Making My CAD Drawings Available (some in .pdf format)
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 6:27 am
This started off as me uploading my CAD drawings onto my website so that I could work on them back-and-forth between my desktop computer at home and the laptop at my Girlfriend's place.
But the project has expanded a bit, as I thought it might be helpful if I could share some of my CAD drawings of various off-the-shelf vulcanite stems with my fellow pipemakers -- no reason for us all to keep reinventing the wheel, I figure.
I discussed in a previous thread some of my experience with CAD software and how I had recently picked up new-in-the-box TurboCAD version 11.2 on Ebay for $9.99 plus $5.95 shipping. And apparently you can still find it on there in the $15 price range.
I am not sure if there is much interest here on the forums, but I know that I have certainly found Computer Aided Design/Drafting to be a significant boon to my own pipemaking efforts. So maybe there are a few folks who might be interested.
TurboCAD does a pretty decent job as a CAD program, and it allows users to save their drawings in a huge variety of file formats:
* .tcw (TurboCAD's native format)
* .dwg (AutoCAD's native format and the de facto industry standard)
* .bmp (bitmap -- leaves a lot to be desired)
* .dgn (Intergraph standard file format)
* .dwf (design web format)
* .dxf (design exchange format)
* .plt (Hewlett-Packard graphics language)
* .jpg (jpeg -- leaves a lot to be desired)
* .pdf (Adobe portable document format -- actually renders halfway decently)
* .3ds (3D Studio format)
* and so on
For better or worse, I have been working with most of my drawings in .dwg format. On the upside, .dwg has become a de facto industry standard. But on the downside, it is a proprietary file format, so you have to use software that is licensed through AutoCAD.
That, at least for the time being, pretty much rules out opensource software and most of the lower-budget upstart applications. But, like I said earlier, TurboCAD can be had for cheap, so ... well, it's not too awful bad.
I have a few drawings, so far, available on my website, and I will be making many more available as time goes along. Please be my guest and download, use, and/or distribute the drawings however you see fit.
One of my goals is to draw and upload as many off-the-shelf vulcanite stems as I can find time to do. Those can easily be copy-and-pasted into your own CAD drawings to save a bunch of time that would have otherwise been spent measuring and drawing an off-the-shelf stem.
But I also wanted to share some of my pipe drawings, as well. Those I am making available in both .dwg format for anyone interested in experimenting with CAD drawing and .pdf format for anyone interested in simply seeing what is possible with CAD software or else printing out a drawing, taping it to a block, and starting-in shaping.
Note: TurboCAD does a pretty good job of rendering the actual drawing into .pdf format, except that it creates a blank page-1 and puts the drawing on page-2 -- and I do not have any simple way to fix this -- so you will have to scroll down to see the actual drawing. And it really buggers text and dimensions, so I deleted all of that before saving to a .pdf file.
You will just have to snoop around on the Apache-automated file index and see what is available. I am going to try to keep most of these files as you find them there now, but there may be a few that I am working on that might be a little on the transient side.
My point being: if you see something you like there, go ahead and download it and save it now, just in case I end up changing it later on down the line.
Cheers
But the project has expanded a bit, as I thought it might be helpful if I could share some of my CAD drawings of various off-the-shelf vulcanite stems with my fellow pipemakers -- no reason for us all to keep reinventing the wheel, I figure.
I discussed in a previous thread some of my experience with CAD software and how I had recently picked up new-in-the-box TurboCAD version 11.2 on Ebay for $9.99 plus $5.95 shipping. And apparently you can still find it on there in the $15 price range.
I am not sure if there is much interest here on the forums, but I know that I have certainly found Computer Aided Design/Drafting to be a significant boon to my own pipemaking efforts. So maybe there are a few folks who might be interested.
TurboCAD does a pretty decent job as a CAD program, and it allows users to save their drawings in a huge variety of file formats:
* .tcw (TurboCAD's native format)
* .dwg (AutoCAD's native format and the de facto industry standard)
* .bmp (bitmap -- leaves a lot to be desired)
* .dgn (Intergraph standard file format)
* .dwf (design web format)
* .dxf (design exchange format)
* .plt (Hewlett-Packard graphics language)
* .jpg (jpeg -- leaves a lot to be desired)
* .pdf (Adobe portable document format -- actually renders halfway decently)
* .3ds (3D Studio format)
* and so on
For better or worse, I have been working with most of my drawings in .dwg format. On the upside, .dwg has become a de facto industry standard. But on the downside, it is a proprietary file format, so you have to use software that is licensed through AutoCAD.
That, at least for the time being, pretty much rules out opensource software and most of the lower-budget upstart applications. But, like I said earlier, TurboCAD can be had for cheap, so ... well, it's not too awful bad.
I have a few drawings, so far, available on my website, and I will be making many more available as time goes along. Please be my guest and download, use, and/or distribute the drawings however you see fit.
One of my goals is to draw and upload as many off-the-shelf vulcanite stems as I can find time to do. Those can easily be copy-and-pasted into your own CAD drawings to save a bunch of time that would have otherwise been spent measuring and drawing an off-the-shelf stem.
But I also wanted to share some of my pipe drawings, as well. Those I am making available in both .dwg format for anyone interested in experimenting with CAD drawing and .pdf format for anyone interested in simply seeing what is possible with CAD software or else printing out a drawing, taping it to a block, and starting-in shaping.
Note: TurboCAD does a pretty good job of rendering the actual drawing into .pdf format, except that it creates a blank page-1 and puts the drawing on page-2 -- and I do not have any simple way to fix this -- so you will have to scroll down to see the actual drawing. And it really buggers text and dimensions, so I deleted all of that before saving to a .pdf file.
You will just have to snoop around on the Apache-automated file index and see what is available. I am going to try to keep most of these files as you find them there now, but there may be a few that I am working on that might be a little on the transient side.
My point being: if you see something you like there, go ahead and download it and save it now, just in case I end up changing it later on down the line.
Cheers