Oh God, AutoCAD - Gulp! - How, why, what if's etc.

[Conks]

OK,

So I'm a Q.S who technically speaking, should be leaving build design to the experts, i.e - Architects & Engineers.

My problem is I have a facination re AutoCAD and would like ot use in my occupation - there is room.

My initial thoughts of AutoCAD were, "should be easy, suerly you just drag and drop images/symbols" or "click this button and on plan, your elevations are built".

I just don't get it.

Nothing seems easy, nor straightforward.

Can somebody answer the following questions please:

1.) Can you pull out Images & Symbols of, say, doors, windows etc. ?

2.) How do you create brick affect or a concrete effect within section drawings etc. ?

3.) How do you "scale" the drawing ?

Thanks for your help.

[David Bethel]

>> Q.S.

What is that?

>> Drag and drop

Remember, AutoCAD was originally developed in the '80s, drag & drop was a MAC thingy, not DOS. It's called insert here.

>> Doors / Windows

1st thing to do is to determine whether you are going to work in 2D or ACAD's psudo 3D ( extruded 2D + 3DFACEs ) or the newer 3D solids.

In 2D, hatch patterns can create brick affects, in 3D you model each brick and mortar joint. Rendering can apply materials that resemble brick, block, etc to 3DFACEs.

>> Scale

Always draw 1=1 in model space. Scaling is done in paper space.

-David

[hyposmurf]

One of the many people who presume CAD is an easy program to master .I was one myself beofre I'd ever used CAD.Have a look in the help menu of AutoCAD regarding all your qeries theyre all there.
As David said you insert an item called "blocks".If you have AutoCAD 2004 and you have set up the drawing palettes you could actually drag and drop the selected blocks within the drawing from your tool palette.For hatching slecet Draw-Hatch or enter BHATCH at the command line,a box wil appear.You can then select the hatch pattern you require and select the objects you want to hatch or use the pick points to select an internal point.Remember to use a closed polyline for the hatch perimeter,otherwise AutoCAD wont be able to find the boundary.

[vrichard]

A Quantity Surveyor learning CAD....... I struggle to get the Building Surveyors to take an interest - good on ya!

Best advise I could give you is always watch what your command prompt is telling you.

to change your scale go into paper space and activate your viewport, type zoom ENTER ten type 1/50xp ENTER FOR 1:50 OR 1/100xp for 1:100 etc.

Have fun!

Vics