IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | Welcome to the AutoCAD 2009 Essential
Training title. My name is Jeff Bartels,
| | 00:04 | and I have been an AutoCAD user and
Instructor since the days when AutoCAD was
| | 00:08 | a DOS-based application. AutoCAD has
been my passion for more than a decade, by
| | 00:12 | day I use AutoCAD to produce large
scale civil engineering plans, and by night
| | 00:18 | I teach AutoCAD courses at local
colleges, and work with students just like
| | 00:21 | you. It's truly an honor to act as your
personal trainer, and take you step by
| | 00:26 | step through this industry standard
CAD drafting program. AutoCAD 2009 is an
| | 00:31 | exciting release. You see, it's
just been given a brand new interface.
| | 00:36 | This means that you have chosen the
best time to start training on the
| | 00:38 | software, rest assured, as we progress
through the tutorials, I will be showing
| | 00:43 | you how to use AutoCAD, using the
latest tools and techniques. We'll start our
| | 00:47 | training with an empty interface, and
when we wrap up, you will be able to
| | 00:51 | create and plot your own layouts,
complete with annotation and dimensions. So
| | 00:55 | if you've always wanted to learn
AutoCAD from the ground up, this is your
| | 00:58 | perfect opportunity. Well, we have got
a lot of things to talk about, and a lot
| | 01:02 | of learning to do. So let's get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introduction to this course| 00:00 | The AutoCAD 2009 Essential Training
title is the perfect opportunity for you to
| | 00:05 | begin your journey into the world
of computer drafting. You see, I have
| | 00:08 | structured the course such that we
start at the ground level, with the
| | 00:11 | assumption that you have no prior
drafting experience. The course begins with a
| | 00:15 | thorough explanation of the
AutoCAD interface. To ensure you will be
| | 00:18 | comfortable finding the tools, and more
importantly, you'll know where to go if
| | 00:22 | you needed help.
| | 00:23 | I cover the AutoCAD commands in the
same order in which you will encounter them
| | 00:27 | in a typical workflow. In most cases I
teach you the commands using simple lime
| | 00:31 | work, and then we apply what we have
learned, using a real world practical
| | 00:35 | example, some of which you are
currently seeing on screen. The AutoCAD 2009
| | 00:40 | Essential Training title, is intended
to be modular, meaning that you can jump
| | 00:44 | in it at any point to get the
information you need, without having to work
| | 00:47 | through a multi-video project.
Throughout this title we will work side by side
| | 00:52 | and explore many of the amazing
features of this program. As we work together,
| | 00:56 | I will try and anticipate your questions,
and answer them as they arise. I will
| | 01:00 | also stress the importance of AutoCAD
fundamentals, and good work etiquettes.
| | 01:04 | The beauty of this training is that
it's industry neutral, meaning that the
| | 01:08 | concepts that we talk about can be
applied to any discipline. Whether it be
| | 01:11 | architectural, mechanical, or civil.
You see, AutoCAD is essentially a tool,
| | 01:16 | and as an instructor, I feel it's
important for me to teach you how to use the
| | 01:19 | tool. At the end of this title, you
will have a strong working knowledge of
| | 01:23 | this program, and a foundation on which
to build your future AutoCAD skills. I
| | 01:27 | hope you enjoy taking this course,
as much as I enjoy creating it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the example files| 00:00 | Just a quick word about the exercise
files we'll be using. If you are a premium
| | 00:04 | member of lynda.com Online Training
Library, or if you are watching this
| | 00:08 | tutorial on a disc, you have access to
the exercise files used throughout this
| | 00:12 | title. In the Exercise Files folder, I
have collected some assets for you to
| | 00:17 | use during our tour of AutoCAD 2009.
