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simple tricks and tips for beginners


cabiles1

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Im looking for some useful tricks to help me start out with autocad.

If you know of any helpful links for commands that would be great.

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Got to "Michael's Corner" here on the forum. Michael Beall brings useful tips at the beginning of each month and his archive goes back many years.

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Not always a good idea. Your co-workers may know less than you and/or have some really bad drafting habits. ;)
May have?;) Then again, those bad habits may be actual "Standards and Procedures" where you happen to be working at any given time. Then they will be different at your next position. Edited by Dana W
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Im looking for some useful tricks to help me start out with autocad.

If you know of any helpful links for commands that would be great.

Welcome to CadTutor.

 

Tip 1 through 3. System variables, filedia = 1, pickfirst = 1, pickadd = 1.

Tipp 4 - Come here often.

Tip 5 - fill out your CadTutor profile completely. If the forum members know your software and computer specs up front, it will be easier for them to talk you through your trouble spots.

Tip 6 - Draw your object lines and geometry (parts of your model) in modelspace at FULL SCALE. You can put your dimensions in modelspace or paperspace, it's up to you.

Tip 7 - Use multiline text even for the single line stuff.

Tip 8 - Make extensive use of blocks and external references for repetitive and/or huge (like Floor plans) sections of your drawings.

Tip 9 - Don't listen to everybody all the time. Some of it needs to be done your way.

Tip 10 - Use continuous polylines for everything that can be drawn with plain line segments.

Tip 11 - Forget you ever heard the term "Drawing Limits" after you make sure you have turned it off.

Tip 12 - Forget you ever heard the term "Grid" after you make sure you have turned it off.

Tip 13 - The Autodesk "Minimum computer specifications" are just that, the bare minimum. When it's time to buy a CAD machine for your own use, keep that in mind. A little hot rodding, computer-wise goes a long way.

Tip 14 - Get your head around the concepts of modelspace and paperspace really well. It is surprising how many people have trouble with this. Modelspace is as big as the entire universe, and paperspace is only as big as the particular piece of paper you have decided to print on. The important tie-in to these spaces is the "Viewport". Think of it as a hole in your paper, and you are holding your paper up, looking back at your drawings in modelspace. Then you use the viewport scale properties to "frame" your drawing for printing.

Edited by Dana W
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Welcome to CadTutor.

 

Tip 1 through 3. System variables, filedia = 1, pickfirst = 1, pickadd = 1.

Tipp 4 - Come here often.

Tip 5 - fill out your CadTutor profile completely. If the forum members know your software and computer specs up front, it will be easier for them to talk you through your trouble spots.

Tip 6 - Draw your object lines and geometry (parts of your model) in modelspace at FULL SCALE. You can put your dimensions in modelspace or paperspace, it's up to you.

Tip 7 - Use multiline text even for the single line stuff.

Tip 8 - Make extensive use of blocks and external references for repetitive and/or huge (like Floor plans) sections of your drawings.

Tip 9 - Don't listen to everybody all the time. Some of it needs to be done your way.

Tip 10 - Use continuous polylines for everything that can be drawn with plain line segments.

Tip 11 - Forget you ever heard the term "Drawing Limits" after you make sure you have turned it off.

Tip 12 - Forget you ever heard the term "Grid" after you make sure you have turned it off.

Tip 13 - The Autodesk "Minimum computer specifications" are just that, the bare minimum. When it's time to buy a CAD machine for your own use, keep that in mind. A little hot rodding, computer-wise goes a long way.

Tip 14 - Get your head around the concepts of modelspace and paperspace really well. It is surprising how many people have trouble with this. Modelspace is as big as the entire universe, and paperspace is only as big as the particular piece of paper you have decided to print on. The important tie-in to these spaces is the "Viewport". Think of it as a hole in your paper, and you are holding your paper up, looking back at your drawings in modelspace. Then you use the viewport scale properties to "frame" your drawing for printing.

 

is this true? has anyone checked?

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I would argue with Tip 6: Draw in model space at FULL SCALE.

The word SCALE has no place in model space, the idea of scale causes so many problems with people new to CAD drawing, even some experienced users.

Autocad uses units, a unit can be '1 mm' or it can be '1 inch', it could even be '1 wet kipper' it makes no difference, but whatever unit you use to measure with then draw in those same units. When it comes to printing your drawing on a piece of paper then, and only then should you start to think about SCALE and how to approach it. So I draw a representation of my kipper and it is 1 wk long (full size)

Now here is the second problem 'FULL SCALE' most people (customers) consider full scale to be just that, full scale, full size, 1:1, so when I print my wet kipper on a piece of paper at full size, then I should be able to place my actual wet kipper on the piece of paper next to the print and they will be the same size.

