what is AutoCAD?
obviously, you have some sort of a concept as to what AutoCAD is or can do or else you wouldn’t be here right now, there are many things that it is and many things that it is not AutoCAD. has been around since Autodesk
first released it back in 1982 back then it merely drew lines and added single line text. today AutoCAD is a design tool, a drawing tool, a modeling tool, and a database and manager the data it manages can be in many different forms raw data points, lines arcs, dimensions text, circles rectangles, images and more the things that AutoCAD designs draws and models are limitless AutoCAD 2013 is the 27th release of AutoCAD and was issued in the spring of 2012 it added many new features to autocad’s abilities to check those out see our chapter covering what’s new in AutoCAD 2013.
AutoCAD has many advantages to drawing things by hand many of the advantages it gives you are due to the nature of digital design and to using computers the data and the drawing files is more easily edited and repeated AutoCAD can help to generate new data or line work that we would always have to input by hand that also links data from multiple sources and can share its data with others in many different forms these are the reasons we use cat it allows us to do more because we have less to do after all CAD is an acronym for computer-aided design what can we make with AutoCAD well we can make anything that needs to be constructed modified developed or illustrated it’s not just for engineers and architects although these groups would probably be the most common users of AutoCAD but textile designers use it surveyors use it and even movie makers use it there are too many uses for AutoCAD for us to list there are two ways though to look at the files that are created in AutoCAD one is to look at them as drawings the other is to look at them as data both cases are true but both have their place most files we look at in this tutorial will be drawing files but we will also look at files don’t assume that data is just a list of names or numbers anything needed for a design purpose is data the lines we create in CAD or data the points we insert and define our data images we attach and especially aerial photographs or all forms of data used in our design process data can be gotten from many different sources it’s important to know what it is and how you need to use it these cases will vary from project to project in industry to industry in the case of an architect as some of the data required will be site or a lot information an architect will also need to know the local building code and regulations other data might include the existing conditions of the job site and building requirements of the client an architect will take this data insert it into AutoCAD in many different ways most of that will be via drafting techniques that information will be placed in a data file and now that the data has been placed into CAD the architect needs to create a drawing file a drawing file will have title block information notes instructions as well as the line work necessary to display the model and what was designed in the data file sometimes these two files will be combined into one file other times they’ll be kept separate it will depend on the scope and the needs of the project AutoCAD allows you to do that and a hand or board drawing the drawing is the data file they are not kept separate this is one of the many advantages to using CAD as opposed to manual drawings AutoCAD has come a long way from its initial creation back in the early 80s what was once just a 2d drafting aid is now a full-fledged 3d modeling design tool not everyone has a need for full-out 3d but we have to start somewhere so once we’ve mastered the 2d aspects of AutoCAD you will be ready to progress into a much larger and more realistic world
Leave a Comment