Autodesk has been used by engineers, surveyors and architects for all kinds of design projects for decades. The brand has over 40 years of developing products such as AutoCAD, Revit, Civil 3D, Inventor, Fusion 360, 3ds Max and Maya. Here at Howell, we primarily use AutoCAD Civil 3D to assist with all our drafting needs, including site layout, topographic surfaces, pipe networks, truck turning and much more.

I first began learning AutoCAD in high school back in 2008. We learned how to draft by hand using a pencil and ruler. Once we had the basics of doing it by hand, we were introduced to this software that drastically reduces the time it takes to create a plan set. What I love about working in this program is finding ways to make drafting as efficient as possible. AutoCAD is a powerful tool, but only if you know how to use it right.

AutoCAD is great for:

• Creating road and pipe profiles that are synced with the drawing. This allows you to update an elevation, a pipe size, etc. in one spot and it will update across the drawing. This avoids the extra time and eventual mistakes from having the same piece of information in multiple places on a plan.
• Programming grading groups, which allow you to easily apply grading rules such as minimum and maximum slopes along a specific line, breaklines for things like walls, curbs, and buildings and automatically tying proposed grading into an existing surface.
• Modeling stormwater management systems such as pipes, structures and basins.

LEARN A NEW TRICK

I just celebrated my one-year workiversary at Howell. So I wanted to show off a cool feature I've learned that helps us be more efficient for our homebuilder clients. They work with multiple footprints and often want to see what fits across an entire subdivision. This feature is called the "dynamic block" and allows you to easily and quickly shift from one footprint to another. Once it is set up, you can exchange them with two clicks!

1. First you need to create a block with the base footprint:

2. Inside this block you should see this panel, choose “Visibility”:

3. Press “Visibility States”

4. From here you can create new “Visibility States” (different footprints or different options):

5. For example, you can have a base house footprint and second option with an addition or deck. If you click the button below and select the addition or deck, it will then become “invisible” when you have the applicable visibility state selected.

6. Exit block editor and select your block. You will see a small triangle with a selection of block options now.

This is an easy feature to save you a lot of headaches when you need to replace a variety of building footprints with different options.

AVOID A CRASH

With a powerful program like AutoCAD, you will inevitably come across the infamous AutoCAD Crash Message. Here is a list of common issues that I have come across while working with this program. For those of you that draft, hopefully these tips will help save you from an AutoCrash:

- Extra-large (>20MB) files tend to get corrupted easily. Split up plan data into sheet files and external reference files to minimize file sizes.

- When you accidently press Ctrl+A in a busy drawing, it is the shortcut to select EVERYTHING in a drawing. Use the “Deselect All” command in the Edit menu, or press the Esc key.

- Attempting to add a hatch in a busy drawing by the “pick point.” Instead, add a hatch by choosing “polygon.”

- When a polyline is overcomplicated (too many vertexes). Use curves and avoid unnecessary vertices to reduce the possibility of crashing.

- If the GRAPHICSCONFIG option is ON, it may have a nicer look to it when drafting, but that added detail often causes issues if your computer cannot handle the extra load. Autodesk recommends turning off Hardware Acceleration if you experience random crashes. See more here: Autodesk products randomly crash on Windows 11

Even though AutoCAD crashing is a pain, it is an incredible tool for engineers and surveyors and becomes more advanced every day.

And I won’t let an “AutoCrash” affect my mood, as long as I have a snack at my desk!