run simulations in my mind.
I'm eager to try spending time imagining / visualizing things as I used to do when I was a kid, but it's hard to find time with all the exciting projects and busy life stuff in the way.
The caveat is that you probably should have a certain level of experience and mastery to make full use of this ability.
I can describe things in detail based on spatial relationships very accurately with my eyes closed, but at the very most I sometimes see vague subsecond flashes.
Cheekily, I sometimes claim I have no need to close my eyes when I think, so I can work simultaneously from what's modeled in my head.
Fascinating take on the subject: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-...
> According to Hulburt, not many people have an inner monologue 100 per cent of the time, but most do sometimes. He estimates that inner monologue is a frequent thing for 30 to 50 per cent of people.
I find with certain sports once you get the hang of it you do this. For me with aggressive inline skating I might imagine a lineup of tricks, getting the feeling for it before attempting the tricks. For boxing you can start to imagine an opponents punches and how you might slip or weave them followed by your own punches etc. For the folks talking about aphantasia, I find it difficult to hold a vivid image in my mind, so for me personally I don't so much see it, it's more like having the feeling for it or simulation via abstraction.
As a kid I also would imagine that I could levitate. I would wonder if perhaps the reason people couldn't do some things like levitation is that they didn't try hard enough. If I lay still I would actually feel like I was lifting off the bed.
I would describe that levitation trying like trying to move a paralysed limb. Like we had neuronal circuitry required for levitating, but it doesn't work anymore. Human senses interpretation is wonderful thing. You can even see through tongue or skin on your back (with electrode array connected to camera).
Ask how many developers visualise their design in their mind before they type a single line of code.