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Speaking as someone with a MFA in Theatrical Design and Technology and who has worked in film and television the last few years, I never ran across a widely accepted standard.

I setup my layers up in a very straight forward fashion:

0-ghost, 0-very light, 0-light, 0-med...0-very heavy
1-line type (hidden, phantom, etc)
2-Dims, 2-Notes, 2-Notes Red, etc

I'm not sitting at my computer so I can't recall all my layers, but I feel like I approached them as I approached linework as a hand draftsman... And I feel like I change how I do it every year.

For my layouts

Page 1 is Plan and what elevations for (in 1/4" and 3/4" for more complicated objects)
Page 2 to as needed is continuation of elevations
Then I go into details (full or half scale) and renderings as needed


Some excellence books

Drafting for the Theatre https://www.amazon.com/dp/0809330377/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4CUiDbWGFMX9A


Designer Drafting and Visualizing for the Entertainment World, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240818911/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JEUiDbK121Y4D

The Backstage Handbook: An Illustrated Almanac of Technical Information https://www.amazon.com/dp/0911747397/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_DFUiDbGBHHPHK

Architectural Graphic Standards. Third Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EZI774/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_.GUiDbZP96C4H - for theater, don't bother with a brand new edition, I have 3rd (all the drawings are by hand and are shit yourself gorgeous) and seventh? (I would have to check my library). The current edition is needed for current building code, but that typically doesn't pertain to what I do.

Get a book.

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2016 Essentials: Autodesk Official Press https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119059593/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_V6d6yb09703SW

Seriously worth the money. It's easy to help answer very specific questions online, but if you need the basic understanding of the software and the work you're doing , the book is your best bet.

For civil work you'll need to understand the concepts of: surfaces, alignments, profiles, profile views, sections, and possibly corridors. It's a lot to go from zero to understanding it. Focus on understanding the concepts. Just what everything is and how they all work together. That way the commands and work flows will make more sense.

Good luck.

I use this feature every day. I've been using AutoCAD since release 2 on floppies, and learned to draft by hand, too. I have a deep appreciation for the multitude of tools AutoCAD offers - even if I never use them, I appreciate that they are there before someone needs them, and I might eventually use them too.

AutoCAD is like those massive Swiss Army knives. It all comes down to the task at hand, and knowing what tool is going to help you get it done that much faster and more efficiently.

This particular tool helps to eliminate the need to draw construction lines by inferring coordinates based on when you have already drawn and the direction you move your mouse.

Youtube as much as you can but free tutorials will only go so far (and usually be using much older AutoCAD software).

You should maybe buy a good Architectural Design using AutoCAD book.

I don't have a formal education in Autodesk, but someone who teaches classes gave me a condensed version of what he teaches with This book. it was good to have him around to ask questions, but the book was very easy to read and I bet I could have gotten a decent fundamental understanding by just reading the book.

Drafting and using AutoCAD are two entirely different things. Best option for most people who want to learn how technical drawing are made: take a Drafting/Technical Drawing class at your local junior college. If you are incredibly self-directed and disciplined, then a comprehensive textbook like this one https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Technical-Drawing-Henry-Spencer/dp/0026856603 will cover the main areas that you'll need to know. If you can make it through a book like this and understand it without assistance, good for you. You'll have the basic foundation knowledge of a well-rounded education in technical drawing. Afterwards, learning the specifics of whatever field you want to work in will be added to your foundation knowledge. For example: electrical drafting is very different from architectural drafting, or civil/process piping/structural drawing, and each have their own standards and conventions. As an aside, I see that there is really nothing online where someone can learn the principles and practices of drafting. I intend on creating a Udemy course this summer that will fix this.

I have a Mad Catz RAT8 with side scrolling wheel - a sharp, brightly lit, gaming mouse that I bought because it was cheaper at the time than a MX master.

I used the CUI to assign the command Pan-Right/Pan-Left to "CTRL-NUMBERPAD 6/4" respectively, then I used the software that came with my mouse to assign the thumb scroll wheel to "CTRL-NUMBERPAD 6/4" for every wheel 'click'. (you could do the same with the other mouse wheel for "Pan-up/down" if you're happy to ditch zoom.)

However, it's not smooth, and it's not very useful if you draft up and down as well as left to right. What I did instead, is bind my thumb wheel to the recent commands list so I can quickly dig back 5 commands and repeat. It's useful-ish, but i'm not overly sold on that binding, I'd really like to be able to bind it to change layer and cycle through layers on an object but haven't figured that one out yet.

Edit: bind in Autocad like this imgur.com/vJRyvSn

Ah yeah I do. My problem, though, is I do not know the curvature of my solid in certain places. This means I am unable to 'draw' a line, or object, along the surface of the solid.

Unfortunately, I can't send screenshots at the moment but I will as soon as I can. For the moment imagine if one of these was plopped into your cad workspace and you were given no dimensions for it's curvature. How would you go about drawing a line the perfectly follows the curvature along the object's surface? How would you draw a spiral on it? Or an X? Or a map of Western Greenland?

I don't mean to say I need an answer to each of those questions, but hopefully it gives you a better idea of what I'm asking. I could easily sweep a spiral on to the object I linked but a map would be much more difficult to define.

If I'm still not making sense, I'll post screenshots of my specific problem as soon as I'm able.

Are there any particular measuring tools you recommend, aside from a good set of calipers, a solid ruler, and a gap gauge?

I'm thinking about grabbing this to help with figuring out angles on objects.

Well I would recommend the essentials training books. I havent used the one for regular autocad, only the civil3d version, but it was very good. They give a link to exercise files so you can actually practice rather than watching someone do it.

https://www.amazon.ca/AutoCAD-2017-LT-Essentials/dp/1119243335

You can probably find a pdf

This is more of an experience issue than a cad issue mate.
But it’s great that you are considering this.

Get yourself some books on “engineering drawings”
Or have a look on YouTube for some tips.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manual-Engineering-Drawing-International-Standards/dp/0750651202

Line weights, dimensions, notation, projections, these make all of the difference.

Wel you have to have a gaming mouse first.

I have this one: [G600](Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse, RGB Backlit, 20 Programmable Buttons https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0086UK7IQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ilK4Bb0XK74VD)

It’s a highly recommended one by a lot of people on reddit.

Then you just program each of the buttons to a command.

It's recommended to start with 2D, and move up to 3d.

[This] ( https://www.amazon.com/AutoCAD-2015-Tutorial-First-Fundamentals/dp/1585038644) is the book I used to learn. There is a second book that focus's on 3D.

I checked out a couple of weeks of lynda.com from my local library. Plenty of time to get a solid base. Then I picked up "Autocad for Dummies" and a pocket reference.

Pick up a book on AutoLISP.

This one is fairly old, but still relevant.

http://www.amazon.com/AutoLISP-Programming-Rod-Rawls/dp/1566374170/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412815315&sr=8-1&keywords=autolisp