The CAD thread

[dkwolf]

When I took my first CAD class, we were using Autocad R14 -- they had just upgraded from R12. We had 30 students in the class, but only 15 computers in the lab, so we all paired up. Most 'teams' would take turns running the computer while the other watched. Not me and my partner - one ran the mouse, the other ran the keyboard. We worked amazingly well at it - and we both learned the keyboard shortcuts COLD.

I'll echo some of the earlier statements - I can type almost as fast with my left hand as your average user can with both hands.

Think about model space and paper space like this: Model space is where you do everything relative to real-world dimensions. Paper space is where you put all of the annotation and dimensions.

 

[TheCADJockey]

The best part is, you don't have to listen to any of us. The company that hired me didn't give a damn about old projects I did, how many buildings I designed or how I would draw a 1/4" NPT(M) thread. They only cared that I knew how to get it done to their standards. I draw everything completely different than my boss does, but the end product always comes out the same. Don't over-complicate things, just get comfortable with it and make it work for you. It is just a tool.

 

[unviewtiful]

I'm a mechanical engineer and I use Creo Parametric (the new version of Pro/Engineer) on a daily basis for work. I learned AutoCAD in high school, SolidWorks in college, and then transitioned to Pro/E when I started working. I boot up AutoCAD at work every once in a while, but I don't create anything in it, I typically just use it as a viewer since it's used mostly for electrical schematics here. The transition to Pro/E was pretty rough for me because SolidWorks is sooooo much more user friendly. In the end, they do about the same thing but PTC likes to make things more difficult and convoluted than they need to be. If you want to get into the 3D side of things, SolidWorks usually has student versions available, ask your school about it.

The 3D modeling world is so much different than traditional 2D drafting, and there's not a good way to learn other than using your chosen/mandated program... a lot. Find someone more experienced with the software at your company and ask them as many questions as they'll answer. And there's a tutorial video for just about everything if you search the internet.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

When I took my first CAD class, we were using Autocad R14 -- they had just upgraded from R12. We had 30 students in the class, but only 15 computers in the lab, so we all paired up. Most 'teams' would take turns running the computer while the other watched. Not me and my partner - one ran the mouse, the other ran the keyboard. We worked amazingly well at it - and we both learned the keyboard shortcuts COLD.

I'll echo some of the earlier statements - I can type almost as fast with my left hand as your average user can with both hands.

Think about model space and paper space like this: Model space is where you do everything relative to real-world dimensions. Paper space is where you put all of the annotation and dimensions.

Ha. I started with AutoCAD 8 or 9 when machines still ran DOS and everything was a green line you assigned to a pen.

I absolutely adored solid modeling.

 

[GotPushrods]

Hehe...you guys crack me up. I can still type a LOT faster with both hands but that's the idea - keep one had on the keyboard and one on the mouse.

I don't use it for work, but have over 50 common shortcuts mapped in Sketchup to use only left-hand keys, nothing past 5, T, G, or B. Some with SHIFT+ or ALT+ combos. You can get very, VERY fast once you get used to your environment and shortcuts.

I work with computers, but no paychecks for CAD. Sometime wish I had used CAD for a job, I do love it. Any time I've moved in the last 15 years, the new home is fully 3D modeled in a few weeks. Ya know... for furniture planning. Cause you clearly can't figure out where stuff goes without an overly detailed 3D model.

 

[VApatriot]

Good lord. Back when I was in college, my first mechanical drawing class was on an actual Vemco machine, you know a real drafting table with actual pencils, scales, erasers, and real paper. My first exposure to AutoCad was back in the DOS days, you want to talk about slow.... I used to use AutoCad LT when I was designing and building assembly equipment and tooling when I was an Advanced Manufacturing Engineer. Now I just screw around with it to do things like laying out the kitchen back splash for tiling to minimize waste and not over buying.

 

[TheCADJockey]

The college I studied architecture at didn't even let us touch a computer right away. The first two years consisted of nothing but conceptualization, manual drafting and lettering. It was a nightmare; I wouldn't trade it for anything. Speaking of nightmares... save it whenever you are about to attempt to hatch something. Hatch and Gradient can cause sudden health problems.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Good lord. Back when I was in college, my first mechanical drawing class was on an actual Vemco machine, you know a real drafting table with actual pencils, scales, erasers, and real paper.

