Acad2DTuts

www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/learning/autocad
Uni of New South Wales Faculty of the Built Enviroment. Well regarded tutorials. A2000, R14, R13, R12. (**Listing duplicated in the AutoCad Basics secton of the Introduction To AutoCad Page)

www.bath.ac.uk/~abshhkc/lectures/acad/index.html Henry Chow -University of Bath. Uses R2000i (2D) ## Not found 9Dec02 to 24June03.
www.bath.ac.uk/~abshhkc/tutorials/index.html An alternative index that lists a number of tutorials including 3D Studio Viz.
Good well indexed site covering 2D and 3D. Uses frames so the listing in the 3D Tutorials section is a duplication of this URL.
(It is unusual to see frames in a new site these days. The difficulties for seach engines, site maintainance, providing external links plus frustrations for experienced users are now considered to outweigh the (percieved) advantages that frame sites were suppose to have for inexperienced internet users.)
Look under Resources for Tutorials which are the drawing files you need for all the tutorials, 2D and 3D. They are 468kB zipped unzipping to 1234kB.
With Winzip 7 you are able just to open the .dwg file you want to use without having to unzip everthing. Do this by double left clicking on the zip file in Windows Explorer which opens Winzip displaying the contents of the zip file then select a tutorial file and click Open. This starts AutoCad in the tutorial drawing choosen which can be immediately saved. (If you already have AutoCad running, the tut drawing opens up in it without causing AutoCad to open a second time). Close Microsoft Explorerer.
I don't like pdf for good and proper reasons. The pdf files are 3.80Mb zipped unzipping to 4.56Mb. After double clicking on the zip file in Windows Explorer, the contents are displayed by Winzip and you can click again on a particular file and have it open in Acrobat Reader. (I use Acrobat Reader 3.0 but for me the images of the tutorial drawings at the various stages of completion did not come up -have to determine where the problem lies. I'll check on another computer at the office.) Anyway I can't get a pdf file onto the left 40% of the screen while I use the right 60% for Autocad which is the way I work with tutorials written html, a format which is designed for internet use and adjusts to screen width.
bath_uni/mybathindex.html My Bath Tutorials Index includes on-line and local.
bath_uni/chap1.html My summary of his Chapter 1 tutorial which makes a simple wall plan, edits it, creates layers and places the walls on the layers.

pisces.sbu.ac.uk/BE/SUDP/Architecture/acadhtml/ South Bank University -London (2D) ## Can't resolve hostname 9Dec02 to 24June03.
The index for nine 2D tutorials, Lessons 1 to 9 and their tests. Older but core AutoCad learning.
(For the index of the three 3D tutorials, Lessons 10 to 12 see my 3D Tutorials section below.)
(Because of the scarcity of free stand alone tests these links reoccur in my AutoCad Tests section.)

Good! homepage.dtn.ntl.com/terry.rawkins Terry Rawkins of Bracknell and Wokingham College.
Good 2D and 3D Tutorials by Terry. (Also listed in 3D Tutorials for 3D drawing stratagies and safetynets and listed in Customising for scripting and taking equation based values from Excel into into AutoCad script files and listed in AutoCadTests in AutoCad Page).
www.oocities.org/terryrawkins His Geocities site (has some free downloads).
www.bracknet.com A related website. For various tutorials click on "Free Stuff".
Note: Terry Rawkins introduced html to allow CAD students to show off their work, and to display supporting coursework for students on the internet. The course became CAD and HTML and then finally CAD, Multimedia and the Internet. He also used free websites.

www.cadtutor.net
Excellent original tutorials. AutoCad 14/2000/2000i as well as 3DStudio and Adobe PhotoShop tutorials.
Four sections. AutoCad, Digital Design (ie non-AutoCad), Website Creation and Image Bank (vector and raster). See their 3D and lighting links in the 3D section.

www2.ncsu.edu/../
University of Carolina. Six good AutoCad introductory tutorials (2000i ..so applies to 2000+ series). By Dr. Alice Y. Scales. Links to R14 tuts.

www.cadalot.co.uk Alan James Wooldridge's Cadalot -UK website.
Tips and Tricks Page. Good AutoCAD tips, FAQ's and links. See the good tutorials in the Exclusively on the Web area incuding many by Marl Middlebrook (Cadence articles?) which are intended for new users to AutoCAD LT but also apply to a large extent to full AutoCAD. Also support for IntelliCad and Cadvance users.

www.dotsoft.com
See tips (incl release history of AutoCad), bugs, links, discussion (need program.exe), freestuff, programming (especially REVERT ..an example of initiating VBA from the cmd line using autolisp) and proceedures (includes Excel scripting and text linetypes where you modify existing ones quickly) and more.