And I think this is the problem, I can not print at 1:1 and get the results I expect, it has to be printed to a scale. The model is fine the proportions are perfect and it is full size it is 1 unit long.

 

 

I decide to build a ship so I can go out onto the sea and catch more kippers, and the length of the ship needs to be 100wk. I printed this onto a sheet of A0 paper to send to the boat yard and in order to show the complete ship I needed to scale it, in order to make it fit onto the paper. So I check on my chart which tells me A0 paper is 5 and a quarter kippers long, in order to leave a nice border around the edge of the page, and also not to get into difficulties with the maths or dividing my kipper into smaller pieces I decide to print my drawing at a scale of 1:20 but my template is metric so i need to also add in a conversion factor or scale to account for that so I check my conversion chart that tells me 1wk = 226.5mm so I create a custom scale and call it 1:20 where 1 unit = 226.5mm. I print the drawing of the ship send the drawing off to the boat yard, and wait for my new ship to arrive, a week later the builder rings up asking where are the drawings, he has a deadline to meet and no drawings, so it is decided that I will e-mail over the boat.dwg, does he have Autocad yeah yeah yeah and I've got this kid from college who is a wizz no problems the day is saved. A month later the boat builder turns up with his flatbed truck with a boat on the back. I stand there admiring the quality of the work the fine finish and attention to detail that he has achieved I'll use this guy again in the future. And I say "wow that's exactly how I wanted it", I take a walk around the other side still impressed and say "this is great" "so when do I get to see the ship" "you put so much care into the mock up I can't wait to see the real thing" complete and utter silence.

 

 

Now those clever guys at Autodesk have had the foresight to see that the world is made up of 2 groups of people and these 2 groups ('Americans' and what I like to think of as 'Normal' people), in general use different units to measure with one group use inches, and the rest of the world uses millimeters. So Autocad ships with 2 different templates one is Architectural which uses inches (I like to think of all Architects as American or at least not as Normal) and the other template is metric which generally means millimeters. Unfortunately they forgot about a small village in the North of England called HULL these poor folk still use wet kippers, they use them as a unit of measurement, as a unit of currency, and also it forms there staple diet. AND this is why everything gets confusing, using the standard templates shipped with Autocad you can choose to draw at full scale only if you use inches or millimeters, but you can use any unit of measurement you want, to draw in model space, whether that is inches, feet, yards, millimeters, decimeters, meters, or even a wet kipper, so long as you let everyone know what it is you are using, but when it comes to printing onto a sheet of paper, you then need to decide what the scale is that you are using, and if you have used anything other than inches or millimeters in your appropriate template then you cannot print full size @ 1:1, you have to pick a scale that will produce the results you expect. This is the origin of the confusion. I agree whole heartedly that you should draw using the units that you measure with but this is not full scale, and until Autodesk issues a template using the wk as a standard unit then, you run the chance of hitting problems. It turns out the the wizz kid in the story above didn't like paper space he couldn't quite grasp the concept of scaling viewports, so he opted as he always did to plot from model space and he was very very careful that he used the correct scale 1:20 right.

 

If anyone from HULL reads this I apologize no offence was meant

If any Architects read this then all I can say is WOW you can read

If any Americans read this then I hope you have a good sense of humor, and write to your congressman lets get America metric. They did it in Hull.

If you would like to know what a kipper is http://www.fao.org/wairdocs/tan/x5925e/x5925e01.htm

There is a department in the town hall of Hull that is responsible for issuing certificates for the correct size of kippers used on all building sites within the city, there is no need to post the address, just follow your nose

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I would argue with Tip 6: Draw in model space at FULL SCALE.

The word SCALE has no place in model space....

Wow, that's a long way round for having a semantic problem with one word.:o

 

I'm thinking the wet kipper would have probably stuck to the paper, and by the time you got it loose, the paper would have expanded due to the wetness factor of the kipper. This result would have rendered your comparison moot since the wet kipper is probably as waterlogged as it will ever be, and not likely to expand any more.;)

 

My tin of kippers contain all different sizes.:ouch: I'll probably use a dynamic block to draw them. No, wait? Those are Sardines. What unit does one draw Italian Kippers in? (Wait for it. Wait for it.)

 

On this side of the date line, Full scale and Full size mean the same thing, which is a short way of saying, draw it as big as it really is. (Naah, actually I meant for the draftsperson to scale everything in modelspace after it is drawn, using the scale factor of 1.)

 

I personally think the metric system was put into place by Europeans so the speedometers in all those teensy little cars over there could have three digit numbers on 'em,:lol: and bra sizes too.

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Wow, that's a long way round for having a semantic problem with one word.
8) it was a slow day.

