Thread: AutoCAD

I would say as long as your head can actually think / understand three dimensional relationships.... be able to see both ways of optical illusions is really helpful.

Really tricky 2D optical illusion: Triangle Puzzle

But I am talking mainly about these ones:
Missing Corner Cube
http://ikono.org/ikonotv/wp-content/...e-Titel187.jpg

And things along those lines..... if your head can understand the impossibilities with those from a 2d perspective then learning any 3d software will be a matter of the right buttons to press......


I am coming from the perspective of being self taught 3D modeler. (Blender, Z-Brush, Pov-ray, Anim8tor, etc.) Then I got forced into learning inventor to use a CNC machine..... wasn't too difficult coming from the background I had.

Easy to learn the basics on your own. AutoCAD's 3d counterpart, Inventor, has great tutorials but I'm not sure about AutoCAD, but I was able to teach myself how to use the simple tools in AutoCAD.

Oh, as a side note I am pretty proficient in Xactimate sketch. Probably nowhere near as complex as AutoCAD, but at least a start.

I'm not an expert, I did all 2D simple shit, but if you want to meetup and go over some stuff I have autocad on my laptop.

I fiddled around with it a bit when I was younger.

Sign up for an introductory class in your local community college. It's easy enough for a tech savvy person to pick up.

Honestly, I don't think there's a need to spend the money on a class, you can learn quite a bit just playing around with it on your own. For example, you use one tool, move the mouse this way, click this button, what was the result.... If you did it again, will it produce the same result, of course. There's only so many things you can do and ways to do them. An introductory class might only cover the exact things you would be able to figure out on your own rather than the more difficult stuff.

When you open Autocad, you can rearrange your tool bars, remove them, show certain ones, etc. To do different things in Autocad, like draw a line for example, you can click the line tool, or you can hit L. As soon as you start a command, Autocad will begin to help you along with the next step and give you different options on how to do them, it may say "select a starting point" and then give you the option to type in a coordinate or simply click somewhere. Every tool works like that, You click a tool or use the hotkey for a tool and they immediately ask you for something specific. A good drafter learns the hotkeys right away and will become a one handed typist after a while. You'll eventually begin commands at the keyboard, you might not necessarily use the mouse to move certain geometry, you may know exactly how long or big you want whatever it is you are drawing and you will simply type in a length or diameter or coordinate. You can even type in any units you feel like if you include the units in your command. For example, if the current file is set to inches and you want something drawn to 24 inches, you can actually specify "2 ft" as your dimension and Autocad will recognize your units and draw it to 24 inches.

So anyways, if you can learn to play video games on your own, you can learn to use Autocad on your own. To learn, you simply need to remember that doing the exact same thing twice won't produce different results.

What are you looking to do exactly? I use it everyday and learned everything on my own. I do a lot of prototype, and mold drawings, build sheets, visualizations, etc. I do everything in 3D. I will help anyway I can. What particular field are you going into? There are quite a few different versions that specialize in areas(Electrical, Civil, Architecture, etc.) They are focused in those areas and it makes things a lot easier.

I work in cellular. We have to do construction drawings for cell towers, rooftops, etc. I would not be drafting from scratch, at least not in the beginning, just adding/removing/replacing things on existing drawings.

Also, is it "legal" to buy a new/used copy on eBay for $300 instead of $3,000 from Autodesk?

If that is all you are wanting to do, it is very simple.

I am not sure how they handle licenses like that.

I remember autodesk sued someone for buying a copy from ebay. I would buy the LT version if your not going to use 3D and the advanced features.

Personally I think half the battle is setting up your layers, dimension style, text style, plot style, etc... If your using an existing drawing, all that hard stuff is done and you just use the basic tools. Control wise, its like gaming, every one has a custom tool layout and maybe some custom hotkeys. You figure out what you use often and make it easy. I had esc and enter bound to mouse thumb buttons. That way the only thing I needed on the keyboard was the 10 key. All my other commands I did with my mouse.