LT Architect - Architectural Add-on for AutoCAD LT 2000 - Review

Geoff Harrod

I am writing this review from the perspective of Australian usage, where domestic house building practices differ greatly from those in Britain. We use more American techniques such as brick-veneered timber framing. But LT Architect, although naturally geared toward British practice, appears to be able to handle Australian timber-framed house construction methods very well. The only lack is in the area of tropical cyclone bracing and tie-down statutory requirements, but that is not difficult to handle manually.

The system installs one additional pull-down menu that has several fly-outs, and provides access to all the extra facilities implemented by LT Architect. This menu is shown in the illustration. In addition, several extra toolbars are added, which can be displayed or not as desired. These have been all displayed and collected together for illustration purposes here, together with the Toolbar selection pop-up menu. Despite the fact that Autodesk keep most of the programming facilities of AutoCAD absent from LT, this system integrates very well and works very intuitively.

 
LT Architect is implemented in AutoCAD LT 2000 as one extra pull-down menu and several extra icon button toolbars. The above shows the extra menu pulled down with some of its fly-outs expanded. Below shows all the extra toolbars.

Extra toolbars added to AutoCAD LT with LT Architect.

The LT Architect tools can be grouped into structural, steelwork and symbols tools. The structural tools comprise tools for drawing walls (including those of composite section such as cavity brick), doors, windows, stairs, roofs and timber framing. Elements such as doors, windows and stairs are implemented in a parametric manner. Dialog boxes set out many options and provide for entry of dimensions to specify the details of the elements. A generic diagram in the dialog box indicates the form and proportions of item being specified as dimensions are entered. Sub-dialogs appear for some specifications. When all details have been specified, the object is automatically drawn in the specified location. Where appropriate, such as for doors and windows, the system cuts the object into an existing wall. The illustrations show some of these parametric dialogs.

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