[PSUBS-MAILIST] Autocad advice?

[John Farrington <jrf@prismnet.com>]

I'm wanting to learn Autocad for my own use, and was looking
for some very general info on the proper techniques for designing
something with it.  Not the actual drawing of it, but how to use
layers and the organizition of drawings, and templates.

Maybe someone can answer some of these questions:

As an example, let's say that I was going to design my own
submarine, and do it in 3-D.

I want to be able to design the entire thing right down to the
o-rings, and all the way up to the overall shape of the sub.

My questions are with how I'd organize all of drawings.

I'd like to be able to pull up the overall drawing, which has
every single component of the sub, but would also like to
be able to look at, and work on, nothing but a single thru-hull,
or viewport.

ie.  Do I put a viewport frame in one drawing, the viewport acrylic in
     another, the rim in another, etc.?

     And then, somehow magically define the location of the viewport
     pieces and then be able to bring up an assembled drawing of the viewport,
     and at a higher level, an assembled drawing of the entire sub.

I know that you can merge drawings, but I would prefer to not have to
do that to see a final drawing of the sub (this would require 8 identical
viewport drawings, etc)

ie. Is there a way to draw the hull section of the sub in one drawing,
and tell it 'at locations (x1,y1,z1) and (x2,y2,z2), there are things
called 'viewports', that are defined in another drawing, viewport.dwg.

So, if someone understands what I'm asking, and uses, or has used,
Autocad to a great extent, I'd be interested in hearing some of the
ways that designs like this are organized.


Thanks for any help.
-John