Technical Drawing standards

Welcome to The CAD Setter Out’s Technical Drawing Standards page!

The CAD Setter Out - Technical Drawing standardsI’m a Lazy drafter. I like using a computer to draw because it allows me to automate so many processes.  But you can’t automate a process if everyone is going about things differently. Standardization should not lead to more work – it should lead to less work for everyone in your office.

These posts aren’t about CAD Standards (i.e. Data management or Layer names), they are about the way your final paper drawings look, irrespective of the CAD software you use. These posts are relevant to anyone producing Technical drawings, whether it is for Architecture, Engineering or Industrial design.

I’ve based the information on these posts on BS 8888, the British standard for ‘Technical product documentation’ which is based on the ISO standards for technical drawing. You can read more about BS 8888 in this post ‘Which standard do I follow‘.

Where does my information come from? I sit on TDW/4 the technical committee at BSI Global that reviews and updates BS 8888 in line with the International standards.

Still think that you should be working to BS 308? Read this brief history of the British technical drawing standards to find out what’s changed.

Finding the Technical Drawing tutorial you need.

I’ve gathered all the posts on technical drawing standards under the category of Drawing Standards.

To help you find what you are looking for, I have further broken this down using post tags:

  • Annotations – Text sizes, dimension styles, leader lines and all posts relating to marking up and Annotation your Drawings.
  • Line Type Definitions – Line weights, Line types, Line type scaling and what do all those different line types mean anyway!
  • Sheet Layouts – What size paper to use, and how to draw up your title block and border