Customer Reviews

AutoCAD LT 2000: A Problem Solving Approach

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I purchased this book as an AutoCAD beginner, with an interest in architectural drafting. I found the book to be a comprehensive reference book, but not very useful as a learning tool.

The explanations of the commands are often so succint that they lack context. For example, the concept of viewports, which is important, complicated and not very intuitive, is defined and contextualized in two sentences: "A viewport is a rectangular part of the graphics area of the screen. Viewports can be used in different ways and for different purposes." Two purposes are then offered: "The first reason to create viewports and divide the display screen into a number of parts is to create a model or layout...The second purpose is to have different parts or different views of your drawing in different viewports."

This explanation is followed by 18 pages of technically dense procedures for how to create and manipulate viewports, but no more explanation of when and why they are used.

For me as a beginner, this was not very helpful.

A second noteworthy consideration is the strong bias towards mechanical drafting; the architectural examples were rare and seemed to be afterthoughts.