| | 00:20 | In some cases I have saved finished
examples, what I thought would be helpful
| | 00:24 | for your training. I have copied this
folder to my desktop, but you can put it
| | 00:28 | wherever you want. If you are a monthly
or annual subscriber to lynda.com, you
| | 00:32 | don't have access to the exercise files,
but you can easily follow along. Let's
| | 00:36 | get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. The AutoCAD InterfaceUnderstanding the model space| 00:00 | Well, it doesn't get me more ground
level than this. As you can see, I'm
| | 00:04 | currently at my desktop, let's launch
the AutoCAD 2009 application, by double
| | 00:08 | clicking on the icon. And I thought
before we get started with the title, we
| | 00:15 | can take a quick trip around the
interface, and discuss some of the components
| | 00:18 | that we see on our screen. Let me
start by saying that I'm using a fresh
| | 00:22 | default install of AutoCAD 2009, so our
screens may look a little bit different
| | 00:27 | right now. But don't worry, as we
progress to the title, I will be working to
| | 00:30 | address our possible differences.
| | 00:33 | The first thing, I want to do in the
interest of synchronizing our screens, is
| | 00:36 | to come down and click this little
gear, this guy allows me to load a
| | 00:40 | workspace, and when the menu comes up,
I want to make sure that we are both
| | 00:44 | using the 2D Drafting & Annotation
workspace. So I'm going to click to select
| | 00:49 | this guy. This is the workspace that
we'll be using throughout the rest of the
| | 00:51 | title. Let's talk about the area in
the middle of our screen first. This area
| | 00:55 | is called model space and this is the
area were we do all of our drafting.
| | 00:59 | Now model space is infinite in size,
and because of that we don't have to worry
| | 01:03 | about some of the things that used to
concern us back in the paper and pencil
| | 01:06 | days. You see, when we created our
drawings on paper, we used to have to
| | 01:09 | construct our geometry to a scale to
make it fit with the size of the sheet of
| | 01:13 | paper. Since model space is infinite in
size, I can draft whatever I want at 1
| | 01:18 | to 1 scale, or true size and I never
have to worry about drafting off the edge
| | 01:22 | of my paper. Model space is where
every great design takes shape. It's our
| | 01:27 | virtual drafting board, capable
of handling our largest projects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the ribbon| 00:00 | As we work our way around the AutoCAD
interface, let's take a minute to look at
| | 00:03 | our ribbon. This is the tool that we
will use to launch the majority of our
| | 00:07 | AutoCAD commands. Now before we get
into our ribbon discussion, I want to
| | 00:10 | address this drawing that we see on
screen. This guy is located inside the
| | 00:14 | chapter 1 folder of our Exercise
Files directory. We are not going to be
| | 00:17 | working on this, this time. I thought
it would be nice since we are talking
| | 00:20 | about the interface, to have a drawing
up on the screen that you might see in a
| | 00:23 | typical working environment.
| | 00:25 | Now our ribbon is located right up
here at the top of the screen, and this
| | 00:28 | contains all of our AutoCAD tools. Now
the ribbon is organized into tabs. We
| | 00:33 | can see the tab names right up here.
If I want to jump from one tab to the
| | 00:38 | other, I can click the tab name. Now
each tab is filled with panels, and each
| | 00:44 | panel is organized into tools. For
instance, on the Dimensions panel, I can see
| | 00:48 | several icons. Each icon represents a
tool, if I want to launch that tool, I
| | 00:52 | can click the icon.
| | 00:54 | Some panels have more tools than what
will fit within the space. In that case,
| | 00:58 | will have a flyout, if I click this
flyout, it will expand the panel and give
| | 01:02 | me access to the extra tools. If I move
off the panel, it will collapse back to
| | 01:06 | its normal state. Now the tabs and
panel concept is very similar to a
| | 01:11 | mechanic's tool chest. Each tab
represents a drawer, and each panel represents
| | 01:16 | a set of tools. Now this is where a
mechanic's tool chest, we may have a drill
| | 01:20 | bit set, and we may have a socket
set, and we may have a set of metric
| | 01:24 | wrenches. Since this is AutoCAD, and
we are in the Annotate drawer or the
| | 01:29 | Annotate tab, I have got a set of text
tools, and a set of Dimension Tools, and
| | 01:34 | a set of multileader tools. It's the
exact same concept, the tab we are going
| | 01:38 | to be using most often, is the Home
tab. Let me move up and click Home.
