Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Autocad advice?

[hal@midgardtechsol.net]

I suggest you read "Mastering AutoCad 2000" by George Omura.  I taught myself everything you mention and then some in about two and a half months with this book and some practice.  After some practice you will find several ways of "layering" or organizing your "model" to best suit your needs.

Good Luck,
Hal Hanson

On Fri, 25 January 2002, John Farrington wrote:

> 
> 
> 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