I have a very vague memory of the UK going decimal over 40 years ago, and still people use feet and inches. Autocad does actually get on really well with imperial measurements you are given the choice to enter measurements as either 2' 6-1/2" or you can use 30.5 and Autocad dutifully draws a line at 30.5 units long, no need to think about it or scale it, it just does it.

But people in the UK tend to consider metric and measure everything in mm so a line 1 meter long is 1000 mm, ok up to now, but most of the rest of Europe measure in centimeters so they quite rightly would draw a line 100 cm long. Unfortunately Autocad only has two units that it recognizes as standard, inches and mm anything else is custom and has to be scaled. When it comes to viewports if you activate a viewport and select a scale from the scale list at the bottom of the screen Autocad will let you edit all the scales so you can tell it that 1 mm is equal to 0.004 drawing units (which would allow me to draw using wet kippers), that is you can edit every scale to be whatever you want except for the scale 1:1 that can not be changed and 1:1 is full scale and at 1:1 you can either choose 1 unit equals 1 millimeter or 1 unit equals 1 inch. It is not possible (as far as I know) to print using 1:1 and have 1 unit equals 1 cm. In order to print full size they have to use the scale 10:1 and write in the title block 1:1, and that is confusing.

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8) it was a slow day.

I have a very vague memory of the UK going decimal over 40 years ago, and still people use feet and inches. Autocad does actually get on really well with imperial measurements you are given the choice to enter measurements as either 2' 6-1/2" or you can use 30.5 and Autocad dutifully draws a line at 30.5 units long, no need to think about it or scale it, it just does it.

But people in the UK tend to consider metric and measure everything in mm so a line 1 meter long is 1000 mm, ok up to now, but most of the rest of Europe measure in centimeters so they quite rightly would draw a line 100 cm long. Unfortunately Autocad only has two units that it recognizes as standard, inches and mm anything else is custom and has to be scaled. When it comes to viewports if you activate a viewport and select a scale from the scale list at the bottom of the screen Autocad will let you edit all the scales so you can tell it that 1 mm is equal to 0.004 drawing units (which would allow me to draw using wet kippers), that is you can edit every scale to be whatever you want except for the scale 1:1 that can not be changed and 1:1 is full scale and at 1:1 you can either choose 1 unit equals 1 millimeter or 1 unit equals 1 inch. It is not possible (as far as I know) to print using 1:1 and have 1 unit equals 1 cm. In order to print full size they have to use the scale 10:1 and write in the title block 1:1, and that is confusing.

Yeah, I see where the heartburn comes from, but the paperspace units must be either 1" or 1 mm. Somebody would have to rewrite all the printer drivers. They don't make paper in increments of kippers anywhere.
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Yeah, I see where the heartburn comes from, but the paperspace units must be either 1" or 1 mm. Somebody would have to rewrite all the printer drivers. They don't make paper in increments of kippers anywhere.

 

Now there's a great startup business opportunity, just waiting to happen! :beer:

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If anyone from HULL reads this I apologize no offence was meant

There is a department in the town hall of Hull that is responsible for issuing certificates for the correct size of kippers used on all building sites within the city, there is no need to post the address, just follow your nose

 

Is that the office just off Ferensway? They moved it out of the town Hall because of the smell. I think I passed it on my way to Burton Agnes.

 

I always used metres not millimetres when I was in the UK. It was always the architects and fabrication shops that used millimetres, civil engineers and surveyors always used metres. Ah yes and the boys from the East Riding always used wet kippers.

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Is that the office just off Ferensway? They moved it out of the town Hall because of the smell. I think I passed it on my way to Burton Agnes.

That's the one. I only found it when I was working on the St. Stephens shopping center, well you couldn't not smell it could you. It always amazed me how the locals could set out anything with a kipper.

Not many people realize that St Stephens was designed as as straight building, but it does make it interesting.

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The statement should read "draw at full SIZE" not scale. It doesn't matter if one is creating a drawing of a postage stamp, an iPod or a Boeing 767. Scale does not come into play until one either moves into a layout, and makes use of one or more floating viewports, or is plotting directly from model space.

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Hello Dana,

 

I tried to send just you a message but I guess since I am new it's not going to let me. I could use your help. i just picked up Autocad and started using it two days ago. I needed it to draw some wing ribs for a plane I am building. I have it all laid out properly and figured out how to copy the two so they are close to each other on the same "model space". What I need to do now is lay them out and copy them so that I can get as many copies of the image on a 36" x 48" sheet of paper as I can. Then make it a .PDF so I can take it to the local printer and have them print it on the plotter. I live in an engineering college town and for some reason no one here can print directly from the Autocad file (is it even possible?). Anyhow, my question is, I have the "model space" drawings to exact scale, so when I convert it to .PDF and they print it, will it be to scale still? I can upload the file for you to look at if you'd like or if necessary. Thanks, Jon.

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