46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great introductory book, December 11, 2005
This review is from: AutoCAD2006 and AutoCADLT 2006: No Experience Required (Paperback)
I am an engineerint student in the earth sciences and AutoCAD knowledge is very essential in my field. I never really took any previous course in AutoCAD, but I did work on it for one of my graduate courses. But I barely had rudimentary knowledge and it was time for me to learn it in the correct way from scratch. I found this book on amazon after reading the nice review from one of the people over here. I am halfway through the book and I m absolutely satisfied with the book. Heres why:
- The author assumes no previous knowledge of autocad and takes a step by step guide to the process. He even talks a little about using the mouse and basic windows editing before he gets started to autocad. So, even a windows newbie will find this book useful.
- Thi book is a step step tutorial on drawing the plan and elevation of a cabin. So basically you will be working on a project with each step spelt out to you. Each step is spelt out in detail so that there is no confusion in implementation.
- The flow is smooth and he doesnt rush through anything.
-The chapter are organised as follows:
1. Getting to know AutoCAD
- Includes sections on starting, command windows, toolbars, keyboard and mouse.
2. Basic commands to get started.
-Includes line command, drawing polygon using diffent methods, offset, fillet, extend, extend, erasing and finally exercises
3. Setting up a drawing.
-Includes drawing units, drawing size, drawing with grid and snap, autoCAD units
4. Gaining drawing strategies: Part I
Heres where the cabin project starts
-Laying out walls, creating doors by using copy, mirror commands
5.Gaining drawing strategies: Part II
-Includes drawing steps and thresholds, drawing balcony using circle command, laying out the kitchen and bathroom
6. Using layers to organize your drawing
-Includes setting up layers and practise exercises
7. Grouping objects into blocks
-Includes making a block, inserting blocks, dynamic blocks, findng blocks in drawing, revising a block, practise exercises
8. Generating elevations
-Includes drawing front elevations, drawing scale considerations
9. Working with hatches and fills
-Includes looking and modiyinf a hatch pattern, create and managing tool palettes
10. Controlling text in a drawing
-Includes setting up text styles, using single line texts, using multi line texts, creating a table
11. Dimensioning a drawing
-Includes dimension styles, makind and placing dimensions sytles, modifying dimensions, practise exercies
12. Managing external references
-Includes drawing a site plan, setting up external references (Xref), modiying,applications, binding Xref drawing, practise exercises
13. Using layouts to set up print
-Includes setting up layouts, working with multiple viewpoints in a layout, practise exercises
14. Printing an AutoCAD drawing
-Includes plot dialog box, printing a drawing, pinting a drawing using layouts, plot styles.
15. A look at drawing in 3D
-Includes 3D modeling and further directions in 3D
Plus an addtional chapter "making the internet work with AutoCAD" and two addtional appendices,"An introduction to attributes" and "An introduction to dynamic blocks" available in the publishers website.
I did find two small "errors" in the book though. But you can easily sort them out without too much of a hassle.
So if you want to study AutoCAD but dont have time or the money to register for a course , do what I did. Buy a student version of AutoCAD , which is available with registered dealers online for about $180 and buy this book. The student version has all the features of the regular version except that when you print a drawing, a watermark will be displayed on the printout indicating that its a student copy of AutoCAD. And morever the license does not expire and you can keep working on AutoCAD forever.This way you can study at your leisure and by the end of the tutorial you will have learned enough of AutoCAD to start working on real life AutoCAD projects on your own.
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