AutoCAD standards help establish consistency and productivity in engineering design. Standards for industries such as electrical and mechanical drafting are supported by AutoCAD, which allows inventors to create industry-compliant designs for prototypes. AutoCAD connects with a database of top manufacturers who design buttons, switches and thousands of other parts, which is expressed in AutoCAD as symbols that resemble the physical parts.Establishing Standards
- Design projects need a CAD manager or team leader who sets drawing standards. In order to create consistency, each department should supply the CAD manager with its own standards to review, which could be affected by various AutoCAD software versions. The CAD manager should then use these standards to establish an overall standard for colors, shapes and sizes.
Custom Standards
- CAD standards for any given project can be changed and do not need to be fixed. They can be flexible with well-defined targets for collaborators. Tools sometimes need to be added to the project and standards must be set for new tools. Sometimes standards are wrong and need to be periodically reviewed and revised. New software upgrades also require new standards.
Symbol Libraries
- Symbol libraries reduce the need to draw parts from scratch by allowing you to insert drawings represented by symbols into your design. AutoCAD comes with a vast content library of parts and features that already conform to international drafting standards. AutoCAD includes thousands of pre-drawn mechanical steel shapes, which can be accessed by clicking the content library button on the top ribbon.
Add New Symbols
- New tools can be added to AutoCAD from other sources and incorporated in the tool palette. CBEN is an online library of CAD symbols. Use the "insert component" interface to quickly select and insert symbols into drawings. The icon menu wizard lets you create and organize symbols. Graphics for symbols should be listed in an Appendix for reference.
