hello in this video we're going to go over what cat and the software autocad mean and what the software interface is for this course the software requirement is autocad 2021 but if you have up to version 2017 it could still be used but we highly recommend you go with 2021 it is required to do the windows version of this installation and the the installation process or how to it's um on your references so make sure you go and check that out um there is a mac version of this autocad um software but the commands are slightly different and the interface is is very different so we highly highly recommend and i think it's better for your class experience to try to get the windows version of autocad um everything that we're going to be showing in the class it's going to be using this windows or pc version so it might make more sense that you also follow along using the same exact software or the same exact version of this software now before we opened um up the software and we we go through what that looks like in the interface i want to talk about what cad means and cat stands for computer-aided design and this refers to the use of computers to aid in the process or creation or modification of designing autocad it's one of those softwares that aids in the design creation there is many many other softwares in the industry another good example is it's revit so do not confuse the two terminologies autocad is the software that just happens to utilize the word cat in it now we're going to go ahead and open the software when you download the software you will have an icon that it's going to look like a big red a on your desktop you are going to double click that icon and that is going to open up your software once the software opens this is the menu that you're going to get from here we're going to open a new or create a new file which is going to be our working file throughout the semester to do this go to the big a that it's located at the top left corner of the program you're going to click there and you're going to navigate versus new from here we are going to click on new in a window will open up this window is the available templates within the autodesk software to start a new project you always start off with a template in this case we're going to select the a c a d template you're going to click on it once and i want you to know the file type this file type it's dot dwt that means it's a template filed we're going to click open and that is going to open our drawing space from here we're going to save our file again we're going to go back to the big a and we're going to scroll down where it says save as and we're going to save as a drawing click in there again the menu will open up from here you will navigate to the location within your computer where you're going to store your file i'm just going to put it temporarily on my desktop so i will look for that location i will rename my file in this case i will name it basic drafting underscore smm for my initials you make sure you put your initials so that you can recognize that that it's the file that you're working with for this class click on save and done right now your file has been saved in the location that you specified once you save the file now it becomes a drawing so the extensions is no longer dwt now is dwg which stands for drawing and you can see that on the top here which shows you file name and the path location at the end is dwg as well if i go into my my folders you can see that in my file location my file now is the basic drafting smm and you can see that the file type it's a dwg file that means that is a drawing it's no longer a template file now i want to talk about a couple of very important aspects and i think definitely one of the the most important if not the most important lesson from this video that i want you to take is the saving you are 100 responsible for your digital file and to keep it safe so i'm gonna give you a couple of recommendations that that i would suggest you try out and keep throughout the semester to ensure that you don't run into issues of losing files or losing any work that you have done the number one is save save save constantly save your file once you've done changes of you created elements even if it's minor even if it's a few lines just get in the habit of saving and there is a couple of ways that you could do this you can go back to the big a and click on save and that is just saving your same file or you can click on the icon up here on the top the save icon just click on it once and that is just saving the file or you can use your keyboard and hit ctrl s to just save the file make sure you do this often save save save that is going to be our key phrase for the semester save save save your file my second recommendation is to do save ass and i would suggest you do this at least every other day or every day when you are done working on your file or when you are done creating the submission or that portion of the assignment what this does is it keeps archive copies of your file in the previous days before you started working on that day and i would suggest you append the date at the end so that you know which day that file was saved as this way if your file gets corrupted or you end up losing your file for any reason the most you will ever lose of work will be that days worth of work and that will allow also to keep a history of the different assignments in the different work and how you file has evolved throughout the semester the third recommendation and i think this is definitely another one of those that it's the third recommendation it's probably the one that you should consider the most important and this is saving you files on the cloud this is my daily routine working none of my files are ever saved in my local drive or in my computer they're always safe to the cloud and there's different types of clouds there's one drive google drive or dropbox just to mention a few so if you have access to any of this i would highly recommend that you keep your working files for this class especially the digital autocad file in the cloud this way if something happens to your computer for any reason you do not lose your digital copies they will always be on the cloud and you only will have to download it into another computer and continue on working in the same file again i'm going to emphasize this you are 100 responsible to making sure that you keep your digital file save and this is probably the best way to do it save to the cloud the last recommendation is that a easy way to keep a an archive copy of your submissions it's uploading your autocad file with your with each of your submissions and this ensures again that you are have some sort of backup system always happening know that the instructors we won't be reviewing this autocad file this is not the assignment but at least you know that you would have an archive copy of your file up to that assignment and if something happens with the file you can always go back and the most you will lose is any work that you did after that assignment was submitted this is only as the last resource of a backup plan again this is not going to be reviewed but it's a good way to keep your files safe and to keep track of what yours you have submitted