CAD tutorial

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CAD tutorial

Postby mikeschn » Sun Oct 03, 2004 3:21 am

There's been several requests for a CAD tutorial, so I put up one here, drawing a simple teardrop...

But be warned... these are large pages, with large pictures, and lots of pictures too. A high speed connection is advised...

There are 5 pages...

http://www.mikenchell.com/tutorial/tutorial1.html
http://www.mikenchell.com/tutorial/tutorial2.html
http://www.mikenchell.com/tutorial/tutorial3.html
http://www.mikenchell.com/tutorial/tutorial4.html
http://www.mikenchell.com/tutorial/tutorial5.html

Have fun!
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Postby Gage » Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:42 am

Boy, I don't ever remember doing step one when I was working for a living :lol: But then again, that was over 10 years ago. Just a little trivia, I was part of a team that was developing the CAD CAM System for a major Aerospace Corp. in the late 70's and early 80's. I guess that's another reason I don't have a CAD program on my computer.

You all have a good day,
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Postby mikeschn » Sun Oct 03, 2004 7:41 am

Gage,

Was that McDonell Douglas?

And yes, I remember those days... back then the first command was something like Add->Line->Horiz or something similar...

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Postby BoilermakerFan » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:30 am

Nice tutorial. How much is IronCAD for a single seat license? I'm considering TurboCAD since IntelliCAD and VersaCADD are defunct. Well, IntelliCAD is still out there in about 9 forms similar to Linux, but not as cheap. :wink:
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Postby mikeschn » Sun Oct 03, 2004 8:58 am

IronCAD runs about $5000... but if you have a son or daughter who is in college, with a college ID, you can use that ID to get a "student learning edition"... I think that's about $129.

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Postby BoilermakerFan » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:12 am

Man that's as bad as Autodesk! Basic TurboCAD is $150 or less w/o student ID.

I'll wait till my wife goes back to school for her Masters, then look at IronCAD.
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Postby BoilermakerFan » Mon Oct 04, 2004 9:28 am

I downloaded the latest version of BricsCAD IntelliCAD V5 for evaluation. The Pro version is $450 with an included upgrade to V6 when it's relesed. The Classic version is $150 and students can get it for $50.
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Postby mikeschn » Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:52 am

I notice that BricsIntelliCAD does ACIS modeling... that's the portion of the program you want to use... :wink:

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Postby BoilermakerFan » Mon Oct 04, 2004 11:24 am

Thanks Mike, I'll install it and check it out. May have to buy a book on how to use all these new features!
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Postby BoilermakerFan » Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:04 pm

Whoa! Mike, I went to print the first page of your tutorial since I have 60 days to complete my design and finalize the drawings before my trial of IronCAD expires. I decided to print preview it first. I'm glad I did! It's 42 pages and that's just the first of five web pages. Anyway you can shrink the graphics down so it will print in about 8-10 physical pages per web page?

I want to try to incorporate Andrew's folding roof idea to bring the cabin up to 5' high when we need it. Can you help me model that when I have the basic design done? It's going to be a classic TD shape so the roof will be curved.
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Postby mikeschn » Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:17 pm

Well this really wasn't meant to be printed...

Besides using lots of sheets of paper, it'll use lots of ink too, with all the dark backgrounds...

But I wonder if there is a way to reduce the scale of the print job, either through your printer, or maybe by printing it to a pdf.

Let me look at that when I get home...

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Postby BoilermakerFan » Tue Oct 05, 2004 2:52 pm

Sorry Mike I was too hungry when I typed that last post. Thinking clearly now with a full belly. Reminds me of those Snicker's commercials.

I can ALT-TAB between the two, but I'll save a copy of the HTML to HDD and remove the graphics! I just need the steps printed. If I get into trouble, I'll ALT-TAB to the pic.
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Postby mikeschn » Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:07 pm

I did tweak it a little bit... I enlarged the text, shrunk the photos, and printed it to a PDF. I combined all 5 html pages into 1 huge PDF, and uploaded it to the web... Did I say it was huge... It's really huge...

Okay, so it's only 42 megs. But I don't know if I would even attempt to download it with a modem.

It's here if anyone wants it...
http://www.mikenchell.com/images/tutorial.pdf

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Postby nater104 » Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:33 pm

Thanks Mike. Luckily I have DSL so its only taking about 6-7 mins.
How do you have time to do all this stuff? :)
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Postby mikeschn » Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:49 pm

nater104 wrote:How do you have time to do all this stuff? :)


I'm beginning to wonder that too.

I've also been experimenting with the best way to make drawings for the web... and I think they'll end up being pdf like Andrew makes...

Here's an example...

http://www.mikenchell.com/images/WINTER ... RAILER.PDF

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