Did that in High School. Loved it. And then they introduced us to those spinning eraser machines with cheap erasers. God the frustration of seeing one of those tear a hole into the paper while still leaving the line intact.

 

[jeffersonjames]

Hey,

I am a Sr. Designer for a Pool Manufacturer. I use CAD everyday for work and as a way to layout future art projects. The biggest word of advice would be to learn some key commands.

 

[The_Dog_42]

I'm a mechanical engineer and I use Creo Parametric (the new version of Pro/Engineer) on a daily basis for work. I learned AutoCAD in high school, SolidWorks in college, and then transitioned to Pro/E when I started working. I boot up AutoCAD at work every once in a while, but I don't create anything in it, I typically just use it as a viewer since it's used mostly for electrical schematics here. The transition to Pro/E was pretty rough for me because SolidWorks is sooooo much more user friendly. In the end, they do about the same thing but PTC likes to make things more difficult and convoluted than they need to be. If you want to get into the 3D side of things, SolidWorks usually has student versions available, ask your school about it.

The 3D modeling world is so much different than traditional 2D drafting, and there's not a good way to learn other than using your chosen/mandated program... a lot. Find someone more experienced with the software at your company and ask them as many questions as they'll answer. And there's a tutorial video for just about everything if you search the internet.

I agree with this a lot. I started on pro 2000i, went to solidworks, then hit unigraphics & AutoCAD at the same time, then wildfire 4 then catia v5, then back to creo and creo 2. Creo & AutoCAD use keyboard commands the best and learning them will make you faster but not a better drafter / engineer. Understanding DFM / DFS / DFA / DFC and being able to apply it to a part is HUGE. Many engineers can't do this well.

My advice is model something up, then go talk to the nearest shop supervisor about how to build it. Figure out how to make your model better. In the end, most people don't make money on cad, they make money on product.

 

[theDREWery]

Worked as an engineer/designer for three years, Auto-CAD and Solidworks. When you get to 3D, learn to import from 2D dwg to 3D sketches, saves tons of time on redraws.

Now that I don't have software through work, I've been using progeCAD 2009 Smart for a free 2D system. Just recently got introduced to Onshape, it's the cloud based Solidworks. I think it's still in beta, but it's free and open to the public. Kinda wonky so far, but definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in 3D software.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Been practicing some. Next time you need a fan bezel, I'm your guy!

 

[ScrapRoomBrewer]

Nice job! Keep at it!

 

[kev211]

Looks good! Keep it up!


On another note... Anyone know if theres a way to xClip an OLE object? I have some scanned documents I need to put in some sheets as OLE's and the dang things wont clip

 

[Rhumbline]

Looks good! Keep it up!


On another note... Anyone know if theres a way to xClip an OLE object? I have some scanned documents I need to put in some sheets as OLE's and the dang things wont clip

I don't know exactly what effect you're going for but could you just create a new viewport that only showed the portion of the doc you are interested in?

Failing that, you could create a region(s) that blocked off the parts you don't want to see.

 

[kev211]

I don't know exactly what effect you're going for but could you just create a new viewport that only showed the portion of the doc you are interested in?

Failing that, you could create a region(s) that blocked off the parts you don't want to see.

Ya thats what Ive been doing but the OLE objects are tables that I want to clip to a specific line and it would be easier with xclip. What Ive switched to doing is converting the PDF's to PNG's and importing those and clipping them. Adds another step but the text reads better. Anywho, sorry to thread jack OP. Back to your stuff

 

[treacheroustexan]

Ya thats what Ive been doing but the OLE objects are tables that I want to clip to a specific line and it would be easier with xclip. What Ive switched to doing is converting the PDF's to PNG's and importing those and clipping them. Adds another step but the text reads better. Anywho, sorry to thread jack OP. Back to your stuff

Hey it's not all about me. All cad discussion allowed

 

[Rhumbline]

Ya thats what Ive been doing but the OLE objects are tables that I want to clip to a specific line and it would be easier with xclip. What Ive switched to doing is converting the PDF's to PNG's and importing those and clipping them. Adds another step but the text reads better. Anywho, sorry to thread jack OP. Back to your stuff

What version of autocad are you using? What format are the tables in, excel, word?

