Beginners Guide to AutoCAD - Lesson 3, Drawing Correctly
For the past couple of weeks we've been talking about beginning drawing in AutoCAD. This week we are going to step back for a few minutes and talk theory rather than deal with command structure.
For the few (and I do mean few) Project Managers, Architects, Designers and Principals that actually do know how to draw on CAD and actually do it correctly of whom I have met only a handful, skip to the bottom of the article for interesting links. Otherwise consider the following article carefully as it plays an important role in how much you bill a client, your drawings "correctness" and creating a happy drafting force.
When people start to draft in AutoCAD there is a definite split between the people who are starting out learning CAD as a drafter and those that are coming back into the classroom to learn CAD. One of the biggest problems faced by the drafter is controlling your boss to get them to draw correctly in ACAD. One of the biggest problems for the project managers is that they want to directly manipulate the drawings, but either don't know how, or if they do they are more concerned with the overall drawing they are working on, then the details of actually drawing a correct drawing. Most designers want to simply sit down and sketch on a drawing. They don't take into account that what they are drawing will be used "as is" to start a project. They are of the mindset that they can simply sketch as if they were doing a drawing on flimsy and that the person who comes along next needs to clean it up. Unfortunately it doesn't work this way. As a drafter, you get drawings that you believe are correct. As a project manager, you don't want to think about colors, layers, line types, line type scales, etc. Unfortunately either the drafter will need extra time to maintain the drawings or the project manager has to leave the CAD drawings alone.
As a principal in a firm you have to figure out how you want your firm to be based. Shall the project managers have access to the files knowing that in most cases that they will mess up the drawings? How many hours did you put into your contract for drafting work? Did you double the numbers in order for the drafting staff to keep the drawings maintained if your managers aren't well versed in CAD? In simple terms of efficiency the best solution is to have the management keep out of the drawings. Mark up the drawings either in a stand-alone program that doesn't effect the actual drawing (see below for a new Autodesk program that does this), or on paper. Most prefer the paper method because it's easier to markup, note, see and read, and mark that it has been completed. This will keep the people you hired to draft busy, happy, and working on furthering the drawings rather than simply trying to keep them correct. Your project managers should be good at detailing, managing, redlining, and creating a project. Your drafters are good at drawing in CAD. You wouldn't put a drafter in charge of a million-dollar home project and expect the house not to leak. By the same token you shouldn't put a project manager into the position of CAD drafter. Hopefully over the next 20 years this will start to change as today's drafters learn more and become tomorrow's managers, but until that happens I find it's best to keep the two separated. I know one firm that has been starting to implement this idea. They did it not only for the cost saving efficiency mentioned above, but also consider how much a computer costs to upkeep with today's hardware and software on a yearly basis. Then multiply that by 10 project managers, architects, principals, etc. You will quickly see a number growing in front of you that isn't pretty. Just placing AutoCAD on 10 manager's computers will cost you at best in the range of $25,000. That's half a year's salary for most people. Instead you can place something like the Whip viewer running in either Netscape or IE or Autodesks' new Volo program which will probably cost you in the range of $1,000 for all 10 employees. That's a $24,000 price tag that is hard to find a good reason to swallow, not to mention the training, down time, corrections, mistakes, errors, etc.
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