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50 AutoCAD Commands You Should Know

After spending countless hours in front of AutoCAD working on a project, you’re bound to have your own set of favorite commands to standardize a few steps. We also bet that you don’t have them all memorized or often forget them. To help you remember, we've made a list of 50 commands that can help you speed up your work game, discover new shortcuts, or come in use as a handy tool for when you forget what the command you need is called.

The following listing was developed and corroborated by our team for the 2013, 2014 and 2015 versions of AutoCAD in English. We also prepared a series of GIFs to visualize some of the trickier ones.

When you’ve finished reading, we would love to know what your favorite commands are (including those that we didn’t include). We will use your input to help us update the article!

In Praise of Drawing: A Case for the Underrated Craft

In Praise of Drawing: A Case for the Underrated Craft  - Featured Image
© Jim Keen

I was part of the last generation of architectural students who didn't use computers (we’re only talking the early 1990’s here; there was electricity, color TV’s, rockets, just no renderings.) In my final year at college I miscalculated how long it would take me to finish my thesis project. As the deadline approached, I realized it was too late for me to match my fellow students’ presentations. At the time Zaha Hadid, and her deconstructivist paintings, set the style for architectural illustration. That meant many student projects being rendered in oil paints on large canvases.

5 Architecture Offices Using VR to Present Their Designs

Presenting designs to third parties can be a challenging task. Architects may find it difficult to describe spaces to their clients, therefore more firms are incorporating virtual reality into their workflows and project presentations.

Below are 5 architecture offices using SentioVR to present their designs. To see the content in 360º, click on the image and move the mouse.

The Best Architecture Software of 2018

When you think of the age of hand drafted architecture drawings, what images come to mind? Is it the iconic plans of the Palladian Villas? Fast forward to present day, where architecture software is favored over hand drawings due to its efficiency and ability to create increasingly innovative structures. With all of the software available to architects, have you ever wondered which one might be the "best"? Luckily, TechRadar has just released their list of leading architecture software for this year.

How an Optimized Workstation Accelerates Your Design

 How an Optimized Workstation Accelerates Your Design - Image 2 of 4
Courtesy of BOXX

Which processor? How many graphics cards? How much RAM? For architects, engineers, civil engineers, BIM managers, and other CAD pros, navigating the computer workstation marketplace can be an arduous task, hindered by unknowledgeable sales reps, inaccurate information, and other pitfalls.

How to Make Beautiful Stylized Floor Plans Using Photoshop

This article was originally published by RenderPlan as "How to Render an AutoCAD Floor Plan with Photoshop."

Rendering plans in Photoshop is an essential part of presenting your work to your client or to convince a competition jury to pick your design as a winner. Whenever you publish your work for books, websites or presentations the design quality of your plans will be your business card to future clients and the audience you build around your practice. Let’s start step by step.

LineCAD Offers Solid Collection of Free Architecture CAD Blocks (No Strings Attached)

The people have spoken and the message is clear: “We want CAD blocks, reference drawings in DWG format and templates of all kinds!” Well, feast your eyes on this latest discovery, www.linecad.com. The site is a catch-all for downloadable DWGs and blocks whose scope even goes beyond architecture. (Shout out to your engineer buddies looking for pumps, pipes and gauges!)

If the AutoCAD Unexpected Error was "Honest"

If the AutoCAD Unexpected Error was "Honest" - Image 1 of 4
Courtesy of The Leewardists

Modern technology; when it works, it's brilliant. Even the cell phone, primarily a communication device, can now transform our face into a dog or let us throw angry birds at pigs. Computers really do separate us from the animals. 

But it's not all fun and games, particularly for architects. Whilst the new kids on the block such as BIM and virtual reality are hurtling the profession into the 21st century, AutoCAD will always be the dear old friend we could never let go of. And that presents a problem - because AutoCAD is more than capable of letting go of us. It's never through a heartfelt letter, or an endearing text, but through a cold, abrupt, soul-destroying message. AutoCAD knows it can leave us unexpectedly, it knows we will come crawling back, but at least now, you know what it really means when it says goodbye.

If the AutoCAD Unexpected Error was "Honest" - Image 2 of 4
Courtesy of The Leewardists

A Library of Downloadable Architecture Drawings in DWG Format

Looking for some quick references or ways to spice up your drawings? Fire up Google Translate or brush the dust off your Italian to take advantage of this comprehensive vector/dwg/architecture drawing resource site! archweb provides a number of free CAD blocks, downloadable CAD plans and DWG files, for you to study or use in precedent research. From furniture to north arrows, road detailing to room layouts, the website boasts a vast collection of plans, sections and elevations for you to pick and choose from, across a variety of categories. And what’s more, many drawings come complete with closed polylines and shapes for you to fill and hatch to your heart’s content.

