Architecture AutoCAD Services

AutoCAD, developed by Autodesk Inc., is the world’s most commonly used CAD application, with a more than 85% market share in some design disciplines. Architects, engineers, interior designers and other design professionals who want to work in today’s market place must be competent AutoCAD users in order to get full-time, part-time or contract employment. Unfortunately, just taking a class in AutoCAD doesn’t always guarantee that professionals get the skills they need.

Before taking a course in AutoCAD, designers should confirm it covers:

AutoCAD’s Drawing & Editing Commands – Learning how to use AutoCAD’s drawing and editing commands requires learning how to interpret AutoCAD’s somewhat arcane user interface. Mastering the command prompt, selecting options, using pull down and right-click menus, navigating dialog boxes & tool palettes are all critical to making designers fast, effective AutoCAD users. AutoCAD has more than 3000 commands, so the focus for any course should be teaching students not just how to use a given set of commands, but how to master new tools as and when required.

Setting Up & Plotting Drawings – Every AutoCAD user needs to understand how to use a template file to start a new drawing because so many projects use template files to control title blocks, drawing scale, dimension appearence and other drawing standards. Designers must know how to plot drawings, work with layouts, assign plot styles and use plot styles tables. Without this information, designers can find plotting consumes far too much of their design time.

Dimensioning Design Geometry – Designers need to know how to define and modify dimension styles, how to create dimensions and how to scale dimensions. They should understand how to move dimension styles from drawing to drawing, and how to create template files which set dimension styles for use in future drawings. They should know how to create dimensions in Model Space and in Paper Space.

Creating Text & Tables – AutoCAD has a host of tools that make creating text, tables, and bill of materials charts easier. Courses should cover how to define text styles, how to create schedules and how to import data from Microsoft Excel.

Using Blocks, Wblocks and Xrefs – AutoCAD makes it easy to reuse design geometry, and mastering the tools required to bring symbols & design geometry from drawing to drawing saves hundreds of design hours on even the smallest projects. AutoCAD’s DesignCenter is an indispensible tool for designers and it is critical that designers master it in order to be effective at moving geometry from drawing to drawing.

In addition to these fundamental skills, AutoCAD users benefit from mastering AutoCAD’s 3D modeling commands because creating a 3D model can make creating 2D elevations and sections so much easier and more accurate. They should also learn some easy customization techniques (like creating custom tool palettes) because it lets them reduce the time the spend on repetitive tasks.

Before a designer invests in any course, they should confirm these skills will be delivered and drilled extensively. Learning AutoCAD badly means you are at a disadvantage for months or years to come, until you pick up the skills better trained workers got from the outset. If you are going to spend twenty to forty hours learning AutoCAD, make sure your time is well invested.

Nancy Fulton is the publisher of the Complete Support Training Site which delivers instruction in AutoCAD 14, AutoCAD 2000, AutoCAD 2000i, AutoCAD 2002, AutoCAD 2004, AutoCAD 2005, AutoCAD 2006 and AutoCAD 2007 as well as other Autodesk products.

About the Author Nancy Fulton has been training designers to use AutoCAD for more than a decade. She publishes the Complete Support AutoCAD training site which features of hundreds of free AutoCAD tutorials.

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