AutoCAD - The One Stop Solution for Designing Architectural Design in 2D and 3D Formats

Architectural CAD Drafting is a process of developing design of Commercial, Residential and Institutional buildings through CAD Software. AutoCAD® Architecture software helps in developing the design in an easy and speedy way thus it ensures safe, and secure document management and reduce cost. Engineers draw Architectural drawings to scale, so that comparative sizes are accurately characterized.
With the help of Architectural Computer Aided Design, you can design draft of Commercial Buildings, Residential Buildings, Institutions & Universities, Hotels, Hospitals, Auditoriums and Monuments. With the help of the development of the CAD software, now engineers are able to design draft of any buildings in 3D, 2D and such other formats. With the 3D and 2D feature of Architectural Drafting, you can design Floor Plans, Wall Sections, Elevations, Building Sections, Door-Window Details, Floor and Roof Framing Plans, Foundation Plans, Non-Structural Layouts, Power & Communication Locations, Lighting Drawings, Furniture Layouts and many other things.
In Architectural Computer Aided Design, the scale is chosen to ensure that the whole building will fit on the chosen sheet size and also to show the needed amount of detail. There are several types of architectural drawing, which includes Presentation drawings, Working drawings, Record drawings and Survey drawings.
There are some advantages of Architectural Computer Aided Design, which includes:
As complex elements can be copied, replicated and stored for re-use, chances of repetition are reduced
Errors can be deleted
Architectural CAD allows many permutations to be tried before finalizing the design
The model drawn through Auto CAD can be viewed from any angle to find the most useful viewpoints. You can also use different software to apply colors and texture to surfaces and with the help of different Auto-CAD software, engineers can also draw shadows and reflections of any wall.
Services provided using Architectural CAD:
Architectural 3D Modelling
3D Architectural Rendering
Architectural Animation
Architectural Design
Architectural Drafting
Architectural Drawing
Construction Documentation
Now a day, most plans of buildings, parks and such other architectural monuments are designed using Architectural Computer Aided Design. Most civil engineers use the software and they mostly prefer to draw the draft of any plan using Auto-CAD.
Most of the civil engineers across the globe use Architectural CAD for drawing the draft of any type of architecture. They value this as this can provide faultless drawing within short span of time. Further, with the help of the software engineers can also experiment with any design as par their wish.
Auto-cad is only a basic software that can be used for architectural and interior design.

VMD offers Architectural drafting service and use Autocad for the Architectural CAD work.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6906533

An Advance CAD Drafting Technology

The world of drafting changed forever during the 90's when CAD software program became much more exposed on the general population. Before CAD became the drafting industries standard practice Drafters would draw each line by hand on the use of the drafting board, and several hand held tools. This technique was much more time consuming, and for isometric drawings (3D) it could take in days or weeks to try and do hard renderings. More than the last ten years, several software program firms have produced advancements to CAD software program producing the task of drafting much more user friendly on the computer.

If you’re not familiar with CAD or CADD it is the acronym for Computer Aided Drafting. Sometimes it’s named Computer Aided Drafting Design also. Two-dimensional and Three-dimensional drawings are created once the draftsmen enter data into a CAD software program. Lines are drawn on a X, Y, and Z axis to make Three dimensional models. Once designing 2D drawings only the X, and Y axis are used which represent the left, right, up, and down directions. The Z axis is used to make 3D models and represents the depth.

I can remember like a baby my Father teaching me to draw lines, and to write my A, B, C's on a drafting board he created for my room. These boards have a sliding ruler which allowed you to produce lines inside a straight fashion, and they had been covered using a slick material. This allowed rulers, and other tools to slide simply along its surface with out catching to it. The career was much more daunting, and you had to become very careful as soon as drawing lines because even with an eraser mistakes could possibly be observed easily. I enjoyed drafting like this like a kid, but because I've been exposed to CAD I would by no means go back.

It seems like each year advancements in personal computer technology go farther and quicker than the year just before it. When I very first started utilizing CAD software package all of the lines had being put in manually with commands on the keyboard. They would tell the software package to build the lines commencing point, length, and what angle to direction it. This method seemed to consume forever compared to the way lines are made nowadays. From the CAD software package available today it is possible to perform all varieties of commands in a 3D environment. For instance, in case you wanted to add a radius to a corner that has already been created, all you should do is click the command in your fillet. It'll then ask you in your dimension on the radius, and right after you enter the dimension it's going to create a perfectly smooth and rounded corner.

CAD drafting technology becomes a lot more advanced every year with the introduction of updated software. For now, and I believe for a lengthy time to come, AutoCAD drafting software will remain the drafting industries frequent process for making architecture, mechanical, civil, electrical, plumbing, and any other sort design work. The days of using hand tools, and drafting boards is over. These means will never disappear, but for now will remain a lot more of the hobby to most draftsmen.

