Are CAD training courses still relevant today?

CAD software was first developed in the early 1960’s, with Autodesk releasing AutoCAD in 1982. After all this time, the software is still popular today, with the demand for training still strong, with CAD training courses among the most popular courses that Excitech provides. 

Focusing on AutoCAD, one could wonder why it continues to be so widely used and has not been replaced by other more recent technologies. There are a number of factors that play a role in its success and that maintainthe knowledge of CAD and AutoCAD are essential skills in numerous sectors.

In this blog, I will focus on 5 key areas which I think makes AutoCAD so popular:

Customisation

The user interface can be greatly customised. You can display the ribbon, menus, or toolbars, create your own buttons and tool palettes, or add existing buttons to the quick access bar for ease of access. You can also save the interface in a workspace, facilitating the process of storing and loading different setups.

An AutoCAD profile can be set up to store all the settings that control the appearance of the different elements of the software and the behaviour of the commands.

Those profiles and workspaces can be loaded when you switch to a different machine or when you upgrade to a newer version to keep a consistent look and feel.

Opening our doors to FREE training – Reflecting on the Excitech training event

I’m Alan Skipp, and I’m the Training Delivery Manager for Excitech. I tend to spend a lot of my time in the office, however, Excitech recently held a training event at our Bishopsgate, London training centre, where I had the pleasure of meet a few of our clients. During his event, Excitech provided a number of free sample training sessions and the opportunity to meet some of our trainers.

Bishopsgate is a terrific training centre in the heart of London and is very popular with our customers. Our aim was to showcase this centre, and more importantly some of our talented people who have been responsible for delivery so much technical knowledge over the years.

We provided twelve one-hour training presentations held in our two training rooms, covering eleven subject matters. At the heart of this were a number of CAD Training courses, including:

• Autodesk Revit Architecture - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/Autodesk-Revit-Architecture-Fundamentals
• Autodesk Revit Structure RC Detailing - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/RC-Detailing-with-Revit-Structure-2016
• Autodesk Revit MEP - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/Autodesk-Revit-MEP-Fundamentals
• Dynamo for Revit - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/Dynamo-Fundamentals-for-Autodesk-Revit
• Autodesk Civil 3D - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/AutoCAD-Civil-3D-Fundamentals
• Autodesk AutoCAD - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/AutoCAD-AutoCAD-LT-Essentials
• Navisworks - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/Autodesk-Navisworks-Essentials
• 3DS Max - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/Autodesk-3ds-Max-Fundamentals
• Infraworks - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/InfraWorks-for-Civil-Engineering
• Inventor - Sheet Metal Design - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/Autodesk-Inventor-Sheet-Metal-Design
• Inventor - Design Automation - https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses/Inventor-Certified-User-Part-1

The Dynamo session was the most popular of the sessions, so much so that we ended up putting on two sessions. To provide the expertise, we had six trainers on hand, each an expert in their own subject area.

During the day, we also had an opportunity to learn a little more about our own customers, so took time to have a chat. It was great hearing about their individual industries and stories, and to learn about their thoughts on training as individuals and how their organisations see training. It was particularly heartening to learn that in many cases training is embedded as part of their company culture, and classroom training is still the preferred method for the majority of our clients. Furthermore, it was interesting to learn, that many view the “basic training” course as only part of the journey and not the destination, so most saw the value in furthering their skills through more advanced training.

I hope those who attended learnt something new and will visit us again for further training. We have some very talented people here at Excitech who can help our customers effectively use some amazing products and help them with their personal learning journey.

Interested in finding out more? Click here to find out more about our portfolio of CAD training courses which are available in our London centre or any of our other training centres. Or why not enquire about in-company CAD training which can be delivered at a location of your choice.

https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training

Convert AutoCAD Drawings To A Shapefile Format

AutoCAD is a great tool to edit and manipulate drawings, but sometimes we need to convert the information contained in AutoCAD drawings to a different format to study it from a different perspective. Being able to interoperate between different applications to take full advantage of their differing capabilities is essential and is part of what I cover in my CAD training courses.

An example of this is the shapefile format, which is used in Geographic Information System (GIS) software. GIS applications are used to edit and analyse spatial information and have many applications in fields like engineering, transport or telecommunications.

The MAPEXPORT commandserves that purpose, however is unfortunately not available in AutoCAD. In order to use it, you will need AutoCAD Map 3D or Civil 3D installed. This command is easy to follow but you need to be aware of the differentoptions  to include all the information needed in the shape files.

I will now take you step by step through a CAD training exercise where we export all the features from an AutoCAD drawing to a shapefile format.

First, type MAPEXPORT in the command line from AutoCAD Map 3D or Civil 3D. In the window that pops up, browse to the path in your computer where you want to store the shape files. Select ‘Shape Multiclass’ in the type drop-down and type a name for the folder that will contain the files. A new folder will be created with this name and the files generated will be stored in it. In this example we are going to call this folder ShapeFiles, as shown below:

You can also select an existing folder, but it is not recommendable because it may conflict with existing ones. You will receive a warning message if you try this, and will then give you the option to append the new files, overwrite existing ones that may exist with the same name or cancel this dialog to be able to change to a different folder.

In the next window, go to the Selection tab and click on the ‘Select all’ option to select all the objects contained in the drawing.

There are2 alternatives for manual selection. If you click on the first icon you can click on the objects in the drawing that you want to include. Clicking on the second icon will open the ‘Quick select’ window, where you can filter the different objects by their type and properties.

You can then add additional filters to your selection by selecting the layers or object classes that you want to include. Notice that an asterisk is included in the Layers field by default, which means that all the layers will be included in the filter.

On the Feature Class tab, select ‘Create multiple classesbased on a drawing object’.

If you want to include some particular attributes in the Shape files, this can be done by clicking on the ‘Select Attributes’ button and ticking the ones you are interested in.

Finally, go to the Options tab and tick ‘Treat closed polylines as polygons’. Other options available in this tab givesthe ability to convert coordinates to a different coordinate system, or to choose between 3D or 3D shape files, by clicking on the ‘Driver Options’ button.

If you click OK, a group of files will be created for each feature, as shown below:

You can now open these files directly in your GIS application or add them directly to the central directory of a ZIP archive. The latter makes it easier tosend the information to a third party if needed.

CAD training is an excellent way to brush up on your skills and provides more accurate and efficient ways of doing things on the software.

If you are looking for CAD training, take a look at our full range here.

https://www.excitech.co.uk/Services/Training/Training-Courses?LocationIds=&SupplierIds=&IndustryIds=&ProductIds=&TrainingTypeIds=&OrderByScheduleValue=&OrderByValue=&PageNo=1&StartPrice=&EndPrice=&PageType=&SearchText=CAD&StartDate=&EndDate=