Alison Cruz Courses

Automating CAD always required a programmer. It no longer does.

This course begins with what ZWCAD already offers as built-in AI — and with the majority of users who have never used it. The deep learning feature finds all identical symbols on a sheet, even at different scales, angles and mirror orientations, converts everything into blocks at once and generates a quantity takeoff table from a drawing that contained no blocks. A messy third-party drawing goes in; a material takeoff comes out.

Then comes the part nobody teaches: making ZWCAD do what it cannot do yet.

You will install an AI skill built for ZWCAD — with the official ZWSOFT documentation built in, including 476 LISP and DCL functions for reference. You describe the problem in everyday language (“I lose 40 minutes fixing the layers in every file I receive from the client”), the AI conducts a short interview to understand what you have not explained and writes the routine: with an options window, built-in help, memory of the last configuration, ESC key handling and undo with a single Ctrl+Z. At no point do you write code — the AI writes it.

And because nobody gets it right the first time, every version comes in test mode: the routine explains what it did and saves a log file that you return to the AI for correction. You approve it when it works the way you want — only then is the final version generated. The course also shows where AI gets things wrong, what in ZWCAD is already native and is not worth automating, and how to choose between distributing your routine as open or protected code. It finishes with 2 hours of live mentoring, where the instructor reviews selected cases from the class — plus a discussion about how the instructor finds and evaluates CAD automation, the channels they follow and what is coming in future versions.

You do not leave with a class example. You leave with your own tool, solving your own problem.

Who it is for

Designers, architects, engineers, surveyors and drafters who use ZWCAD every day, have been doing the same repetitive tasks for years and have never been able to automate them because that required programming. No programming knowledge is required.

What you will be able to do by the end

• Extract quantities from a fully exploded drawing you have received, using the AI already in your ZWCAD
• Turn repeated symbols into countable blocks in batches, without redrawing anything
• Describe a repetitive task and receive ready-to-use automation — with an options dialog, a help button and a Ctrl+Z that undoes everything at once
• Read the log from a test version and return it to the AI for correction — the cycle that really works
• Know when not to automate, because ZWCAD already handles it natively
• Make a clear choice between open or protected code when sharing your routine