PDF to DWG to the Rescue

Manufacturing and Engineering firms all across the world depend on designs. These designs bear the very shape of things to come and are detailed in every property and configuration of the product/property/technology they illustrate.

Although, the modern world depends on computers and CAD programs to create and edit these designs, there still are a lot of paper, film, and vellum based drawings which require management and handling in almost every organization.

Why handle old drawings?
Just because these are old / legacy drawings, it does not go on to mean that they are 'useless'. Building's, Structures, Machines of the yesteryears are still pretty much in use and functional today as well. Just imagine having to destroy all the bridges of the world, just because their drawings are on paper?

Problem of handling Physical drawings
Physical drawings (those based on paper, film, vellum types of media) also take up a lot of storage space and management efforts because unless stored and managed properly, they would be practically untraceable at times of need.

Life of the physical storage medium
The life and longevity of mediums like paper, blue prints, tracings, etc. have long been another problem faced by many engineering and manufacturing firms worldwide.

Scanning them to JPG / TIF / PDF format
One of the solutions to this problem offered by old/legacy drawings has been to scan them into TIF / JPG / PDF formats so that they can be stored digitally and the handling and sorting capabilities be improved due to the use of document management tools available on the pc.

Raster based drawings are largely un-editable
There still exists one major problem with scanned drawings that are stored in JPG / TIF / PDF formats, the problem of easily editing these drawings for the many revisions and changes that need to be performed over time. These changes may be due to additions and revisions, which are imperative to take place over time.

PDF to DWG
One service that has come to the rescue of these engineering and manufacturing firms globally is that of PDF to DWG conversions. This service helps perform accurate conversions of scanned formats like PDF, Tif and JPG to accurate and easily editable CAD drawings.

These CAD drawings are delivered in CAD formats like DWG, DXF, etc. so that they can be easily opened in popular CAD tools and edited like a normal CAD drafted drawing. Easy and normal editing possibilities make the drawings perfect replacements of their paper-based legacy, thus leading to easy storage, handling, and editing as well.

The Author is highly experienced in the field of CAD Drafting and PDF to DWG Conversion.

How To Turn Paper To CAD Files

Continuing on from our drawings scanning post earlier, we thought we’d also add a post on CAD conversion and converting paper to CAD files such as the DWG and DXF.

CAD Conversion – How Is It Done?
We get a lot of requests to get documents converted to CAD editable files, which is actually something that a lot of people didn’t even think was possible previously before. But here at Pearl we’ve been completing CAD conversion for a number of years. We simply take your drawings, plans and/or blueprints and scan them in using our top of the line scanners and then, using out exclusively developed CAD conversion software, we can quickly convert standard, high quality scanned images into CAD files that can be used in all of the major CAD programs including AutoCAD.

Will the CAD conversion cover all CAD software?

We convert to DWG and DXF as we mention above, so the choice is yours, but this is a highly advanced way of bringing documents that are potentially decades old and making them editable in your CAD application of choice through our CAD conversion service. We offer manual drafting and automated conversion and this is applicable for all document types that can make use of a service like this including maps and architectural and mechanical drawings.

There are no special requirements that the documents would need as long as they are clear and can be scanned easily without a great deal of damage. Plus if you’re not sure about the CAD conversions, you can sample the work before you commit to the entire project. We’re sure you’ll be extremely happy though!

Once you’re happy with the work that is carried out, we can get the CAD files over to you on CD or by other digital methods as well as the original drawings back if you so wish, or we can organise a shredding and recycling process to be done.

The thing is with a service like this, the benefits are substantial. As we explained in our previous post, you will save a great deal of space should you decide to retire the original, paper based documents, you’ll be able to convert the files to PDF’s and share them between departments and people and on top of that you will be able to edit the original files. Files that were basically lost of their original use are once again available to be edited, changed and used as needed.

CAD conversion – The Modern Alternative
In a time when everything is going digital, it makes sense to convert your drawings using a CAD conversion services, whether it be for security’s sale, saving space or just generally modernising, CAD conversion is an excellent value process which can save your organisation a lot in the long run.

Source: http://www.pearl-scan.co.uk/blog/cad-conversion

An Introduction to Paper to CAD Conversion

Have you ever heard about the term "paper to CAD", if not, then this article is a must read for you. I am writing this article to provide all the people like you with an introduction to what paper to CAD conversion is and how it is done.

Before I begin explaining in detail about paper to CAD conversion I will like to tell you that paper to CAD conversion is also known by lot of other synonyms like PDF to CAD conversion, PDF to DWG conversion, and scan to CAD etc.

What is "CAD"?

