Develop Your Skills: AutoCAD for Interior Design

Why is AutoCAD so useful?

AutoCAD is a computer-aided design (CAD) program used for 2-D and 3-D design and drafting. AutoCAD is developed and marketed by Autodesk Inc. and was one of the first CAD programs that could be executed on personal computers.

AutoCAD is one of the industry recognised software packages used by designers from all disciplines around the world, to illustrate ideas in a clear and concise way. If you are looking for work within the industry, this is one of the skills that an employer might ask for. Therefore, having an understanding of AutoCAD for interior design is invaluable.

Some of AutoCAD Features:

• Storage and accessibility: AutoCAD files can be saved on a computer or archived in any storage media. Software files occupy lesser storage space as compared storage space required for keeping manually drafted paper drawings.
• 3D View: Although it is possible to sketch 3D drawings manually, they are not as effective and realistic as computer-aided drawings. AutoCAD help model 3D objects with colours, materials and/or textures applied to various surfaces making them vivid and easier for the user to visualize the end product.
• Revisions and modifications: Any changes in manually drafted paper drawings would require the draftsman to draw the drawing again. Since this involved a lot of effort, the draftsmen just scratched out the older details and drew new details, resulting loss of older details and also not-to-scale drawings. CAD has inbuilt tools that allow any number of revisions and changes easily and quickly. You can edit or delete details easily using simple user-friendly commands. You can also save the previous versions of the file in case you wish to re-use them.
• Speed: Creating a drawing in AutoCAD is much faster than drawing manually. You can also save time and effort by creating re-usable block library. Easy edits are possible with commands like copy, mirror, stretching, rotate and scale and many more such commands.
• Accuracy: AutoCAD enables you to draw with fractional dimensions and also define precision for any number of decimal places, which is not possible to achieve in hand-drafted manual drawings, hence offering accuracy in all dimensions.

Once you are comfortable with AutoCAD, you will also find assignments or projects that include technical drawings much easier to manage. This can be quicker than drawing by hand and will produce a more professional finish. The beauty of AutoCAD is that if you make a mistake, rather than starting again, the drawing can be amended with ease, saving you time in the long run.