Autocad drawings reading

[chris-x//]

HI people,

I was wondering if anyone can points me on some specific tutorials about autocad drawings reading, well I will never have to draw them but I'll have to read them kinda soon... I "decrypted" some drawings without any problems as I already had to deal with some during my end of study stage in an arch/viz society... but there are always some littles symbols I can't decrypt, like H symbol there and there for example.

I don't know if "help me read drawings" tuts exist, couldn't find some till now. Does a listing with symbols exist ?

I'm starting my job (FINALLY I FOUND ) very soon and I would like to bother poeple there as less as possible with questions like "what's this" etc.

Any help very appreciated.
thank you very very much

[Da_elf]

you sure its an H? it might just be an I-Beam

[siliconbauhaus]

post a screenie and I'll tell you what the items are mate

[chris-x//]

Thanks for your answers, well it may be a I, maybe I shouldn't take attention to it for modelling purposes.

Here's a snap, it's a sample given with autocad



Well If i may ask your help again :

1. About the H/I thing ?
2. On the stair drawing, could you explain me what's this oblic thing, I aimed it with an interrogation sign. I guess it has to do with stair positionning.
3. Wall are pink color, does it has any signification the other ones are in gray ? Or is it just to clarify things.

Thank you very much for your time,it's very helpful for me,

thank you very much
chris

[Dynedain]

1) That indicates an I beam
2) That just typical indication for a stair. Think of the CAD drawing as a top camera view with a sliceing plane. Somehow you have to indicate where the stairs go above your cutting plane into non-visible space.
3) Line colors are just used for technical clarification, just like object colors in max. In autocad its usually used to specify what thickness the line will be when printed (compared to other lines).

[chris-x//]

Thank you very much. I'll continue decrypt some more drawings.

regards,
chris

[plastic_]

i'd like to add that, at least in europe, the slice plane is in 1m height relative to the ground floor.
in case of the stair, for you it indicates the direction of the stair and that it not only goes up, but down too.
i guess the walls are differently colored because the grey ones are existing and the purple ones new.
if the grey ones were thicker it could also mean that those are holding the construction, and the thinner ones are only seperating rooms.
it shouldn't matter to you, just extrude everything, including the I-beams.

[dellis]

chris,

look up cad standards in google...you shouldcome up with some industry standards....maybe look up autocad blocks as well.

[siliconbauhaus]

blimey...step away and everyone answers for me

the grey wall lines are probably the base building walls whereas the magenta walls are new

[Da_elf]

seems you stepped away for quite some time

[siliconbauhaus]

sorry...missed plastics reply

hahahah...well I have to look like I'm working from time to time :P

[chris-x//]

thanks a lot to all of you, really appreciated

[chris-x//]

Another tiny question, when I have to draw a poly line, when it's curved, I type "arc" but it's always in the opposite direction of what I want, how can I modify that ? thank you.

[siliconbauhaus]

when you do your arc type in S for second point after clciking your first point, then click somewhere around the midpoint of where you want the arc.

[chris-x//]

thank you for arc tips, works fine.

If I still may ask, It seems I've lost any sense of snap in my projects when drawing lines. I'm used to type "pl" then snapping to each point i want... But it doesn't snap anymore with that tiny orange rectangle.

It works if I specify snap to endpoint but I have to click that everytime... It was working an hour ago, I must have changed something.

I tried snapmode 1 and 0 but it doesn't affect the whole thing...

It was working when I installed the prog, must have typed something wrong.

thanks for the help