AutoCAD is used by professionals world-wide to create the drawing files that define the buildings, equipment and products we use every day. If you are looking for a job in design or construction, you need to know AutoCAD in order to command high wages and job security. These easy tips will help new users get up to speed fast.

Use the Pull Down Menus

If you look at the top of the AutoCAD screen you will see menus like Draw, Edit, Modify, etc. Use these menus to launch AutoCAD commands. As you become more familiar with AutoCAD you may elect to use the toolbars and the command prompt to issue commands, but new users learn and work faster if they use the pull down menus.

Keep Your Eye on the Command Prompt

At the bottom of the screen you will find the Command prompt. Keep your eye on this space when you issue commands. You will find that every command you issue puts its options on this line. So, if you start the CIRCLE command, you will find you can type D to indicate that you want to specify a diameter for the circle you want to create.

Learn How to Identify Points

New AutoCAD users struggle with the many ways in which they can enter points in AutoCAD. You can type them (3,4), you can click your mouse to select them, you can use Object Snaps to pick up points on existing geometry (hold down the shift key and right-click to see the Osnap menu). You can Also select a point, move your mouse up or down, right or left and type a distance. Take 30 minutes and learn all the ways you can select points in AutoCAD by reviewing its Help files. you will save yourself hundreds of hours of work and create better drawings.

Never Ever Draw What You Can Copy

New AutoCAD users spend too much time drawing. If you’ve ever drawn something, you should never need to draw the thing again. Learn how to use the BLOCK and WBLOCK commands to create named geometry you can use over and over again. Learn how to use the INSERT or DESIGN CENTER and EXPLODE commands to place editable geometry in your drawing.

Learn How to Use Model Space/Paper Space or Layouts

Its really very simple. You Click the MODEL tab. You draw your objects at full scale (one inch in the real world is one inch in AutoCAD’s model space). Select a Layout to toggle into paper space. Specify the size of your paper. Use the MVIEW command to “cut a hole” in the paper and display the objects in model space. Select the edge of the hole, right-click and choose a scale for the view. Double-click inside the hole and pan the view so its centered. Double-click outside the hole. From the File menu choose Plot to plot your scaled drawing. The instructions for using Layouts vary slightly based on which version of AutoCAD you are using, but the basic technique is always the same. Draw full scale in model space. Create scaled drawings in Layouts.

Be Organized

If you don’t know how to create and navigate to folders in Windows, life with AutoCAD will be a misery. It will scatter your files all over your hard disk or network. you will never be able to find anything. There are a million books and websites that review Windows fundamentals, take a moment to master the basic skills they review. you will spend less time looking for things.

Use External References

If you are working as members of a team, put the geometry you need in one file. Everyone can then create new files which externally reference that file. The result is, multiple people can work on the same project at the same time. You use the XREF command to place one drawing inside another. You can also use Design Center to insert external references.

Learn How to Use Dimension & Text Styles

To define text fonts that you use in your drawings, use the STYLE command. To define how dimensions look use the DIMSTYLE command. If you don’t use dimension and text styles, you spend a great deal of time tweaking each and every dimension and text block you create. If you define a style changing the style updates all the text and dimensions.

Back Up All The Time

If you don’t know how your drawings are being backed up, go find out right now. Every drawing represents hundreds or thousands of man hours. A lost, deleted or corrupt drawing file can mean lots of lost revenue. Small design shops using AutoCAD are the worst offenders. They rarely back up, they often lose data. You need to back up in such a way that you can go back four or five versions of your drawing, because often problems in a drawing aren’t noticed for a long time. So many lines, so little time . . .

Find Out What Other Folks In the Office Do

Don’t be the lone wolf in your AutoCAD office. Use the templates, title blocks, text styles, dimension styles, plot styles and block libraries everyone else uses. It saves everybody time. Your drawings are easier for others to edit and plot. You can edit and plot the drawings of others. Its always better to ask questions (even multiple times) than do something no one else in the office will understand later.

I hope these ten tips will help make you a better AutoCAD user, and that you will learn to love the application as so many have. As complex as it is, as confusing as it can be, there’s almost nothing you can’t do in AutoCAD one way or another. You can’t say that about every CAD application.

You might hear the term CAD/CAM from time to time. It is basically a merging of the two pieces. A software manufacturer tries to pick up more marketshare by doing this. They also keep you locking into their “system” by going with the whole package at once.

A lot of the time, this is a good thing. Same or similar interface on both pieces of software. Quick flow between pieces and easy file management. You have to evaluate it for yourself though. There are many times in life where two or more tools are combined to produce a less then stellar result.