| | 01:42 | This is the tab that contains our Draw
tools, our Modify tools and our layer
| | 01:47 | controls. Now as a beginner it may
be hard to remember what some of these
| | 01:52 | cryptic little icons do. AutoCAD 2009
gives us tool tips to help us with that
| | 01:57 | problem. Watch this effect, I'll place
my cursor over a tool and hover. AutoCAD
| | 02:01 | will give me a dEscapeription of what
that tool does. If I wait a little bit
| | 02:04 | longer, AutoCAD will give me an
extended dEscapeription, as well as an image in some cases.
| | 02:09 | Let me move off this tool, I'm going
to move on to another one. I'm going to
| | 02:13 | move on to the Hatch tool, I can see
that's the Hatch tool, and I can see a
| | 02:16 | short dEscapeription, wait a little bit
longer, I see an extended tool tip that
| | 02:21 | gives me even more information. Now
with this extended tool tip is on screen,
| | 02:25 | take a look at the bottom of the tool
tip. Notice it says, press F1 for more
| | 02:28 | help. If you need more information,
simply hit your F1 key on your keyboard,
| | 02:33 | and AutoCAD will take you right to
the help feature regarding that command.
| | 02:37 | I'm going to move up and click the X,
to close this dialog. One thing to be
| | 02:43 | careful of as a new user, is this icon
right here, this minimizes our ribbon.
| | 02:48 | If I click this icon, AutoCAD will
collapse the ribbon down to the panel
| | 02:52 | headings. If I click it again, it
will collapse the ribbon down to just the
| | 02:55 | tabs. If I click it one more time, it
will restore the full ribbon. So if you
| | 03:01 | look at your ribbon, and it doesn't
look quite right, try clicking the minimize
| | 03:04 | button to put it back to it's
original state. The ribbon is essentially our
| | 03:08 | AutoCAD toolbox, where our tools will
always be well organized and easy to find.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the menu browser| 00:00 | Every instructor will tell you there's
at least three ways to do everything in
| | 00:03 | AutoCAD. Command and trees are no
exception. Let's take a look at the Menu
| | 00:07 | Browser, yet another way to launch our
AutoCAD Commands. Now the Menu Browser
| | 00:11 | is located right up here. It's the big
letter A. I'm going to click this guy
| | 00:14 | and open him up. When I do, I can see
a series of menus. Now these menus are
| | 00:20 | very similar to the pull down menus
available on other windows applications.
| | 00:24 | They are just oriented vertically on
the screen, but they work the same way.
| | 00:27 | Now each menu is a logical grouping of
AutoCAD commands. If I go to the File
| | 00:32 | menu, I can see commands that are
related to the AutoCAD drawing as a whole.
| | 00:36 | For instance, I can create a new
drawing or open a drawing. I can Save, I can
| | 00:41 | even come down and Plot. If I go to
the Edit menu, here is where I can access
| | 00:46 | my Undo and Redo, as well as my
Clipboard functionality. Now we are not going
| | 00:49 | to go through all of the menus at this
time, we are going to go through a few
| | 00:53 | of them. Probably the most important
menus are your Draw and your Modify menus.
| | 00:58 | This is where we can create geometry,
and the Modify menu is where we can edit
| | 01:03 | our geometry. Since we have the Modify
menu open, I'm going to come over, take
| | 01:07 | a look at some of the icons, some of
the commands, we have available in the
| | 01:10 | Modify menu. Now that we have looked
at those, I'm going to move off of the
| | 01:14 | menu and click on model space to
collapse it. Take a look at the Modify panel,
| | 01:18 | it's the exact same tools. Remember the
Menu Browser is just a secondary or an
| | 01:24 | alternate way of launching AutoCAD commands.
| | 01:26 | Now you maybe asking yourself which
method is best, which way should I work?
