As we’ve mentioned, AutoCAD is an excellent and widely used tool for architecture. But now we’re focusing on house design, which is its own area of expertise. House design involves designing everything from the outside frame of the house to the ambient and added lighting inside, along with its piping, electrical wiring, and ventilation. It sure is a complex job!

Sustainable Housing

Matt Fajkus Architecture designs with a philosophy of combining sustainability and beauty to achieve the best designs possible. Working in Austin, Texas, the team is building houses to meet rapid population growth, focusing on sustainable building in locations where construction was previously considered too challenging. The project relies on AutoCAD because it allows designers to plan the coding and construction for these challenges, even allowing them to plan for factors like passive daylighting, solar orientation, and benefitting from natural breezes.

3D Printed Proof-of-Concept

This proof of concept for a house was scaled down and 3D printed. This is an innovative way to avoid the hardships of making house mock-ups. The model was done both in 2D, using AutoCAD, and 3D, using SketchUp, as well as completely furnished using AutoCAD. Moreover, it was possible to divide it into parts, so that it can be opened and have it interact with the client. This combination of AutoCAD, house design, and 3D printing, gives new advantages when marketing projects.

Modern House Exterior

A house’s exterior facade was designed using AutoCAD and 3ds Max, and it’s a good example of how it’s also possible to work in 3D view in AutoCAD. At first, the designer focused only on the structure, and with this done, they moved on to exterior details like the front porch. Finally, they took it to render mode to show the advantageous illumination and sophisticated view of the house. This shows that even without complementary software, AutoCAD is a very complete tool that allows you to easily switch from 2D to 3D view, making both modes of work very practical.

Interior design may be one of the most popular uses of AutoCAD thanks to its special tools intended especially to quickly try out interior arrangements and colors, as well as visualize them in realistic renders. AutoCAD has a library of more than 8,000 household objects to design interior spaces, and it’s even useful to plan out more complex design layouts that have to take into account technical requirements like kitchen areas.

Café Interior

Liza Kuhn learned how to use AutoCAD on her own, which was made possible thanks to the number of resources available across the internet. This goes to show that, even though AutoCAD is an industrial-level software, it also works perfectly for personal projects. Nowadays, Luza Kuhn has an interior design company, and in one of her more recent projects, she used AutoCAD to design the interior layout, lighting, and decoration of the Charley St Café.

Modern Living Room

In this practice exercise, the designer used AutoCAD to model a simple square room and decorate it. For this, they started by establishing lighting sources, both natural and artificial, and they added furniture and decorations to create a nice ambiance. This exercise is a good demonstration of how you can use textures and materials, to create realistic-looking objects, like they do in the fabric of the rug and the sofa. They also add interesting details like custom furniture which can be created directly inside AutoCAD.

Cozy TV Room

In this design exercise, we also see the decoration of a simple room, however, this timelapse takes it a step further by also having the technical plans for wiring of illumination, electric appliances and ventilations systems. Additionally, the designer also adds cozy ambient lights and elegant furniture to complete the look of the room.

AutoCAD can be a useful tool to either model structures on a smaller scale, or even to model the structure needed for a bigger artistic project. Even though traditionally AutoCAD is a professional software, many people use it to model sculptures which then can be taken to hobbyist-friendly manufacturing methods like 3D printing or CNC to come to fruition.

Car Sculpture

For the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, Andrew Mestern was challenged to create a 3D sculpture replica of a car. He found the solution for how to do it in AutoCAD. He used AutoCAD to design an interior structure that would help shape the car (which was later CNC cut), as well as to design the chassis of the car. AutoCAD’s 3D modeling features were also used to facilitate communication between clients, the carpenters, and painters, to make sure everyone agreed with the design and understood what they had to do.

Radiant Blossom Sculpture

On a smaller scale, AutoCAD can be used to create complete sculptures, and even progress them to manufacturing. Such is the case with this popular 3D printed lamp in the shape of a blossom. And it certainly is popular because 112 people have shared their own recreations on Thingiverse. The blossom lamp was designed using AutoCAD and Rhino, and you only need to add a lightbulb in the middle to make it work.

3D Printed Bust

Artist Geoffrey Marchall used AutoCAD to create a sculpture called Bust of a Rhetorician, which he then took into ReMake and ReCap, also Autodesk products, to clean up the mesh and detail the model. The result is a print of great detail, and AutoCAD proved a very useful tool to model the initial base, before adding the sculpted details in specialized programs.

