SAVE

Yesterday we have successfully completed the First Assignment with AutoCAD. Now the second equally important thing after finishing the assignment is saving it for archival as well as retrieval for future use. Before saving any file let’s get an idea of PATH.

PATH, in computer language, is referred to the physical address of any digital file created with any application. Any computer has two types of storage devices – Temporary and Permanent. Floppy, CD, Flash Drives etc. are the examples of the temporary storage devices while Hard Disk is the example of the permanent storage device. Owing to their capacity, structure and nature, temporary storage device are good and most suitable for transferring of the data from one place to another but are inappropriate for long-term retention of data. Hence it is strongly recommended to SAVE the files on the Hard Disk.

Typically any Hard Disk has Partitions creating different drives. It is universal to have at least two drives, generally ‘C’ and ‘D’. It is advisable to install all your operating systems and applications on ‘C’ drive and all your work on the ‘D’ drive as it is less vulnerable to Virus Attacks and System Crashes, as compared to ‘C’. Why I say so is because whatever WE have created is UNIQUE and hence most valuable and thus needs to be protected and safeguarded. I don’t mean to say that OS or Applications are not important. Of course they are. But you can always ask for help and backup if you need to regain them.

So consider your ‘D’ drive as your City’s name. Now you cannot reach the address with city’s name alone. You will need the name of the area – for this purpose create a folder on the ‘D’ drive with a suitable name. For e.g. ‘Exercises’ (When you will work professionally it is common practice to create the folder in the name of the Project). Okay, we have reached in that particular area. Here you will need more specific information like the Lane, Road or Gully name. Create a subfolder within the folder ‘Exercises’, for our purpose we will name it chapter-wise, so name it ‘Chapter1’. In this particular lane you will need the name / no. of the building. This is our particular file. (For the above exercise minimize AutoCAD window and open Explorer window)

Now, come back to AutoCAD and click on File – Save, this will open the ‘Save Drawing As’ dialogue box. In the ‘Save in’ field locate D drive – Exercises folder – Chapter1 subfolder, all by double-clicking on the respective names. In the File name field type Assignment1 and click on Save next to it. Great! You have saved your first drawing file in a organized and effective manner. Congratulations! Don’t worry about the Files of type option as of now. We will learn about it’s purpose and method as we progress.

Path for your drawing is file://comp1d:/Exercises/Chapter1/Assignment1.dwg.

This was our first step to understanding and working with AutoCAD interface. We will quickly review what we have learnt during this assignment in a summarized form.

• Limits and GRID has a relation and both facilitate the drafting process.
• Zoom – All applies the Limits in the space.
• Grid and Snap work only in rectangular fashion, therefore it is most useful and efficient while working with rectangular patterned objects like staircase.
• GRID and SNAP spacing could be different but should belong to the same table.
• Line command has two prompts – First Point and Next Point, which is repeated as long as you continue drawing the line. It could be ended by pressing enter or ‘C’ and enter.
• It is interesting to work with AutoCAD…!

Practice drawing shapes in the picture with GRID and SNAP ON

Although we worked with GRID and SNAP ON in this assignment, we were able to draw diagonal lines as well. Can we restrict ourselves to horizontal/vertical lines only?

We will see tomorrow. Stay tuned…!