| | 01:30 | Well, you can work using whatever
method works best for you. That's the nice
| | 01:33 | thing about AutoCAD, it allows you to
make the choice. Let me go back to the
| | 01:37 | Menu Browser, I'm going to click open
this guy up. am going to go down to the
| | 01:40 | Help menu. This is where we can go if
we have a question. Now that I'm in the
| | 01:44 | menu, I'm going to come over and up,
we'll select help, and from the Help menu,
| | 01:49 | I can click index, and we can type
the command or feature that we have a
| | 01:54 | question about. Let me move up to
close the dialog box. I want to show you
| | 02:00 | another way that we can access help in
AutoCAD. Let me go to the Menu Browser,
| | 02:05 | I'm going to come down to the Draw tools,
and I'm going to move over and select
| | 02:09 | the Line command.
| | 02:10 | As soon as I launch the command, if I
look right down here at the bottom of the
| | 02:14 | screen, I can see the Command is
running. If you are in the middle of a
| | 02:17 | command, and you hit your F1 key, it
will launch the Help menu, and it will
| | 02:22 | take you directly to the context
sensitive help for that specific command.
| | 02:27 | So just another way to get some
information when you need it. This can be very
| | 02:29 | helpful for a beginner. I'm going to
move up and close the menu, and then I'm
| | 02:34 | going to hit the Escape key, because
I'm still in this command. Escape will
| | 02:39 | cancel you out of any running command.
The Menu Browser gives us an alternate
| | 02:44 | way to launch our AutoCAD commands. By
offering us a choice, AutoCAD allows us
| | 02:48 | to work using whatever method
we decide is most productive.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the command line| 00:00 | Another way to access and launch
commands in AutoCAD is by using the command
| | 00:04 | line. If we look down at the bottom of
the screen, the command line is right
| | 00:07 | down here. Now the command line is
considered old school AutoCAD. This is the
| | 00:11 | way we entered our commands in the
old days. The main drawback to using the
| | 00:15 | command line today, is that everything
must be entered through the keyboard. So
| | 00:18 | it involves a lot of typing. Now the
command line is not the most efficient way
| | 00:21 | to work anymore, but it is still
functional. Let's try and launch a command.
| | 00:25 | If I want to launch a command, I'm
going to come down and click right after the
| | 00:28 | word Command, and I'm going to type,
line. I'm going to launch the line
| | 00:32 | command. I will hit Enter, and I can
see that AutoCAD is now saying, you know
| | 00:36 | what, Specify first point, what you
what the first point of your line to be?
| | 00:40 | Now I don't want to talk about the
line command just yet, but I do want to
| | 00:43 | mention that the command line is how
AutoCAD speaks to us. This is how AutoCAD
| | 00:47 | tells us what it needs to finish a
command. Let me hit Escape to cancel this
| | 00:51 | command. Now, as cryptic as the
command line is, it's still fairly intuitive.
| | 00:56 | If I wanted to draw a circle perhaps,
I can just type circle, and hit Enter.
| | 01:01 | I have just launched the circle
command, and once again, AutoCAD is
| | 01:05 | communicating with us, saying, hey!
You know this is what I need to create a
| | 01:08 | circle. Once again I'm going to hit my
Escape key to cancel the command. Now
| | 01:12 | there are more efficient ways of
launching AutoCAD commands nowadays. In this
| | 01:16 | title, we will be using the ribbon
or the Menu Browser, and to be honest,
| | 01:20 | Autodesk is slowly phasing out the
command line. It's still with us today, but
| | 01:24 | there is no guarantee for how long.
If you think about it, how many other
| | 01:27 | applications utilize the command line?
Well, none, pretty much AutoCAD is it.
| | 01:32 | In AutoCAD 2009, there are ways to
turn the command line off, but for the
| | 01:36 | purposes of this title, we are going
to keep the command line on our screen.
| | 01:39 | We won't be using it for our commands,
but we'll refer to it frequently to keep
| | 01:43 | an eye on what AutoCAD needs.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Activating the toolbars| 00:00 | I'd be remiss if I didn't spend a
little time talking about toolbars. In
| | 00:04 | AutoCAD 2008 and prior, toolbars
were the most popular way to launch your
| | 00:08 | commands. In AutoCAD 2009 however,
toolbars were essentially replaced by this
| | 00:13 | ribbon. Now it's still important to
know how toolbars work, because there are
| | 00:16 | several commands in tools that
are not available on the ribbon.
| | 00:19 | So if you want to access this missing
tools using an icon, you will have to use
| | 00:23 | a toolbar. Let me show you how we can
turn our toolbars on. To do that, I'm
| | 00:27 | going to move up and I'm going to
right click on the only toolbar in our
| | 00:30 | interface, the Quick Access toolbar.