Since this article has been written for people who are completely new to the topic, I’ll first like to start with little details on “what is CAD”. CAD is an acronym or short form for Computer Aided Design or Computer Aided Drafting. However, for a layman CAD is basically thought to be just a computer drawing software used for making digital drawings.

CAD itself is not a software but a technology. Since the evolution of CAD many CAD softwares have been introduced. But the one which is widely used and is most famous is known as AutoCAD. AutoCAD has become an industry standard for CAD drawings. However since AutoCAD or other similar CAD software are very complex to use it requires special training before one can fully understand and utilize the advanced functionalities of the software. Apart from AutoCAD some other popular CAD softwares are Microstation and Vectorworks.

What is "Paper"?

By paper or paper drawings we mean to say that the drawings that are hand drawn on paper. Before the evolution and widespread use of CAD all drawings were hand drawn on paper. But ever since the use of CAD the scenario has completely changed, now all the drawings are made in digital format with the help of CAD software.

Paper drawings are also referred to as hard copy drawings.

What is paper to CAD?

There are basically two approaches that can be used for paper to CAD conversion. The first and the most basic approach is to manually redraw the paper drawings. This is done by trained CAD drafters.

The second approach is known as automatic conversion. This is done by scanning the paper drawings into image format, and then using a raster to vector conversion software to automatically convert the image files into CAD format. However this method is not 100% automated and the accuracy of the output varies from one software to the other.

What’s the need for paper to CAD?
There can be various different reasons why paper to CAD conversion is required. CAD format drawings are easier to store and edit and are not subject to wear and tear over time as is the case with the conventional paper drawings.

Author is an expert CAD conversion professional who has been doing PDF to DWG or PDF to CAD conversions since past several years.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6301514

The Background of CAD Conversion

Paper to CAD conversion or CAD format conversion has become quite essential and an integral part of several automobile, construction, mechanical and electrical organizations. If you are not aware of what does the term “Paper to CAD Conversion” means than you’ll have to first understand little bit about CAD. CAD stands for Computer Aided Design or Computer Aided Drafting. In the past when tools and software like CAD were not available, all the technical drawing or drafting was done with the help of various tools and instruments that would measure, create arcs and circles, and many more such tasks.

But the designing and drafting has been revolutionized ever since the introduction of CAD. Now almost all the designs and drafts are made using the CAD. The use of CAD has resulted in greater precision, accuracy, and ease of design. Earlier in the past all of the drawings were drawn by hand on a set of paper or blueprints. These paper drawings had all the necessary instructions and information to guide people in accurately designing a product or structure. But all this has changed now and CAD has become the industry standard.

So, if all the drawings are being made using CAD now then why is paper to CAD conversion required? The answer to this question is – paper to CAD conversion if required because there are still a lot of paper drawings that need to be edited and preserved for future reference. And paper to CAD file conversion is used to convert all those paper drawings into digital formats that can be easily edited and used in future without worrying about the wear and tear of the drawings as is the case with paper drawings.

There are a lot of reasons why more and more organizations are using paper to CAD conversion and getting their old paper drawings converted to digital CAD formats. Since there are still a huge number of paper drawings that need to be converted into digital formats, CAD conversions will remain in demand in the years to come.

Outsourcing CAD Drafting and CAD Conversion

Today, all the architecture, engineering and construction companies and their projects depend on correct CAD design. And more and more such companies are utilizing the power of CAD outsourcing. Apart from the biggest advantage of cost cutting, CAD outsourcing also results in better project delivery and management. But you should always outsource your CAD requirements to an outsourcing company that delivers the project with globally accepted standards.



CAD drafting and conversion services play a very important role in architecture, construction, automobile, electrical & mechanical design. The role of CAD outsourcing companies is to convert blue prints and hand drawn drawings into editable digital formats.



CAD services are also used in civil engineering. The most essential feature of a CAD drawing is its accuracy because the whole design and development of a product/structure mainly depends on these drawings.



India has become an outsourcing hotspot for IT and ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) and organizations across the world are now outsourcing their CAD projects to Indian CAD companies. The biggest plus of outsourcing to a country like India is the fact that India has a huge pool of trained and skilled manpower and thus offers high quality services at very affordable prices.



CAD outsourcing to India is highly affordable and helps companies in saving both time and money. Outsourcing your CAD services to a professional company will help you in concentrating more on the strategic aspect than the functional aspects of day to day workings. This will help you in growing your business and race ahead of the competitors.



CAD outsourcing helps an organization gain professional service and technical/functional edge over the competitors. Lower cost, enhanced performance, reliability and accuracy are some of the other important aspects of CAD outsourcing.



Author is an experienced CAD professional and frequently writes for and evaluates the CAD services India. The requirement for CAD drafting and CAD conversion (like DWG to DGN conversion) is increasing day by day and there are lot of service providers in the market but you should always choose the one with a good past record.