For participants only. Not for public distribution.

Note #31
Mechanical Drawings (.dwg files)

Celia Oakley
Last revised October 7, 2003.

Mechanical Drawing Format

All of the mechanical drawings for Team Overbot are to be stored in .dwg format.

IntelliCAD 2000

If you do not have access to a program that will create .dwg files (e.g., AutoCAD), you can create mechanical drawings in IntelliCAD 2000.  IntelliCAD 2000 is installed on the Windows machine in the shop.

If you would like to install it on another Windows machine, go to the web page: http://cad.msvl.k12.wa.us/IntelliCAD.htm (last I checked, the web site was down; hopefully it's up by now), and download it for free.  We also have Intellicad 2000 in downloadable form for Win32 systems on overtux.overbot.org in "/common/downloads/intellicad".

If you need to open or edit an existing .dwg file, you can use IntelliCAD 2000 for this purpose.

Standard Layer Colors

To make the drawings consistent, I have used the following standard for the layer colors:

  • white - part drawing layer
  • red - dimensions layer
  • blue - title block layer

Title Block Template

A title block template file can be found on the CVS server: gc/parts/templates/title_block.dwg.

Where To Put Your Drawings in CVS

We have decided to create a subdirectory under gc/parts for each specific part or subsystem.  All the electronic information about that part or subsystem should be stored in that subdirectory.  This means that .dwg files will be stored in the same direcotry as .txt, .pdf, and other files.  This makes it easy to find all the on-line information about a specific part or subsystem, because it is all in one place.  For example, store all the Dickey-John Speedometer documentation under gc/parts/speedo.

All part drawings should live on the CVS server under the directory gc/parts.  Choose an appropriate existing subdirectory, or create your own if none is appropriate.  Do not store your files in gc/drawings/parts.  This is an old directory and should no longer be used.