By Elvis Sverko
Good morning, and welcome to a new dawn. Welcome to a world of digital product development. And get ready to ascend to new heights.
Design has always been an analog part of our first life, but in our second one, we’ve been able to develop products digitally. One tool that has enabled us to make this leap is CAD (Computer Aided Design). But what’s the best way to utilize it? What’s the best way to educate others to utilize it?
We’ll explore many paths to elevate your knowledge in these areas. From “how-to’s” of commands, features, concepts, and methods, to training solutions of these same techniques and procedures. We’ll investigate many CAD programs including AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit, stretching across manufacturing, engineering, and architectural platforms.
Sometimes it takes a simple yet unique perspective to clarify a complex solution. Sometimes it simply takes to just begin.
So let’s begin.
Suppose you’re drawing the elevation view of a staircase in AutoCAD. In order to draw the entire staircase, you must start with the first step. From a marked point on the floor, the first step needs to be placed 9 units to the right, and 8 units up. There’s plenty of ways to get there. You can do the math and calculate angle and length, or even draw objects to delete later. But that’s too many steps. Even Object Snap Tracking alone doesn’t get you there. So what’s the best way? The answer is to use the Temporary Track Point.
First, toggle on both Object Snap and Object Snap Tracking in the Status Bar. Next, start the line command, and when prompted for a first point, start the Temporary Tracking by typing TT at the Command Line, or right-clicking the mouse and selecting it under the Snap Overrides selection. Use the Object Snap and Tracking of the initial point by hovering the mouse over it until it is marked with a small cross, and move the mouse to the right tracking the point, and typing in the distance, in this case 9. You now have a temporary point 9 units to the right that you can track from to go 8 units up to start the first point of the line representing the first step. All done simply in one step.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao-tzu
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