The CAD Guy Lots of original tuts to work through on-line. Some can be downloaded to work off-line.
See his 3D tutorials (including 2D Isometric) in the 3D Tutorials section.

www.mossdesigns.com
www.mossdesigns.com/quicktips.htm Good AutoCad Tips and Tricks (although many are R14 ).
One interesting A2K tip was opening more than one dwg at the same time by Select>File>Open then [Ctrl] and select two or more dwgs and press [Open]. Works ok but you only see the thumbnail of the 1st dwg selected (on A2000). Press [Ctrl] [Tab] to switch between the opened dwgs.
www.mossdesigns.com/tutorials.htm Autocad, MDT, Inventor, Lisp tuts.
## Note: www.mossdesigns.com comes up ok but the two internal pages listed here do not come up 28Dec02 to 24June03. Only Inventor Tips and Free Downloads works in the Nav Bar!

www.cad-designs.fsnet.co.uk/autocad/tutorials No nonsence UK site. 2D and 3D tutorials. Markup, redlining ..some interesting stuff. Appears under construction and incomplete in some places and very complete and interesting in other places.

www.digitalcad.com/Htm/tutorials/fulton1.htm
In this lesson you use OPEN and PARTIALOAD to open only a portion of a large drawing file and load additional geometry when needed to permit you to work on just a small portion of a large file.

www.markcad.com AutoCad for Dummies author Mark Middlebrook.
Tutorials (includes xrefs, plotting and limits), tips and Autolisp code.

www.complete-support.com OpenCAD
US$60 for one year on-line training for AutoCad (or 3DStudio). Education pricing offers.
** Check out their 7 day trial offer! ** ..definitely worth a look on a rainy week-end.

www.cadvantage.com CadVantage. Indian site with many zipped starter tutorials to download for a wide range of Cad, Graphics and web related packages and topics. Includes AutoCad, Autolisp, Visual DCL (dialog boxes for AutoLisp), 3DStudio (Max and VIZ), WinZip and HTML and creating Help files with Microsoft Help Workshop. Particularly good discussion on AutoCad compared with other low, mid and top end CAD packages ..starter tutorials for those too!

www.alambina.ws/1dacad The One Day AutoCad Page
A Good set of tutorials done in R14. From beginners to some advanced topics such as rendering, lights and materials. Sadly the tutorials are in PDF format and some of the files are large. ** I don't approve of PDF but I am checking the site out. **

www.find.com.au/tutorials/3dsoftware/autocad
A frustrating tutorial finder that does not show the tutorial site names and has separate listings for each tutorial on the one site. The site and it's links are regularly updated.

I like to think of the modelspace/paperspace dichotomy in metaphysical terms, like that of the physical world (mutatis mutandis) and the unseen "spirit world". From the spirit world you can look down on the mortal world at any time or place like a voyeur and intervene in the affairs of the mortals by double clicking in a viewport (although it is not recommended practice). -Quote from Alt.Comp.Cad

his is a subject of great debate, which draws in X-Refs and X-Clips.

Paper/Layout Space is a hard concept for some people to get to grips with. Below are some links to well written articles on the subject. At the end of the day the best method of working is the one you find the easiest to understand and work with after reviewing the alternatives (be mindful that in the real world the choice might not always be yours to make).

Let AutoCAD control your linetype scale. Don't try to control the appearance of lines using LTSCALE. It is a global variable. Instead, set up your paper space viewports with PSLTSCALE set to 1 (the default). That way your linetypes will scale to the reciprocal of the ZOOM factor you used for each viewport, making them all look the same in each viewport, even if they are at different scales. To adjust an individual line, use the PROPERTIES window.

Put dimensions in model space. But don't place any dimensions until you have set up your scaled viewports in paper space. That way you can have the sizes scaled automatically.

Those who choose not to use Paper Space may do scaled 2D models and xref them at the inverse of their scale (using XCLIP if necessary) into a drawing sheet for 1:1 plotting (I have avoided xref and just inserted small mechanical parts into mechanical drawing sheet or xrefed during the design phase and "localised" the xrefs at the conclusion). Personally I make it a cardinal rule to always model at full scale.

Folk doing schematic diagrams can just throw a border and titleblock on their model and print it.

www.cadalyst.com/solutions/mc/0101cm/0101cm.htm Revenge Of The paper Space Cadets. -Mark Middlebrook
www.cadalyst.com/solutions/mc/0700cm/0700cm.htm Lost In Paper Space. Should paper space be your standard? -Mark Middlebrook
www.cadalyst.com/solutions/mc/0700cm/table1.htm Paper Space Pros and Cons. Reasons for and against using paper space. -Mark Middlebrook

members.aol.com/jbiddy "AutoCAD Anwers". Link in CADTutor. Time to spare? ..click on "All My Links".

nurbsplines/nurbsplines.html A collection of thoughts and facts about AutoCad nurbs or "true splines" including how to draw and edit them which together constitues a 2D tutorial. It started life with me thinking I was going to make a nurbs surface but the meshes I created ended up as polyline meshes even though I stated with a true nurb spline. That's Autocad but I had to see for myself. I'll try it next time in Mechanical Desktop.

Aussie John's Site This Page Last Updated and Links Checked: 24 June 2003

AutoCAD 2D Tutorials Page