 

[kev211]

What version of autocad are you using? What format are the tables in, excel, word?

Old autoCAD haha. the office is updating to the latest version after the new year but for now we're using acad2006. And the tables are in excel. We've also scanned some images and imported those

 

[Rhumbline]

Ok, that explains it. Things should get easier after the upgrade.

 

[gromitdj]

Looks good! Keep it up!

On another note... Anyone know if theres a way to xClip an OLE object? I have some scanned documents I need to put in some sheets as OLE's and the dang things wont clip

You can clip PDF's using the "pdfclip" command, or if you want a link that will update when you update the excel file, you can do the following.

The only way I know to do it is to:
1. Open the file in excel and select the cells you want displayed in AutoCAD.
2. Copy to the clipboard (Ctrl-V, or similar)
2. In your CAD file select paste/paste special from the home panel.
3. In the dialogue box that comes up select the "Paste Link" radio Button.
4. select insertion point.

These are the directions from AutoCAD 2015, but 2006 should not be much different.

 

[dkwolf]

Old autoCAD haha. the office is updating to the latest version after the new year but for now we're using acad2006. And the tables are in excel. We've also scanned some images and imported those

You have no idea the learning curve you're about to get thrown into. So much new has been introduced since then....

 

[dkwolf]

You can clip PDF's using the "pdfclip" command, or if you want a link that will update when you update the excel file, you can do the following.

The only way I know to do it is to:
1. Open the file in excel and select the cells you want displayed in AutoCAD.
2. Copy to the clipboard (Ctrl-V, or similar)
2. In your CAD file select paste/paste special from the home panel.
3. In the dialogue box that comes up select the "Paste Link" radio Button.
4. select insertion point.

These are the directions from AutoCAD 2015, but 2006 should not be much different.

Was rtext an option in 2006? I don't remember.

Edit: Home from longer than I planned at the bar.... rtext might not work for excel documents.

 

[kev211]

Was rtext an option in 2006? I don't remember.

Edit: Home from longer than I planned at the bar.... rtext might not work for excel documents.

Rtext was/is a part but wont work for excel correctly

You have no idea the learning curve you're about to get thrown into. So much new has been introduced since then....

Ya, luckily I have a student version of more recent versions so have been able to kinda keep up, but you're right. It's gonna be crazy moving to it full time. With that being said, the boss is gonna give us a week to just play with it and get familiar with the new curveball

 

[dkwolf]

It's been long enough since I've had to use it, I forgot about the program, but we used to use an add-on called XL2CAD to link excel spreadsheets into CAD. If I remember right, you could select a specific area of the spreadsheet, and it would insert it into CAD and link it to the original document.

 

[TheCADJockey]

Well. It's one of those days. The one where the HATCH command decides to ruin your life. I'm about to delete my entire computer and throw it into the Niagara River.

 

[Rhumbline]

Well. It's one of those days. The one where the HATCH command decides to ruin your life. I'm about to delete my entire computer and throw it into the Niagara River.

I hear you, I swear that HATCH has gotten worse in the most recent releases. Are you trying to hatch an object, or by picking an internal point?

 

[TheCADJockey]

I hear you, I swear that HATCH has gotten worse in the most recent releases. Are you trying to hatch an object, or by picking an internal point?

Internal points. Our parts are intricate, so hatching is really hit or miss. Throw in a mil-spec thread and it is more often a miss, or causes my computer to freeze up completely. I had to trace the entire thing in a polyline to get it to cooperate. That was nearly a crisis. So frustrating.

 

[Rhumbline]

I understand.

What I've frequently had to do is chop the entity into smaller sections with lines that I erase after hatching. It's not something I'm proud of, but I've wasted too many hours insisting that it should work.

I've also found that zooming in can help, but you have to have the entire outline visible on screen of course.

If you're still having problems, break the entity up by drawing a line through it to give you a sub set. try to hatch each section.

For some stupid reason, this seems to work. if you find that you can hatch one part but not the other, draw a line to break that part up as well. Repeat as needed.

 

[TheCADJockey]

For some stupid reason, this seems to work. if you find that you can hatch one part but not the other, draw a line to break that part up as well. Repeat as needed.

