ACA: Intro to AutoCAD Arch. Video Lecture | Become a Pro: Autocad Architecture Tutorial - Design Softwares

in this intro to autocad architecture i
want to go over some differences between
regular autocad also commonly known as
the vanilla autocad and this particular
flavor of autocad which basically takes
autocad and add specific tools for
architects on top of all the regular
tools that are included in regular
autocad so many architecture firms
interior design companies and other
similar companies use autocad
architecture because it has tools
specifically designed for building
design so it makes it a lot more
efficient for building drafting and
building design as opposed to regular
autocad when you think about autocad in
general it's really kind of the
jack-of-all-trades and the master of
none meaning it's not really great at
building design it's not really great at
product design compared to some other
software so in order to kind of improve
its abilities for designing and drafting
buildings they created what was known as
architectural desktop and that has since
been remained into autocad architecture
in order to be clear about how it
belongs in the autocad family so this is
AutoCAD architecture 2011 it will behave
exactly like AutoCAD and everything that
you do in AutoCAD will work here this
includes additional tools and some
additional abilities so when I go
through the AutoCAD architecture videos
I will assume that you already are
familiar with using AutoCAD in general
the vanilla vanilla regular AutoCAD and
kind of pick up from that by showing the
additional new tools that are included
in AutoCAD architecture so the first
couple of things that I'll point out is
that there are some differences in the
ribbon for example on the Home tab of
the ribbon you have a build panel and
this includes architectural components
walls doors windows etc you might hear
those referred to as AEC objects or AEC
tools so a ec stands for architecture
engineering and construction industry so
I might use that term from time to time
and if you hear that that's what it's
talking about so these are intelligent
objects on that will be easier to use in
the sense of
drawing building parts so rather than
drawing two lines to represent a wall
and then a hatch pattern to represent
the hatch in the center of the wall
there non-intelligent
right so if you modify them like you
move a door then you have to fix the
lines fix the hatch etc as opposed to
these which understand that there are
building components so if you move the
door then the wall will update itself
automatically and that's kind of the
point now the other thing that's going
to be significantly different is the
tool palettes and you can start the tool
palettes from the icon right there on
the ribbon or you can use the shortcut
which is TP for tool palettes so once
you have your tool palettes open on the
behavior of the palette in general works
the same as the tool palettes in AutoCAD
but you'll notice that there are
different tabs and in this case there
are so many tabs that they provide
groups to sort the tabs so if you click
on the properties button the third one
down on the bar on the side of the
palette assuming your palettes not
docked then it will fly out with your
properties and then at the bottom you
have categories design document
detailing visualization and all palettes
so if you're in the document
documentation phase of a project you can
go there and then get to some tools for
documenting and then if you're going to
the design phase of a project you can go
to that category and then the tabs will
switch over to give you the design tools
walls and doors and things like that so
that's an important difference in how
the tool palettes will work now you can
use the generic wall tool here on the
toolbar you can use the generic wall
tool on the build panel of the ribbon
and they'll do pretty much the same
thing the difference is that there are
pallet tabs specifically for walls doors
windows spaces FF&E and massing that are
going to be a little bit more specific
so when you go to the walls tab for
example there are specific tools that
are designed for specific construction
materials like a block wall versus a
brick wall versus a stud wall and we'll
get into that a lot more in my next
couple videos of
using wall door and window tools just
kind of wanted to show an overview here
a couple of the things that are
important to keep in mind in autocad
architecture you have a cut plane that
is specifically set and so it's taking
when you are in a floorplan view like a
top view it's taking a horizontal
section at that height that's shown
there three foot six above the floor
plan a floorplan level of zero so when
you draw with your smart objects like
walls doors and windows you're drawing
three-dimensional objects and then when
you're in the plan view you're getting a
plan view shown at the three foot six
cut plane above the zero height in your
Z direction and I'll get into that more
a little later as well and the last
thing that's kind of a major difference
is the display configurations which are
button right there next to your cut
plane and this allows you to customize
what the view is while you're either
enough specific viewport or while you're
working in model space so if you're
working on a floor plan you might leave
that in medium detail and if you go to
work on a ceiling plan you can change
that to reflected and then any and then
any intelligent objects like walls doors
ceiling grids will change their view
because they understand that you want to
see a reflected ceiling plan view when
you change the display configuration so
the intelligent objects can be
controlled by layers in terms of
visibility and their graphics and
visibility can be controlled also by the
display configuration so the display
configurations are very flexible and
powerful they allow you to even cut
different cut plane heights so maybe
you're working on a multi-story building
and you have it all modeled three
dimensionally you can have a first floor
display configuration second floor and
the third floor for example so that you
could switch back and forth very quickly
between seeing the different levels of
the building in a plan view so and that
is a important distinction with AutoCAD
architecture as well there are some
other minor changes in the location of
tools in the ribbon
but it's usually pretty easy to figure
out if you look through your tabs and
where everything falls is pretty
self-explanatory
keep in mind like I when I went over the
ribbon and regular AutoCAD you can
always turn your tabs on and off by
right-clicking anywhere in the ribbon
and then go into tabs and seeing what's
checked or unchecked and if you're
having trouble finding something you
might see if there are some of the tabs
that are turned off or some of the
panels that are turned off and just like
an AutoCAD all this as customizable as
well