Equipment needed: Any PowerMacintosh with a minimum of 2 MGS allocated to PowerCADD. A 14" or larger monitor (preferably color) and a hard disk.
Setup:
Open "PowerDraw™/PowerCADD™ Demo" folder and drag "PowerCADD/PPC-English" Folder to your hard drive. Launch PowerCADD, then from the File menu open the file "01 Look at me first!" to become familiar wiht tools used in the demo. After reviewing, close the opened files.
Open"1 Gasket Drawing" from the File menu (you should still be in PowerCADD) and proceed with introduction. Comments to the presenter are in [brackets] and preceeded with DO. The other text describing the actions are to be spoken as you work through the demo and are preceeded with SAY.
Introduction:
SAY: PowerCADD, the Power Macintosh version of PowerDraw, is a technical drawing tool which is useful in many different fields, including Engineering/Mechanical Design, Architectural Design, and Graphic/Product Design. With the combination of PowerCADD and the Power Macintosh you can expect 2 to 20 times the speed increases over PowerDraw and the 68K Macintoshes. Three different scenarios are presented to show how PowerCADD can be used in each of these professions. They are designed to show just a few of PowerCADD’s features and how you the user can benefit from these features in your profession. We will look at three benefits: Precision, Ease of Use, and Flexibility.
Precision- With PowerCADD’s Snapping methods, you will be able to create very accurate, complex drawings with little effort. Snapping, including the Snap Locator will be demonstrated.
Ease of Use- One of the keys to PowerCADD’s ease of use is its intuitiveness and consistency. Each Tool and Menu command is consistent in design, both with regard to the Macintosh interface and with each other.
Flexibility- As mentioned before, PowerCADD is a technical drawing tool designed for a variety of projects. Through the use of trade-specific and general plug-in tools and commands called Externals, PowerCADD conforms to your needs. In this presentation, you will see just a few of the applications which will make even your most complicated projects very simple, and even enjoyable. You will see External as well as built-in functions.
Let’s take a quick look at the PowerCADD drawing area.
DO: [Press and hold on the tool palette and menus randomly to show what is available. While doing this, say the following:]
SAY: The tools and commands look and operate just as they do on all Macintosh programs. If you have ever used a Mac before, you already know something about PowerCADD. If you are new to the Macintosh, you will find the tools and commands are organized very logically. Also, notice some of the tools and commands have two dots. This is important as we will see later.
Our first drawing is the basic layout for a gasket. With the first hole and flange complete, we will add the centerlines to each of the holes and create the remaining holes using an Circular Duplication.
SAY: We will now select the Centerline tool and place centerlines in each of the holes.
DO: Select the Centeline tool (3rd from bottom) and click in the larger hole and then the smaller hole.
SAY: Now to duplicate the flanges.
DO: [Select the top hole, centerline, and arc by dragging a Selection window (Arrow tool at top of Tool palette) around them. Press Option while choosing Duplicate from the Edit menu and say:]
SAY: Notice Duplicate has two dots beside it. Every tool and command that has two dots beside it will produce a dialog box if Option is pressed while the tool or command is being selected. The dialog boxes which appear allow you to set distances, angles, and other variables. Additionally, the tools and commands which have three dots will launch a dialog automatically, when selected. Because of this consistency, PowerCADD is very easy to learn and use.
DO: [With the Duplicate dialog up, click Circular.]
SAY: We will need a total of 7 holes. Since we already have one, we will only ask for 6 more.
DO: [Place the cursor in the box beside Number and double click to highlight the field. Type 6.]
SAY: We need our 7 holes to be in a complete circle, or 360 degrees. We could get out our calculator and do the math to figure out the angle, but there is a better way. PowerCADD’s flexibility allows you to perform math in all of its dialogs. So, in the box beside Angle,we’ll type 360/7. This will space the remaining holes evenly around a complete circle. To get objects dispersed around a semi-circle, we could have used 180 degrees instead of 360.
DO: [Once the angle is set click Next Mouse and then press Enter. When the dialog goes away, you will be left with a target cursor.]
SAY: (as you do) We’ll press the “C” key for center snap and move the cursor to the large circle in the middle of the drawing. By holding the "C" key while you are in the circle, you will force a center snap.
DO: [Continue to press “C” and click.]
SAY: The 6 additional holes, flanges, and their centerlines appear. With a single key, we were able to place an array of holes at odd angles about a center point, quickly with great precision. To show you how this ease of use and power can be put to use, I will now open a finished Mechanical drawing. This drawing is a good example of how PowerCADD's Isometric Shear can be used.