Those are all steps and tricks that I use before tracing with a polyline. None of them worked this time. Normally, the zooming in works just fine for me. The parts are often naturally divided up with hidden lines and detail callouts that make it easy, sometimes it just does not want to have it. The only other thing I like to do is remove as many little pieces as possible to get them away from the hatched area, before putting them back.

Today was a severe case. If it had locked up on me, I would've thrown myself to the machine shop and just given up. They're like wolves back there man. With all their, wrinkly, dirty hands and what not. Scary place.

 

[kev211]

Internal points. Our parts are intricate, so hatching is really hit or miss. Throw in a mil-spec thread and it is more often a miss, or causes my computer to freeze up completely. I had to trace the entire thing in a polyline to get it to cooperate. That was nearly a crisis. So frustrating.

why not just use boundary to create a polyline and then use that to hatch? Internal point picking for hatching hurts my soul, and usually my keyboard, or mouse, or whatever else I start bashing over my desk

 

[TheCADJockey]

why not just use boundary to create a polyline and then use that to hatch? Internal point picking for hatching hurts my soul, and usually my keyboard, or mouse, or whatever else I start bashing over my desk

I've done both, it's just a terrible, horrible command in general. I'd rather grab a t-square, 45 and just do it by hand.

 

[Rhumbline]

why not just use boundary to create a polyline and then use that to hatch? Internal point picking for hatching hurts my soul, and usually my keyboard, or mouse, or whatever else I start bashing over my desk

It's been my experience that when HATCH can't find a boundary, neither will the BOUNDARY command.

 

[kev211]

I've done both, it's just a terrible, horrible command in general. I'd rather grab a t-square, 45 and just do it by hand.

Ya, Ill agree with that. I had a roof hatch on a building almost crash my computer just because I waved my crosshairs over it. That was fun waiting for autocad to un-freeze itself for 5 minutes in the middle of a deadline...

 

[kev211]

It's been my experience that when HATCH can't find a boundary, neither will the BOUNDARY command.

Could be, but I feel like theres been times when hatch cant find a boundary so I do that BOUNDARY command, walk away for a few minutes and have a boundary when I come back.

You mentioned chopping up an area into smaller areas to get the pick points to work... Was that because you were getting the "hatch spacing too dense" error?

 

[gromitdj]

Well. It's one of those days. The one where the HATCH command decides to ruin your life. I'm about to delete my entire computer and throw it into the Niagara River.

Funny.. I just accidentally picked an xref while hatching and it completely crashed ACAD without any warning. I'm Browsing HBT while it loads back up.

I might throw mine in the Niagara too. All the way from SoCal.

 

[TheCADJockey]

I might throw mine in the Niagara too. All the way from SoCal.

Is that so, Uncle Rico?

A lot of times, the assemblies I'm working on are full of polyline wires and pcbds. There's a 50/50 chance my computer will freeze, lockup then blue screen if I try to hatch around those electronics. My quick save game is strong.

 

[kev211]

Funny.. I just accidentally picked an xref while hatching and it completely crashed ACAD without any warning. I'm Browsing HBT while it loads back up.

I might throw mine in the Niagara too. All the way from SoCal.

Our office is right by the beach, Niagra is too far. But if I fling it just right I could probably knock out a surfer too . I was browsing HBT while waiting for my computer to etransmit all the files

 

[Rhumbline]

Could be, but I feel like theres been times when hatch cant find a boundary so I do that BOUNDARY command, walk away for a few minutes and have a boundary when I come back.

You mentioned chopping up an area into smaller areas to get the pick points to work... Was that because you were getting the "hatch spacing too dense" error?

No, I'll have a closed complex entity, often using Splines, and I get the "Unable to find valid boundary" error or whatever the wording is.

I use AutoCAD to do artwork as a hobby and so the drawings can get really complex. And AutoCAD HATES using Splines as hatch boundaries.

Oh, and I turn off all that dynamic popup tool tip nonsense.

 

[TheCADJockey]

And AutoCAD HATES using Splines as hatch boundaries.

The fact that you even attempt to hatch anywhere near splines just gives me the most severe anxiety. Did I mention the computer they gave me is probably of legal drinking age?