AutoCAD

AutoCAD is a general-purpose CAD (computer-aided design) program developed by Autodesk. It has become a common language for technical drawing across architecture, construction, mechanical engineering and surveying. 2D drawings such as plans, sections, elevations, details and site plans are its most common use, and it also has 3D modeling tools.

Key concepts

In AutoCAD you draw at full size in model space, while printed sheets are set up in separate layout tabs, where the scale is chosen. Layers control line color, type and weight. Repeated items such as door symbols or columns are defined as blocks. External references (xrefs) link other files, for example a site plan, a structural grid or a services drawing, into the main drawing so that updates come through automatically.

Its place in an architectural workflow

Many offices still produce construction drawings and details in AutoCAD, and files exchanged with authorities and other disciplines are often DWG. Teams that work in BIM keep using it for detailing or for sharing base drawings. In visualization, AutoCAD drawings are usually the starting point: plans and elevations are brought into SketchUp, 3ds Max or Revit as an underlay, and the model is built on top. A DWG with clean layers and no stray lines speeds this step up considerably. We compare a range of drafting tools in our article on simple architectural drawing programs.