Check out these 20 blocks to add quick and easy details to your drawings:

Visualizations of the Most Used AutoCAD, Revit, and 3dsMax Commands

The 'Customer Involvement Program' of Autodesk's research department has, over the years, compiled a database of over 60 million individual commands created by anonymized users. Each reveals shortcut paths and thought flows among its customer base. The team have visualized the product usage (here described as the Command Usage Arc project) by ordering known and new commands from the most-frequently-used to the least-frequently. Revealed as a sequence of infographics, the results demonstrate how people work – and how they often deviate from prescribed usage.

Sinks, Toilets, Shower Heads and Faucets: Downloadable Bathroom CAD Blocks

In order to support the design work of our readers, the company Porcelanosa Grupo has shared with us a series of .DWG files of its various bathroom products. The files include both 2D and 3D drawings and can be downloaded directly from this article.

Download the objects below, which have been separated into the following categories: Shower Heads, Toilets, Sinks, Faucets and Tubs.

CyArk Captures Culture and Preserves History in the Face of ISIS in Syria

This article was originally published in Redshift and is republished here with permission.

In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan using dynamite, anti-aircraft guns, and artillery. After weeks of incremental destruction, nothing of the statues remained.

That sad turn of events was the impetus for the founding of CyArk, a nonprofit that uses technology to ensure sites of rich cultural heritage remain available to future generations. Since 2003, they have used laser scanning, photography, photogrammetry, and 3D capture to record nearly 200 sites around the globe.

Detailed, Colorful Elevation Drawings of Historic Brazillian Buildings Illustrated in CAD

While using technical drawings, Zema Vieira makes architectural illustrations by using only AutoCAD without any further techniques. Her body of work became a project called “Fachada Frontal” or "Front Facade." In it, the artist depicts buildings from cities around the world, with a particular focus on Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Check out below the illustrations made by the artist.

These Fantastical Architectural Illustrations Are Made Using Autocad

Fabiola Morcillo Núñez, an architect from the University of Chile, is 26-years-old and has been formally drawing under the name 1989 for about a year and a half. Her illustration project uses basic tools of architecture to build fictitious and imaginary spaces based on Asian architecture and pop art.

Fabiola is aware of the design benefits of paper and uses its abilities to imagine spaces without any limits.

These Fantastical Architectural Illustrations Are Made Using Autocad - Arts & ArchitectureThese Fantastical Architectural Illustrations Are Made Using Autocad - Arts & ArchitectureThese Fantastical Architectural Illustrations Are Made Using Autocad - Arts & ArchitectureThese Fantastical Architectural Illustrations Are Made Using Autocad - Arts & ArchitectureThese Fantastical Architectural Illustrations Are Made Using Autocad - More Images+ 9

PimpMyDrawing Provides Ready-Made People for Vector Drawings

Complementing the many websites that already provide people for renders, PimpMyDrawing is a growing online database of vector drawings of people. The site was started by three recent graduates of architecture school. After realizing the amount of vector drawings that they had produced during their academic career, they decided to share them for free.

The Computer vs The Hand In Architectural Drawing: ArchDaily Readers Respond

In the architecture world, there are a handful of persistent debates that arise time and time again: the challenges of being a woman in the field of architecture is one of them, for example; the problems of a culture of long hours and hard work is another. But one of the most enduring arguments in architecture - especially in the academic sphere - is the battle between hand drawing and computer aided design. Both schools have their famous proponents: Michael Graves, for example, was known as a huge talent with a pencil and paper, and came to the defense of drawing in articles for the New York Times, among others. Patrik Schumacher, on the other hand, is famous for his commitment to the capabilities of the computer.

To advance this heated conversation, two weeks ago we reached out to our readers to provide their thoughts on this topic in an attempt to get a broad cross-section of opinions from architects from all walks of life. Read some of the best responses after the break.

Which Architectural Software Should You Be Using?

One of the biggest decisions to make when setting out alone - either as an independent architect or starting your own firm - is which software to use. It can be tempting to simply choose an industry leader, but you may end up paying over the odds for a product which doesn't suit your style. In this post, originally published on ArchSmarter as "Which architectural software is right for me?" Michael Kilkelly works through the factors that should influence your decision, whether you're making it for the first time or reviewing a choice you made long ago.

Which CAD or BIM software should you use? Well, that depends. What functionality to you need? What are your priorities with regard to cost, comparability, interoperability? Are you using a Mac or a PC?

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