CAD/CAM Article Here is an article I pulled up that describes the past and future direction of CAD/CAM. I thought it was relevant as there are many times you will hear these two terms used together. They are two different and distinct parts of the process, but some software makers make both products and sell them together. CAD/CAM: Past, Present and Future By Katrina C. Arabe Before CAD/CAM technology, drafts, calculations and product design involved pencil, paper and a seemingly endless succession of blueprints. CAD/CAM’s ongoing enhancement has made the process easier, but with the latest slew of features, some users actually find less is more. Virtually every manmade product has been designed and manufactured using a CAD/CAM program. CAD/CAM, or Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing, is utilized in every facet of industry; from designing phones to plotting out toolpaths in die and mold shops. Although the users of CAD/CAM technology may, at times, feel frustrated by how often its software is updated, the fact is that CAD/CAM has close to five decades of history stretching almost as far back as the computer. CAD/CAM, like the digital computer, had its inception in the military. In the mid-1950s the U.S. Air Force began testing an air defense system known as SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) to graphically depict data received on radar systems. The first computer actually rendering a program, SAGE was conceived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1960, computer scientists at MIT produced yet another project called Sketchpad, an application that is now considered to be the first design program with industrial use. A similar program sprouted up at General Motors soon after. At that time, mainframes were still large enough to take up entire rooms.

During the 1960’s CAD/CAM technology continued to evolve and spread to other areas. Automotive companies were the first to adopt the technology, and used it primarily to design automobile bodies. It then quickly spread to other sectors of industry, which were only too eager to abandon traditional pen and paper methods of drafting.

At times, the history of CAD/CAM seems like the plot of a spy novel. In 1984, a Hungarian scientist named Gabor Bajor, succeeded in smuggling two Macintosh computers into his Communist-controlled homeland. With the intent of writing a 3D CAD program, Bajor and his teenage assistant used the illegal computers to create just that program, and started the Graphsoft Company. In 1985, Diehl Graphsoft introduced MiniCAD to the market, which would be considered the industry standard for CAD on the Mac. The same year Autodesk unveiled AutoCAD 2.1. Complete with 3D capabilities, AutoCAD 2.1 was another breakthrough that transformed design in the auto industry. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, CAD/CAM giant Unigraphics took its place as a major industry player by partnering with industry powerhouses such as General Motors, UNIX, GE and Boeing.

During the early 1990s, Unigraphics introduced hybrid modeling, which featured both traditional modeling and advanced parametric techniques. By the end of 1994, over one million units of AutoCAD had been sold, and by the end of 1995, there were about 350,000 users of generic CAD/CAM reported worldwide. In 1996, General Motors signed the largest contract in CAD/CAM’s history by selecting Unigraphics as its sole vendor for vehicle development software. Soon afterwards, Unigraphics would once again transform the medium by releasing CAD/CAM software that allowed for the definition, control and evaluation of product templates. Another major advance in CAD/CAM occurred IN 1999 when Think3, a “Johnny-come-lately” to the world of CAD/CAM, introduced the first mechanical design software that could fully combine the power of parametric solids, advanced surfacing, wireframe and two-dimensional drafting on the desktop in one environment. Subsequently, a plethora of software vendors has surfaced, inundating the market with competing CAD/CAM platforms AND causing designers to be alternately pleased and confused by the sheer number of options available to them. At present, CAD/CAM continues its steady path of progress. Much of this progress is in the form of refining past innovations to make them more efficient and user friendly. A groundbreaking CAD/CAM innovation has not occurred for a number of years, which seems to indicate that another sweeping change is just around the corner — or maybe not. Despite the advent of 3D CAD/CAM, many CAD/CAM users still prefer to render designs in 2D. Thus, recent 3D innovations such as animated “walk-throughs” (a technique that allows designers to visually move in and around the rendered model, and see it from every possible angle) are still largely underused. The same is true of the bevy of collaboration tools currently available to the CAD/CAM user. The ability to combine CAD/CAM, with finite-element analysis and the accessibility of simulation and knowledge management, has yet to be fully embraced. Perhaps, it is in one of these areas that the next CAD/CAM breakthrough will occur. One thing that can be said with a degree of certainty is that research and development are currently ahead of user demand. When, and if, the garden-variety CAD/CAM user decides that they need to expand their range of capabilities, they will find a world of cutting-edge CAD/CAM tools at their disposal.

About the Author: Ivan can help you Learn CNC and CAD. Mastercam is one of his expertise