Digital Designs

Tech

When you think of woodworking tools, you probably think of things like hand planes, table saws and even edge banders, not computer programs. However, today’s technology provides powerful tools for professional woodworkers. AutoCAD, AutoDesk’s Computer Aided Design program, is a drafting tool that can you can use to draw, engineer and present projects. Prior to 2007, Rivendell did all our drawings manually. Investing in AutoCad for the past five years has made a huge difference in our business.

“The biggest difference is drawing to scale,” Nandi explains. “You’re never just approximating, you always know exactly what things are. Your drawing is as accurate as your information.”

“It’s really helped improve our entire process,” said Jeremy. “We’re able to quickly produce accurate drawings in AutoCad, which translates into faster, better builds on the shop floor and in the field.”

These guys should know. They’ve both taken AutoCAD and AutoCAD Advanced college courses. Jeremy even became a Certified AutoCAD Associate in 2012 and is working towards Professional certification in 2013.

“We’ve gotten better as users of AutoCAD over the years. We’ve developed our skills as and found more uses for it,” Jeremy asserts.

“One way we’ve improved our use is through Jeremy’s development of blocks,” said Nandi. Blocks are already completed, dynamically adjustable, drawing elements that you can modify for use in your project. Block attributes, such as dimensions, can be displayed in a spreadsheet format, or tables. “Jeremy has created tables that have streamlined our methods of ordering and cutlisting.”

Rivendell expanded into the AutoDesk Product Design Suite about a year and a half ago. We’ve been finding advantages elsewhere in the package as well. We’ve been progressively using more of the 3D programs such as Inventor and 3dsMax to augment AutoCAD’s 2 dimensional capabilities. Currently, we mostly use 3D for client visualization or to break down a complicated part of a project. We look forward to creating more 3D models in the future. These allow us to look at jobs from multiple angles and eliminates the need for several different drawings of 2D views.

We’re also looking forward to doing more drafting work. Our skills are at a level that allow us to provide these services professionally. We can draft projects for architects or translate clients’ hand drawings into engineered designs. We’d be happy to draft and design your project, even if don’t choose us to build it… although we’d be happy to do that too!