Engineering Drawings

Design & Tech CAD

Engineering drawings – views

We create an engineering drawing of our model to formalise its parameters, communicate its form and parameters and to archive the model.

What makes a good engineering drawing?

Plan the sheet layout to best communicate the part
Maximise the view scale to fill the sheet
Use half view for symmetrical parts to save space
Use section views to show internal detail
Check all dimensions for clarity and ambiguity
Always ask the question – “will someone else be able to visualise the form?”

All model views in the drawing file are associative, ie. there is no ‘linework’ stored in the drawing file, each time you open the file the views are recreated according to the current model version. If you change a dimensional value in the model or in a view, the system updates other drawing views accordingly.

Remember; keep the .prt file and the .drw file together and do not change the model name. If you do, the regeneration process will fail because the system cannot find the model file as originally specified.

All drawing created in the Department should conform to BS8888. It is up to you to ensure your ProE drawing conforms and achieves maximum clarity by manipulating the line work and detailing and by changing the drawing setting file BS8888.dtl [File > Properties > Drawing Options]

Creating a Drawing

When you open a new Drawing file [.drw] the New Drawing dialog box will open.

Select the associated model
Select the Empty with Format option – this applies a border and table
Browse to find the format [.frm] file your after – A3/A4, landscape/portrait

Fill in the table information as you are prompted

Sheets

An engineering drawing isn't necessarily a single sheet of paper - or virtual sheet in the CAD file. If more views are needed to communicate the part than can fit, at a suitable scale, on one sheet then add sheets to the engineering drawing.

Insert > Sheet - you will be prompted to fill in the table as you were on the first sheet

The sheet list will then become active in the Drawing toolbar to switch between sheets.