You may not realize it, but your design drafting training began the first time you held a crayon in your hand. Let that sink in. The first thing that is ingrained in us is that we must color inside the lines. As our young design training progresses certain things become clear very quickly. For instance if we don’t get it right we erase it. If we do not draw it in exactly the right spot on the paper, we erase it. If we color outside of the lines and it can’t be fixed with the eraser, then we use it to practice our hoop shooting skills; crumple, aim, toss! Fast forward to the time in your life when sketching, or some form of communicating ideas to others with a pencil and paper became necessary. Most likely the early training kicked in……crumple…aim….toss!
When it becomes necessary for us to communicate our ideas to others with either sketches, or full scale drawings, our training kicks in. If we draw something, and decide it’s not in the right place, we get out the eraser. If we draw something, and decide that it’s not the right size, we get out the eraser. If we realize that we colored out side of the lines; crumple…aim…..toss
If we want to harness the powers of computer aided drafting we need to develop a new mindset. One that is in line with what we are able to do in the computer aided drafting world. Say goodbye to crumple…aim…toss!
If we draw an object, and realize it would better serve our design in another location, we would use the MOVE command to relocate it. This is a powerful concept as it opens the door to drawing an object, or a group of objects, and then moving them into position.
Moving objects allows us to make adjustments to a design until things have the desired visual outcome.
In the cad environment we are able to change the size of objects after they are originally drawn with the SCALE command. This means we can draw things with the desired shape, and then adjust the size as necessary to meet the needs of our project
The COPY command gives us the power to draw something one time, and then reuse this work as needed rather than redrawing the same objects over and over. Ideally with this concept in mind we would never draw any given objects more than once, as we would COPY the original work to the new location
In short, if we find that we have colored outside of the lines, we simply move the coloring, and adjust it until it fits inside of the lines. Or in the CAD environment if it better suits our design, we simply move the lines!
All of these concepts and tools are covered in the Fundamental tools series on the CAD LAB web site. Check them out, and I’ll see you in the CAD LAB
Jeffrey Lupp-
Founder/Educator at CAD LAB