DO: [Open "2 Finished Mechanical Drawing", zoom in 2x by pressing Command 1 (you will be presented with a rectangle representing the area to be seen, you may move this rectangle and when you are where you want to zoom in, press the mouse button), pressing Command 1 again will zoom in 2x more, Command F is fit to window. Zoom around drawing using Commands to show various parts enlarged. Close all drawings. Save is disabled so click No in the Save Prompt dialog. From the File menu, Open "3 Floor Plan Drawing" and say the following:]
SAY: Now we are going to take a look at one of many general and trade-specific tools available to you, the Wall Tools External.
With Wall Tools External, you can insert doors and windows parametrically or use your own symbols. Once inserted, the wall where the door or window is placed will trim and “heal” itself automatically. Let’s add a door to this floor plan.
DO: [Look for the Wall Tools External on the screen. It will appear as a small floating tool palette which can be placed anywhere on the screen.]
SAY: Some Externals take the form of a floating menu, or they may appear in one of PowerCADD’s existing menus. While many CAD programs clutter the drawing area with every tool and command contained in the program, PowerCADD’s Externals can be loaded and positioned as needed giving you a flexible customizable drawing area for each project.
DO: [With the Wall Tools External located, press Option and select the Door Insertion tool from the Wall Tools palette. It looks like a door symbol in plan view].
SAY: Notice we have two dots, again. A dialog appears. The dialog is set to place a 2’-6” door. Also, notice that you can set the spacing from the center of the door, or from the jamb to other objects. With these items set, we will continue by clicking OK.
DO: [When the dialog disappears, you will be left with a target cursor.]
SAY: Let’s place our door on the bottom [front] wall. Move the cursor to one of the two lines which make up the bottom wall. Press and drag to the other line and release. A ghost of the door will appear.
DO: Move the mouse above and below the wall, and to the far left and right walls.
SAY: Notice how the ghost image flips horizontally and vertically, and how the screen pans left and right automatically. Position the door into the center of the wall and click. The door is placed and the wall is cut and trimmed automatically.
DO: [Click in a clear area in the drawing to deselect the door and to deactivate the tool.]
SAY: Windows behave in the same manner. Although this External is for architectural work, it is being used by some to place duct work and other symbols where trimming is required. PowerCADD has as many uses as there are users. Many of the Externals available were actually created by users for their own in-house purposes and only later were made available to the public. Users with programming knowledge can take PowerCADD’s modular architecture and macro programming language and really run with it; the sky’s the limit. Now let us look at a completed working construction document.
DO: [ Open "4 Finished Architectural", zoom around using same commands as before. When finished, Close both Architectural drawings with no save and Open "5 CAD Logo Drawing" and say the following:]
SAY: Our last demo will show the Graphic Design side of PowerCADD . One of PowerCADD’s most unique tools is the Combine tool. PowerDraw was the first Macintosh CAD program in industry to offer such a tool. With Combine, you can create a single polygon, or path as it called by some illustration programs, from many separate shapes like rectangles and circles. Once the single shape is created, it can be filled, reshaped, and so on as a single object.
In this demonstration, we will Combine three rectangles in the logo to produce the letter “A”. To do this, select the Combine tool from the Tool palette.
DO: [It is located in the bottom row of tools, and looks like a polygon outline of two rectangles glued together. Note: There is another tool that looks similar, but has two separate rectangles. This is the Clip tool.]
[When the tool is selected, you will get a target cursor. Do and say the following:]
SAY: Move the cursor to the slanted rectangles forming the letter "A". Press and drag to the other slanted rectangle and release the mouse. The two objects now become one. While the tool is still selected, we will now press and drag the cursor to the center part of the “A” and join the balance to form our completed "A".
DO: Press and drag to remaining rectangle of the “A” and release.
SAY: Combine can be used for all kinds of tasks in graphic design. It can even be used to create an outline for a floor plan. Simply arrange rectangles which represent individual rooms. Once the layout is set, use Combine to join the over lapping shapes into a single polygon. Walls can be generated from there. Machine parts can be arranged and outlined likewise. Now for a completed design as an example of the various techniques and options available in PowerCADD.
DO: [Open "6 Finished Graphic Design". This graphic can be ungrouped to examine techniques used in its creation.]
SAY: In closing, this presentation was designed to show three major benefits of PowerCADD in three different disciplines of drafting. PowerCADD is precise and easy to use. It is very easy to construct complex geometry. Perhaps most importantly, PowerCADD allows you to be flexible in the way you design and draw. Through the use of Externals, you can customize the entire program for specific projects. Allowing you to perform math functions in the dialog boxes and the Edit Window lets you “sketch” and test ideas as you go. In other words, you don’t have to know where you are going with an idea before you get there.
There are literally hundreds of methods in which to use the many tools and commands of PowerCADD . The tools and methods shown here are only a sample of the techniques employed by PowerCADD users in your field.
DO: [Close up drawing and get ready for questions, or to place orders!]
