Common Sense CAD

Common Sense CAD is something that I think is disappearing.

I prepared a class for this topic at AU 2008 that was refined and delivered by John Morgan, my fellow AUGI Board member.

I was shocked a while back to talk to a CAD Staff person about the knowledge level of new hires in his firm. He shared that the employees that are being hired do not know some of the most common commands and concepts of CAD. He commented on how they have not learned these things in college or on the job elsewhere. Most of the early career employees have not had the time to learn the most common of habits in CAD. Many have not been offered or taken many CAD classes in school.

So what would you pass on as the most Common Sense CAD wisdom? What is the most rudimentary level of knowledge that you think a person needs to know? What information do you think is so “obvious” that no one tells anyone else about it?

I have written on this topic before on my blog and want to continue the discussion here in the Journal…

Here are the links to some of the topics I have already covered.

• Common Sense CAD
• Common Sense CAD – More
• Common Sense CAD – Part 3
• Common Sense CAD – Part 4

Here are a few things that are overlooked, not mentioned in CAD Standards or generally thought to be common knowledge so no one really highlights them anymore.

In no particular order:

• Never ever explode a dimension
• Do not Explode Attributes
• Do not explode a hatch
• Always check over a drawing on screen before you print it
• ALWAYS draw thing to scale
• Do not scale or rotate reference files (except when referencing across discipline lines, like civil and architectural)
• Do not “plot to fit” when plotting a drawing. i.e. Plot 1 to 1 or 2 to1.
• Always set your Base point when creating block’s to 0,0,0
• Draw all blocks on the (0) zero layer with the lines set to ByBlock (unless there is a specific reason why a color or linetype should not match the layer it is inserted on)
• Name Blocks so they are easy to understand what they are – no cryptic names like Z28-b (unless that is a part number)
• Keep 2-D drawings 2-D. Check for 3D lines that should not be 3D

I will keep this list going. Feel free to add your own via a comment.