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Ten Great AutoCAD Resources

Much as we’d like to make a claim to the contrary, you probably do need just a teensy bit more than this book and a copy of the software

and the software’s help system to reach the very highest peaks of AutoCAD mastery! This chapter lists ten likely aids if you want to find out more about your favorite software program.

Autodesk Feedback Community

Interested in helping shape future releases of AutoCAD? If so, visit Autodesk’s Feedback Community Portal (https://beta.autodesk.com) and sign

up by clicking the New Users Click Here link. In return for small — or sometimes considerable — time commitments, you can contribute your ideas to the AutoCAD Futures group or apply to beta-test the next release of AutoCAD.

Autodesk Discussion Groups

Although some independent, newsreader-based discussion groups are still out there, the majority of the AutoCAD action nowadays happens on Autodesk’s own moderated discussion groups.

These are user-to-user groups, but even so, you frequently see Autodesk employees jumping in to answer questions in their areas of expertise — sometimes on their own time!

To see what’s there, point your browser to www. autodesk.com/discussion. You’ll find product-based discussion groups for AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.

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Autodesk’s Own Bloggers

Several Autodesk employees run their own blogs through the company’s servers, and they’re chockablock with tips, techniques, and some occasionally highly entertaining digressions. For a list of all Autodesk blogs, go to www.autodesk.com/blogs. The AutoCAD-based blogs we highly recommend are Shaan Hurley’s Between the Lines, Heidi Hewitt’s AutoCAD Insider, Kate Morrical’s LT Unlimited, and Lynn Allen’s Blog (that’s what it’s called, honest!).

Autodesk University

Autodesk University (AU) is an annual event sponsored by Autodesk that usually runs for three or four days around the end of November. For the past few years, the event has settled in Las Vegas, Nevada. If your boss balks at sending you, just quote a few figures: At AU 2011, about 700 instructors presented almost 1,000 classes to more than 8,000 attendees on virtually every conceivable topic related to virtually every Autodesk product. Add in almost 300 exhibitors showing their wares in about 180 booths, plus the AU support staff and techies, and you end up sitting down for lunch with about 10,000 of your best friends. The meals and the evening social sessions are a great time for networking with your peers, and you can often end up learning as much as you do in the classes. Check out http://au.autodesk.com to find out how to schmooze like a pro and come home a guru!

The Autodesk Channel on YouTube

If you use Google to search the web for solutions to particular AutoCAD issues, you’ve probably already discovered the YouTube Autodesk Channel. You’ll find dozens and dozens of video clips here that cover not only AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, but also other Autodesk products like Inventor and Revit. You can subscribe and receive e-mail notifications of new videos every couple of weeks. Check it out at www.youtube.com/autodesk.

The World Wide (CAD) Web

We’re reluctant to list any specific sites because they tend to come and go, but Cadalyst magazine (www.cadalyst.com) has been in existence for over 25 years. In particular, click the CAD Software Tutorials link to go to a series

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of tutorials called Circles and Lines, by Lynn Allen, and The Learning Curve, by Bill Fane.

Your favorite search engine can also be a good friend. Apart from Autodesk’s own web presence, thousands upon thousands of other sites are scattered around the world. Search by entering AutoCAD tutorials for online exercises, or try AutoCAD blogs for some independent views and opinions as well as tips and tricks for using AutoCAD.

Your Local ATC

Autodesk Authorized Training Centers (ATCs) are located around the world in both private institutions and public colleges and institutes. At an ATC, you attend scheduled, instructor-led classes where you learn AutoCAD from the ground up. Courses are designed for rank beginners or experienced users who want to learn the latest customization techniques. To find the location of your nearest ATC, browse to www.autodesk.com/atc.

Your Local User Group

AutoCAD has had an incredibly loyal following in the quarter century since its initial release. Of the many reasons why, a main one is the especially enthusiastic individuals who arranges to meet one evening per month and talk about what they discovered they could do with AutoCAD. Those folks are still out there — although some are a bit grayer and more wrinkled than they used to be — and they still love to get together and talk about AutoCAD. And most are especially welcoming to newcomers! Our own local group,

the Vancouver AutoCAD Users Society (www.vaus.org), happens to be the first (and therefore oldest) user group in existence, and its newsletter grew and grew until it became Cadalyst magazine! To find a nearby group, enter AutoCAD user group and your city in your browser’s search box.

AUGI

Autodesk User Groups International (AUGI) is the umbrella organization for the global user group community. You don’t even have to belong to a group to participate — individuals can join too, and membership is free. AUGI is probably best known for the annual wish list it presents to Autodesk; the list is compiled from requests from members for changes or new features in AutoCAD. It’s often the case that top wish-list items find their way into new

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releases of AutoCAD, so here’s another place where you can help to shape future releases. Browse to www.augi.com to find out more.

AUGI also supports a series of online and live training sessions, and your free membership will get you a discounted rate to attend Autodesk University.

Books

Although we’d like to fill you in on all the wonders of AutoCAD, we can do only so much in a 500-page book. As we explain in the Introduction, we simply don’t have the space to cover things like data linking and customization, not that either of those is of much use to AutoCAD LT users anyway. There are dozens of books on AutoCAD — just go to www.amazon.com and search on AutoCAD if you don’t believe us! For a more comprehensive look at AutoCAD (which a thousand pages allows!), have a gander at Ellen Finkelstein’s AutoCAD 2012 and AutoCAD LT 2012 Bible (John Wiley & Sons,

Inc.). Ralph Grabowski, our technical editor for this book, also has a number of specialized e-books at www.upfrontezine.com/ebooks.

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