Learning The Basics Of AutoCAD Design

When you hear about "basics" when you're doing any type of design in AutoCAD the first thing that comes to mind is lines. Lines, polylines, circles, the three most basic commands. These are the fundamental design tools that everyone whose gone through school in the past 20 years knows about. It's the first thing you're taught when you're in school and it's the first thing you master. Lines, polylines. and circles are simple, easy to draw, and anyone who has done 10 minutes of training will know how to create one. They are some of the most important tools of designing. Not just in AutoCAD, but in a variety of other design programs as well. One of the issues I see amongst beginners in CAD software is their lack of precision. What do I mean by that? Well, most people who are starting out have a hard time with selecting precision dimensions (via typing them in) and precision angles. Instead, they prefer a much slower, less precise approach where they simply click the start of their line and drag it to "about" the distance they want and call it a day. Lets face it, most (if not all) of us have done this at some point. Either at the start of our careers or even in our jobs. I know I'm guilty of it. I used to use this tactic when I was doing projects in school and shamefully at one of my jobs. It wasn't until I started practicing the basics on a more professional level that I started to get a grip on how to use the program. Once I figured it out, it was easy and I can't stand doing what I used to do. I draw lines in 1/10th of the time and I'm more accurate. So what's the point of this post? For starters, it's important to nail the fundamentals before you move on to doing actual design work in AutoCAD (or any other program for that matter). If you don't have these basics down, you're going to suck at what you're doing and it's going to take you way longer to get anything done. Nobody wants that. Once the basics are nailed you can move on to more advanced functions, starting to do some practice designs, and getting some mentorship to help guide you and correct you when you are wrong.