i realize the highly subjective and broad nature of the question but i felt like asking anyway

i'm currently an NDT Tech for a local engineering firm and I'm just trying to be a little more valuable to my company and continue my training

is AutoCAD something I can pick up on in my spare time, maybe an hour or two each night? if so, how long would it take to be competent?

7/4/2008 6:18:37 PM

Are you familiar with any other CAD programs? It will be a lot easier if you are.

It's kind of like programming... if you know one language then it isn't that difficult to learn other languages. It's the thought process of how you achieve various things that you really have to learn.

7/4/2008 6:19:45 PM

there're quite a few tutorials floating around and i think you can get them through the library too, but it really depends on the kinds of things you plan to do

7/4/2008 6:20:55 PM

how quickly do you pick up other new, complicated programs?

i'd get a book or two, and look into classes at your local community college or something.

7/4/2008 7:34:03 PM

What Wraith said is pretty dead on. I use solidworks and NX 5 most of the time because well..they aren't re-fucking-tarded for 3D shit like AutoCAD is but I can go back to AutoCAD fairly quickly when I have to..

7/4/2008 7:57:32 PM

i was told autocad is one of those things dumbasses from hs can learn at community colleges and still make bank

7/4/2008 8:00:57 PM

I wouldn't go that far.. but yeah some people are good on it that aren't good at a lot of other things and you can make decent money doing it

although it's really a pretty boring job imo

7/4/2008 8:07:45 PM

Quote :

"i was told autocad is one of those things dumbasses from hs can learn at community colleges and still make bank"

I learned it when I was a junior in high school and after a few months in the class, I was a complete whiz in it. It is easy mostly because it is primarily used for 2D applications. All the terminology (trim, explode, layers, line types, etc.) will be the same between programs though.

7/4/2008 8:16:08 PM

yeah

autocad is cake...especially if you have good spatial reasoning

the only reason that i am using inventor is because you can get it for free if you are a student. i would much prefer solidworks because thats what i learned first

7/4/2008 8:17:58 PM

I think autocad is one of those things were it's easy to be OK at, but takes alot of experience to be really good at.

7/4/2008 9:14:28 PM

or perhaps WHERE it's easy to be ok at..

7/4/2008 9:27:46 PM

i don't need to be great, lets just say i feel insecure about my position in the company right now and that would really give me a leg up on all my other colleagues

my degree is in criminal justice and i'm working in engineering so i dont mind being a jack of all trades and a master of none

7/4/2008 10:16:54 PM

yeah just learning to get around on it should be doable..easiest way i'd say is to follow some basic online tutorials, maybe there's some on youtube i dunno.. i know i learned a lot about photoshop from youtube. it's a lot easier to watch and learn on something like that than it is to read about it and try to do it without having a damn clue what theyre talking about

7/4/2008 10:21:31 PM

i taught myself photoshop and dreamweaver but i figure this is a little harder and its not for fun so i won't enjoy it

7/4/2008 10:32:47 PM

autocad = easy. for serious.

7/4/2008 10:36:48 PM

i learned Microstation on the job its cake

7/4/2008 10:39:54 PM

AutoCAD is fairly simple to pick up if you want to consider yourself "experienced" at it.

The more you practice, the faster you get at it. If you're just making drawings as examples and models to try to explain something, it's pretty straightforward.

If you're trying to make official drawings that look professional, then it may take a little longer to figure out how to make print templates and import images and stuff like that, but it's still not too bad.

I consider myself as having mastered it after only using it for about a year, but I had a job as a CAD designer for most of that year so I had plenty of opportunities to practice.

7/5/2008 12:55:25 AM

i taught myself

it's easy to get good enough at it to do most things

i'm sure it would take some training to get REALLY good at it and use it to its full potential.

7/5/2008 4:46:48 AM

Which version are you trying to pick up? It should be easy pick up the 2D aspect of AutoCAD. If you are trying to learn AutoCAD Inventor, then that may prove a little more difficult if you don't have experience with other 3D constraint based modelers.

This may help you out:
http://www.ncsu.edu/project/graphicscourse/gc/acadtut/acadtut2000/acadtut-home.html

There is also a link there to R14 tutorials. I think there are other AutoCAD tutorials out there that are free. The biggest problem I think that you'll run into is learning the ins and outs of GD&T.



[Edited on July 5, 2008 at 7:59 AM. Reason : OSNAP, an AutoCAD thread!]

7/5/2008 7:55:18 AM

thanks! those are really good tutorials, it doesnt seem as bad as i thought

7/5/2008 9:54:46 AM

autocad is simple. you'd have to be completely braindead if you struggled to learn it.

7/5/2008 11:32:12 AM

^Easily the most useful comment in this thread...

7/5/2008 2:12:01 PM

its easy as hell. i learned it in 10th grade but even still, once you learn some commands and know how to use the properly, meaning what order it wants you to click stuff in, that about all there is. if you start doing 3d stuff and more complicated things, then you might have to ask a couple questions or read something. other than that just go at it and youll be good in a few hours. seriously. its not hard at all.

7/5/2008 9:40:31 PM

as other have said, not very hard at all. it helps if you've had some manual drafting experience, or at least know know to read engineering drawings, but not necessary.

on a related note, is any one still using REALLY archaic 2-d software? i went from being used to solidworks at my old job, (in addition to lots of pro/e and autocad experience) to something called helix at my new job. it was released somewhere in the mid 80's i think, and OH MY GOD what a pain in the ass. its clear it was developed before people had figured out how to use a mouse efficiently. its literally 11 mouse clicks to just erase a line. we're supposed to be getting inventor later this year, but u have my doubts as to how much it will be utilized since there's so much legacy data in the other format. if something doesn't change, i may have to move on to a company with more relevant engineering tools.

7/5/2008 11:14:32 PM

half of my office uses AutoCAD and half uses DataCAD

it's a ton of fun to try and get files from each other

AutoCAD is pretty easy though

7/6/2008 11:26:07 AM