*warning - wall of text incoming*
ok, if you're just talking about using native AutoCAD stuff for simplicity, then you still have a lot you can do design wise depending on what you need it to look like. First lets talk a bit about the organisation of the drawing.
1 - Model space - this is where your geometry goes, use layers to represent each Z level, name them something like "Level 0 : Entrance", "Level -1 : Finished Goods Storage" (you may need to play about with the naming to get AutoCAD to list the layers in the correct order in the layer window) - more about what to put in here shortly....
2 - Layouts - one layout per Z-level, you can set which layers are on or off within the viewport separately from the layout settings within the model. you can also put titles and notes in text within the layout to annote the drawing
get used to switching between model and layout space, for production drawings it's very useful.
in terms of how to draw the z-level geometry, there's a couple of things to setup first, set your grid to 1, snap to grid, set background colour to black (use options to change this) and define rectangle for the "site boundary", you might want to draw some construction lines/rectangles initially to separate or prototype your design, draw these construction lines onto separate "construction" layers if necessary, you can turn them off later.
I wouldn't worry about drawing anything in 3D, the layer system is a very good analogue of DF's Z-levels
then you'll want to use these constructions lines to create your detailed design, I'd suggest using rectangles and solid hatches that can be coloured according to a key (might want to place the key in each layout as well) to denote the specifics. you can also use layers for each type of industry/stockpile/zone, this will allow you to automatically colour each hatch you place, as the default colour for new bits of drawing is "ByLayer", which is handy once you figure out how to use the layer window to set colours etc.
Moving about the drawing should be as simple as pick and drag, should be middle mouse buton by default, but you can always use the dynamic pan command from deep within the view menu/toolbar/ribbons. It takes a while to learn where all the commands are, there are a helluva lot. btw, ribbons are an AutoCAD 2010 feature, I don't know which version you're using.
If I get chance, I'll try and mock something up very simply as a guide, although I don't know if I'll have the time to do much as I have a pre-release release of our new commercial software coming up at the end of the month, so it's crunch time.
hope this helps as a general overview, if you're still only at a basic level of understanding, it might take a while to get hang of some of the concepts as AutoCAD is a beast of a package in some regards. any specific problem/query you think of, just post here, I'm watching the thread, and maybe others will like to read or contribute.
have fun
Author
Topic: DF in AutoCAD (Read 2611 times)