Common AutoCAD Commands for Survey Plan Drawing

 AutoCAD has literally hundreds of command for different professionals. In this article, we will look at some commonly used commands as related to the surveying profession most specifically for drawing survey site plans.

Lets start with the first command...

1) VIEW MENU

Under this menu, we can customize the interface of our AutoCAD by displaying different panels as seen below.

The most important panels for surveyors are: CommandLine, Properties, User Coordinate System (UCS) Icon, View Cubet, File tab, and Layout tab.

2) OPTIONS

This command allows us to do many settings. As seen below, there are many tabs where you can configure different settings as seen.

For example under the "Display" tab, you can configure color scheme, crosshair size etc. Under "Open and Save" tab, you can configure default version to save your drawings etc. Under "Plot and Publish" tab, you can configure default printer, plot location etc.

3) UNITS

As a surveyor, you need special settings for drawing units and angles.

We want our angles to read in Degrees/Minutes/Seconds from the North direction. And our distances be read in meters.

4) SHAPES: POINT, LINE, SPLINE, RECTANGLE, CIRCLE, SKETCH, HATCH ETC

There are many shapes that can be drawn in AutoCAD. The once commonly used in drawing survey plans are those listed above.

5) OBJECT SNAP SETTINGS: 

This allows different shapes be drawn precisely in relation to another shape. These relationships can be by endpoint, midpoint, center etc. as seen below.

6) MODIFY: DELETE, TRIM, EXTEND, COPY, EXPLODE, JOIN, ERASE, BREAK

You will find all of these commands in Home >> Modify ribbon. Just as the name implies, they are used for modifying objects on a drawing.

7) CALCULATOR

You can get to the calculator from different places in AutoCAD and it is use to make calculations on drawing.

8) LAYERS

Layers are used to manage complex drawings. If your drawing is relatively simple with just few objects/geometries then you may not need to worry about layers as all the drawing can be done on one default layer.

You can access this from Home >> Layer Properties

9) PRINTING

This is where we plot our plan to pdf, image file or paper as the case maybe. The plot window can be accessed from the printer icon on the title bar or simply press Ctrl + P on your keyboard.

Conclusion

The commands listed above are not only meant for survey plan drawings, they are also applicable to many other professional drawings in other types of AutoCAD (AutoCAD Civil, AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD ecscad, AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Mech, AutoCAD MEP, AutoCAD Structural Detailing, AutoCAD Utility Design, AutoCAD P&ID, AutoCAD Plant 3D & AutoCAD architecture...) including competitor software such BricsCAD, DraftSight, ZWCAD etc.

Thank you for following.