Brian Carl Bahr
Professional Draftsman


AutoCAD

  This is where it all starts (unless it doesn't). This is the program that you HAVE to be skilled in to get a drafting job in any mechanical capacity. To not know this would be like not knowing how to use an arm on a board 30 years ago. Even if you do 3D there are times when 2D touch up is still needed. Its getting better and with newer 3D programs 2D drafting should finally be obsolete by about 2015, but we are not quite there yet.
  It is quite simple, you simply draw lines and circle on the screen just as you would on a piece of paper. Of course erasing leave no marks and is faster, you have no file cabinets to search through, you don't have to send prints UPS and all the other benefits of computers. And then of course the best part. What if you image the lines coming out of the screen for a third axis? Well now you just write some very complicated code at huge expense and then you have 3D graphics that you can rotate and travel through and take virtual photos in.



screenshot source: http://autodesk.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/218_nozzle.jpg

  This is a snapshot of AutoCAD version 2.18. Much older than my time. The first release, or "version" I ran was R10 in 1990. As you can see however the fundamentals have not changed. The 3 parts of the AutoCAD interface are of course the View Area, equivalent you your piece of paper, the Menus around the top and the command line, AutoCAD's claim to fame, among many, on the bottom.



screenshot source: http://www.eezylearn.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/autocad_tips/two_cylinders_right.jpg

  This is a much newer version, what would be R15 if Autodesk had not caved into Microsoft's year based versioning. Of course when I have to do 2D drafting now I either use DWGEditor, a commercial AutoCAD ripoff or QCAD, a somewhat original 2D cad program, though it is basically impossible to make any 2D cad program without ripping off AutoCAD in some amount as they though of most every thing years ago.


bahr@seclorum.us