Many unique and creative artists don’t limit themselves to painting on canvas and are constantly exploring new technologies to bring their ideas to life. As such, many have turned to AutoCAD for abstract, geometrical art, for 3D modeling and rendering, or even to prepare structures for larger-scale projects. Some people also use it to make 2D art that can later be carved into murals with CNC machines.

Projector Art Display

Andrei Snobar is an artist who projects interactive art onto buildings. He uses AutoCAD as a modeling tool to replicate the buildings he’s going to be projecting his art onto, to be able to map out the projections. He started using AutoCAD for regular architecture and then developed his interest in projected art in his free time. He now works full-time as an artist with the help of AutoCAD.

Flower Carving

2D carvings created with CNC machines have had a recent boom in the art world. AutoCAD is a popular option for 2D CNC designs because, at its heart, it’s a 2D drawing software that works with vector lines instead of pixels. As such, it can be a great tool to make drawings that will then be taken into the CAM process. We can see how the makers from GS Zone CNC Solution import a drawing of a flower made by hand into AutoCAD and trace the lines to create a CNC path. This design can then be taken to a CNC machine to be carved.

Dice Modeling and Rendering

AutoCAD can also be used to design and render 3D models, whether in a realistic environment or in a more artistic setting. In this case, you can see how QasimCAD used AutoCAD to model dice in the 3D modeling environment of AutoCAD, and then assigned materials, textures, and lighting to render a realistic image of the modeled dice.

It seems there’s little you can’t do when it comes to design when using AutoCAD. It’s even used to model and make blueprints of theater sets and props for films and plays. Combining the dramatic arts with engineering and design makes incredible theatrical realism possible!

Set Design

Going back to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, the group of designers for the festival were able to design the set of a Shakespeare play. The design process was done on mobile, using the AutoCAD app, which allowed them to work on the go, remotely, while simultaneously adding comments and changes to other people’s work as it was being done. It also allowed the team to check the design of the set easily from their phone without having to pull out a computer.

Pixar’s Lexo Jr

Lexo Jr is the iconic Pixar lamp that smashes the ‘i’ in the Pixar logo before every movie. This medium-scale recreation of Lexo Jr was modeled in AutoCAD to be 3D printed. This type of design is an ideal project for software like AutoCAD, since it’s composed mostly of nerves. As such, 2D drawing is the most efficient way to model and organize them.

Stormtrooper Helmet

May the toolset be with you! This Stormtrooper helmet is wearable, and it was designed with AutoCAD Meshmixer and manufactured with 3D printing. The design was optimized for printing on a standard desktop FDM printer with a build space of 200 x 200 mm.

Civil engineering is another of the most popular uses of AutoCAD. There’s a custom package of tools for this purpose, as there are for mechanical and electrical engineering. However, projects for civil engineering can also make use of the mechanical and architectural toolsets. Some common jobs in civil engineering focus on bridges and road renovations, and AutoCAD doesn’t fall short when it comes to providing all the necessary tools for these types of projects.

Bridge Modeling & Construction

The New Mexico Department of Transportation was charged with the challenge of designing bridges to improve transportation in the area, which was difficult at the time. They used AutoCAD Civil 3D, which is AutoCAD’s Civil Engineering toolset for this large-scale project. The toolset allowed them to create alignments and surfaces, do calculations directly in the design program, as well as to prepare all the necessary documentation, which made it very convenient, very organized, giving less opportunity for errors in translation or conversion.

Suspension Bridge Design

Suspension bridges are used in settings where the area below the bridge should stay free from columns. This can be done for many reasons, like no available space below, to avoid obscuring a certain part of a city, or even to prevent things like graffiti on bridges’ columns. Designing a suspension bridge using AutoCAD is an efficient process, with all the necessary tools to create different types of bridges.

Roadway Design

Civil engineering isn’t limited to the design of bridges or even to the design of civic structures. The field includes the design of buildings, parks, and other static structures. Using AutoCAD to design a roadway isn’t a simple process because you have to take the original region’s terrain and make all the necessary modifications to make it as free from interference as possible. Then, there are a number of environmental factors to take into account: heat, rain, fire, even what types of cars will be in use. AutoCAD’s convenient way to keep documentation, as well as the specific tools provided by AutoCAD Civil 3D, make it a preferred tool in the industry when working on these types of projects.

