Technology training firm InfiniteSkills Inc. last week released its Learning AutoCAD 2014 For Mac Tutorial, an introductory course designed to teach basic drawing and editing skills using the industry standard computer assisted design program.
AutoCAD 2014 is the 28th release of AutoCAD and the fourth consecutive year that Autodesk has provided a version for Macintosh after the company discontinued support in 1994. While many basic features remain consistent from year to year, the new version offers several updates and new features that can be both helpful and challenging for new users, as well as interface differences in the Mac version.
InfiniteSkills' Learning AutoCAD 2014 for Mac Training - DVD provides students and professionals a crash-course in the latest AutoCAD version. Complete with a section dedicated to Mac-specific features, such as the keyboard interface and the basic layout, the course is designed to gradually build a basic skill set and finally put those skills to use in an AutoCAD design project.
Course author Brian Benton is an engineering technician, CAD Service Provider, technical writer and AutoCAD instructor. He has 19 years' experience using AutoCAD in various design fields, and has served in various leadership roles for the Autodesk newsletter HotNews and has contributed to the development process for Autodesk.
"The most challenging thing about learning AutoCAD," Benton says, "is the sheer amount of things to learn. So what I did was think very carefully about the most important tools for beginners, and how I could design the course to implement as many tools as possible."
Benton is careful to point out that knowing AutoCAD tools is only part of using AutoCAD efficiently. "I designed the course not only to teach what each command does, but to make sure to demonstrate how to actually use commands in real life situations."
Following an introduction to the AutoCAD interface, students begin learning to draw in AutoCAD, picking up fundamentals and learning time-saving techniques developed by experienced practitioners.
As the course progresses, students build sections of an overall design, learning new techniques such as working in the coordinate system, working with dimensions and measurement units, drawing with geometric shapes and polylines, and placing objects and object arrays like the seats in the movie theater.
Advanced chapters cover working with blocks, applying text fields to a drawing, annotation and plotting features, and much more.
The final chapter, then, uses these lessons and projects in the creation of an overall design project.
Free demo videos and a full list of course contents can be found on the Learning AutoCAD 2014 For Mac training page of the InfiniteSkills website:
http://www.infiniteskills.com/training/learning-autodesk-autocad-2014-for-mac.html
