When you are drafting in ACAD, you strive for the most accurate drawing you can produce. It cuts down on the work you have to do later as you continue with the project. Unfortunately if you are given a design by an architect in ACAD and you must create from it construction drawings, you either rely on the drawings being correct you redraw them. My firm is an excellent example of a company that is trying to teach the architects how to use the tools before them by setting up training seminars for them to learn 3D. Since 3D is most useful as either a presentation technique for you client's needs or as a design tool, the best thing you can do is to empower the designer. If they are producing with many of the programs above, the point of turning the 3D into construction documents becomes a moot point anyway. When you work with programs like Facade and A.P.T. you cannot change them into 2D drawings. You can however tell ArchT to transform itself from 3D to 2D and vice versa. However, you are limited in the work you can do to the drawing, as it must remain rather static in regards to what ArchT has drawn.
You have three choices for translating the drawings from 3D to 2D.
1. You drew the items in ACAD using solids. With solids you have various commands like section that allow you to generate regions that are sections of you project. These regions can then be exploded to work on like a regular drawing. With this method you should be familiar with using your UCS and rotate3d commands in order to arrange the created items.
2. You drew the items as either meshes in ACAD, 3Dplines, or you used Facade, A.P.T. or some other program to generate the 3D drawing. Once this is created switch over to Tilemode 0 and create Mviews. Each Mview align with the side of the building you want to look at, and then use the Dview command to Clip the back pane of the object within about 1/8" from the front to create an elevation. Do the same thing to create a plan view, only use the clip subcommand to generate a clipping plane that is about halfway down the walls of the building. This method can also be used on the solids if you prefer.