Creating industrial plants refer to the process of planning, designing, and building a layout for a set of machines, parts, and control mechanisms that are going to be used to create something else; for example, oil plants, manufacturing plants, and food plants. So the process usually consists of organizing all the processes they’re going to be doing, in a way that saves time, makes it easy for maintenance, and can fit all the resources needed. This is a very important branch of engineering and that’s why it’s important to have good software to help you out through it.

Automated Packaging Plant Redesign

Technica International is a company that designs manufacturing systems for packaging just about anything: food, drinks, medicines, paper. You name it, they can package it. They use the Autodesk Product Designs & Manufacturing collection, which includes AutoCAD. They say that they chose these products because Autodesk is a trusted brand in the industry, and its flexibility for mobility between programs made it easy for them to have everything integrated. For example, they were able to create a library of all their standard components using AutoCAD, which they could then easily call onto different Autodesk software.

Natural Gas Plant Piping Layout

Process Pipeline Services uses AutoCAD’s Plant 3D toolset to design overground pipelines and facilities, especially for natural gas, which can be hard to handle and transport. They also use 3D scanning technology to create point clouds that are interpreted by AutoCAD and allow for the closest approximation possible to real-life conditions. This helps achieve accurate, good-quality designs.

AutoCAD was first conceived as mechanical engineering software. With time, it expanded its uses, making it popular in other environments. But it’s still widely used for its original purpose, and it’s considered an industry standard that any capable mechanical engineer centered in the design should be able to use.

Mechanical engineering has a very wide range of uses. Basically, if it’s a structure and it can move, it was probably designed by a mechanical engineer; for example, elevators, trains, cars, and airplanes. And that’s not all: Cooling systems, piping systems, plumbing systems, and heating systems, don’t move in themselves, but they work by moving fluids or even changing their thermodynamic states, so they also fall under the umbrella of mechanical engineering. AutoCAD’s Mechanical Toolset is very complete in terms of what it can offer to be able to achieve this wide range of applications.

Coal-Fired Boilers Redesign

The South African Department of Public Works and Infrastructure needed to find a solution for malfunctioning boilers. One of two boilers in a correctional facility broke down, making the remaining available boiler have to work overtime, and in the end, both boilers stopped working. High-quality designs for new boilers were conceived using AutoCAD and Revit, and the efficient mechanical engineering process optimized the time it took to reach an urgent solution.

Mini-Lathe

For an example of true mechanical design (as opposed to thermal), Thingiverse user TRENDi77 designed a functional mini-lathe, made up of approximately 40 parts, all designed with AutoCAD. The machine can be 3D printed, but it also needs some additional components such as bearings, nuts, and bolts, steel tubes, which are all available as standardized parts in AutoCAD for convenient use.

Wind Turbine

Obtaining energy is also the responsibility of mechanical engineering. Whether that be by way of turbines, dams, or fuel, mechanical engineers work on finding the most efficient ways to source energy, with a more recent focus on making these processes as sustainable as possible. Thingiverse user plaszlonet designed a 3D printed wind turbine as an entry to a competition, and he did so with the help of AutoCAD. Thanks to AutoCAD’s library of standard parts, it was easier to design using additional hardware like bearings and rods.

AutoCAD is also equipped with electrical tools, even offering a specific electrical toolset, which is a popular tool for the design of electrical and electronic systems. It has a very complete selection of the regulated symbols for electrical work, as well as the capacity to simulate systems, both in DC and AC.

Sustainable Energy Plant

Conco Energy Solutions is a company that works on substation protection and control solutions in Africa. In 2018, they became part of the team working on the Kangnas Wind Farm, where AutoCAD, along with Inventor and Vault, was used to design not only the wind farm but also the energy-delivery systems to supply the surrounding communities. AutoCAD is used to design the layouts and communication paths of different systems with the control room.

Electronic Chips

The difference between electrical and electronic engineering is often associated with the range of voltages and currents they use, the scale of the projects, or the types of applications they’re intended for. Either way, they tend to go hand in hand. Electrical engineering gets energy to your house that you use to power your computer, while it was electronic engineering that went into designing the computer. AutoCAD is a useful tool for both, as shown by how AutoCAD was used to create an electronic chip.

Control Panel Blueprint

Finally, we can see the process with which a control board is designed using AutoCAD. AutoCAD is a useful tool for electronic engineering because a lot of electronics components are very small, very expensive, and very easy to damage. They’re easy to accidentally overcharge or short circuit, both processes that can be calculated by AutoCAD. Having the ability to know beforehand that your system won’t crash, and being able to simulate currents and voltages, can help you save a lot of money in wasted parts.