Expert advice on working with 2D CAD drawings

CAD (computer-aided design) software is used by architects, engineers, drafters, artists, and others to create precision drawings or technical illustrations. CAD software can be used to create two-dimensional (2-D) drawings or three-dimensional (3-D) models.
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When starting any discussion topic it’s often useful to begin with a definition or quote to clearly label exactly what we’re looking at. No doubt there are many of you who are already familiar with the term CAD and it’s uses, however in this article we’re going to discuss some great tips and tricks for getting started with a CAD drawing and some expert advice on working in a CAD environment. With all this in mind I have put together an 8 point list, which I hope will help first time users to get started, and for you professional designers out there, it may serve as a little reminder of some great time saving ideas.

Sketching is a great way to start ↘
Deciding on your page size, scales and units ↘
Simplify your designs with Layers ↘
Speed up your projects with templates ↘
Where to start drawing? ↘
Familiar tools & options ↘
Working with symbol libraries ↘
Exporting & sharing your work ↘

Sketching is a great way to start

As a designer myself I have often been plagued with where to begin with a project. Over the years I have learnt the best place to start is to first understand what you are trying to draw. Now, this doesn’t mean lay on a couch and start to look inside yourself, all I’m saying is just think about what your project goals are. Let’s take a floor plan as an example…. I learnt years ago that grabbing a piece of scrap paper and sketching a basic idea down with some dimensions, saved me hours of messing around later on. The sketch does not have to be worthy of the Tate Modern, it just needs to give you a reference when starting your CAD drawing adventure.

Try it yourself, pick a room in the house, grab a pencil (or if your feeling brave a pen), tape measure and scrap of paper, now sketch the shape of the room and jot down the major measurements. You’ll soon notice that this helps to make you feel a little more.

Deciding on your page size, scales and units

Let’s be honest, not many of us have access to a huge printer, which is why scales and paper sizes are important to determine early on. All you need to do is to first decide what paper size you want to print your CAD drawing onto. Then once you’ve made your mind up, think about scales. Now I know there may be a few of you wondering what is a scale, and I’m not talking about one of those balancing things in the kitchen you use when baking a cake. In a CAD drawing a scale gives you the ability to draw an object on the page that shows the correct dimension even though it’s actual size may be different.

Confused???? Well I was when I first heard of it. Let’s take a simple example. If you know your wall is let’s say 6 feet in length. Obviously you won’t be able to fit a 6 foot line on an A3 page, so what we do is use a scale value to fit the line on a page for printing, while still displaying it’s correct length if we dimension it. Here is an example of a typical scale used: 1/4 inch = 1 foot - Basically means 1/4 inch on the page, represents 1 foot in real life. So your 6 feet wall would actually be 1.5 inches on the page, meaning it will fit for printing. Another example of a typical scale is 1:50 when using metric units. Now it would be a good idea to decide what units you are going to work in prior to creating any drawing. This will help you to decide on your scales and page sizes.

Simplify your designs with layers

The best way to describe layers are to think of them as multiple sheets of paper. You can draw key parts of your design on separate layers to help keep your drawings simple. Once again let’s take a floor plan as an example...

You could have your walls on one layer, your doors and windows on another layer and then your furniture on a third layer. If your plan is more complicated you could start to include other key features of the drawing on different layers, for example power and lighting symbols or dimensions.

All you need to think about when deciding what to put on layers is to decide if it would be easier to draw the objects on their own, without other parts of the drawing being effected. Some other great points with layers are that they can be hidden and shown at any time, meaning you could use them to hide notes and comments that you don’t need others to see.

Speed up your projects with templates

Here is a really important part of speeding up your designs. Templates are basically documents that you set up to contain parts of a drawing that you use over and over again. Some CAD software, such as MacDraft allow you to create these documents and save them as a personal template, which is accessible whenever you start a new drawing. This means you can set up a drawing with scales, units and key objects that are consistent across your designs, then save that drawing as a template for future use. This will save you an immeasurable amount of time, allowing you to get on with the more important parts of your CAD design.

Where to start drawing?

This is a question that I get asked on a daily basis. The answer is not always the same as it does depend on what design you’re working on. That being said I do have some advice on the best places to start.

Always work on your drawings from the outside in. The best way I have found to work is to work on the outline of a design then start to move onto the detailed parts second. This will give you a basis to work with and you wouldn’t believe how it makes you feel to see the beginnings of a CAD drawing.

Familiar tools & options

There are many CAD applications out there, some more complicated than others, but the one that’s right for you is the one that offers familiar features that will make working on your drawings easier. MacDraft is a great CAD product that boasts a comprehensive set of vector drawing tools that will have you creating CAD drawings in minutes. You’ll notice in any CAD product that you’ll soon learn which tools you use more frequently than others. This is where the familiarity comes in. If the tools you frequently use are similar in the way they work to what you are used to then you won’t have to spend time learning the ropes. As an example, MacDraft has a great way of giving you all the help you need when using it’s tools, more over you’ll find drawing shapes, lines and walls simply with a click of the mouse.

Working with symbol libraries

This is where the power of a CAD application like MacDraft really comes into it’s own. Often when working with CAD drawings you’ll find there are parts of your drawings, like windows and doors, furniture, lighting and power symbols etc that you often use over and over again.

MacDraft offers a custom symbol library that gives you the ability to store these items in a library file and simply drag and drop them into your documents, any time you need them. Basically this means that you only have to draw your symbols once, and then store them in your own custom library for later.

Exporting & sharing your work

Once you have finally completed your CAD drawing the next important advice is to think about who is going to be looking at it. There are many options for you to prepare your CAD drawing for sharing with others, but it’s important to remember what they may be using to look at the files. The best tip I can give is to always provide a PDF of your drawing, that way anyone can open it on PC or on Mac. You can use other file formats such as PNG or JPEG, but PDF is the best option as it maintains the quality of your design no matter what size you view it at or print it.

Hopefully my experience has allowed me provide you with 8 tips that will help you to either start drawing your first CAD design or continue to hone your own CAD skills. I always find it helpful to refer to tips and tricks provided by those already in the industry and feel it’s a great way to help our community flourish. Anyway, i’m sure some if not all these points will help you to move forward and hope that you have found this article useful.

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