I'm going to come down to the toolbars
| | 00:34 | flyout, and then I'm going to come over,
and I have several flyouts that give
| | 00:37 | me access to all of the
toolbars available in AutoCAD.
| | 00:40 | I'm going to come over and select the
Blocks toolbar inside the Express tools.
| | 00:46 | Now what we see on screen is an
example of a toolbar, these guys are very
| | 00:49 | flexible. I can move them around
wherever I wish. Just by clicking and holding
| | 00:53 | on this handle, and then I can drag the
toolbar on the screen. Let me drag him
| | 00:57 | over here, and I'll release. Toolbars
are also dockable. If I click and hold on
| | 01:02 | this handle, I can drag this to the
edge of the screen, and release, and he
| | 01:05 | gets docked in this new margin.
| | 01:09 | From this point I can click and hold
on the toolbar, and I can drag them left
| | 01:12 | and right. Place them wherever I wish.
I can also dock them vertically. If I
| | 01:17 | click and hold on the handle, I can
drag him over to the edge of the screen and
| | 01:20 | release, and it will be docked
vertically. Let me click and hold, and we will
| | 01:25 | bring him back in the model space. If
you'd like to close your toolbar, you can
| | 01:30 | do that by moving up and clicking this
X. Toolbars may not be as permanent as
| | 01:35 | they once were. However they are
still useful for accessing tools that are
| | 01:39 | missing from the ribbon.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Leveraging dockable palettes| 00:00 | Probably the most versatile tools we
have in our interface are palettes.
| | 00:04 | Palettes give us quick access to
drawing content, properties, and commands.
| | 00:08 | Let's look how we can
apply them to our workspace.
| | 00:11 | Now there are several palettes
available in AutoCAD. To see the palettes we can
| | 00:15 | come up and click the View tab in our
ribbon and the palettes are located right
| | 00:19 | here in our palettes panel. Each one
of these icons represents a specific
| | 00:23 | palette that we can open. For the
purposes of our discussion let's open up the
| | 00:26 | Properties palette. I'm going to do
that by moving into the icon and click it.
| | 00:30 | Now the Properties palette is a tool
that we can use to change the properties
| | 00:35 | of our entities. palettes are very
flexible, I can move these around on the
| | 00:39 | screen, if I place my cursor in this
mesh area and click and hold, I can drag
| | 00:45 | my mouse and release. I can move them
over here, let me click and hold, I can
| | 00:48 | drag them over here and release. We
can place our palettes wherever we want.
| | 00:54 | If I like to resize a palette, I can
place my cursor along the edge and my icon
| | 00:58 | will change at this point if I click
and hold I can make this palette wider or
| | 01:03 | narrower. I can come down to
the bottom and do the same thing.
| | 01:08 | Now palettes can take up a lot of
space on our screen and Autodesk has
| | 01:11 | recognized this and they have given us
a tool called the Auto-hide tool. We can
| | 01:15 | use this to collapse our palettes. The
icon is right up here. If I click on it
| | 01:20 | my palette will collapse down to
just the width of the mast. If I like to
| | 01:24 | access the functionality of this
palette, I can place my cursor over the mast
| | 01:28 | and the palette will expand I can then
do my business, when I'm done I can move
| | 01:32 | away and the palette collapses. If I
like the palette to stay open I can come
| | 01:36 | up and click the Auto-hide button one more time.
| | 01:39 | palettes can also be docked, this is
probably the most efficient way to use
| | 01:42 | palettes. To dock my palette, I'm
going to place my cursor over the mast and
| | 01:46 | I'm going to right click and I'm going
to select Anchor Left or Anchor Right
| | 01:50 | depending on which side of the
screen I'd like to dock the palette.
| | 01:52 | Let me select Anchor Left. When I do,
the palette becomes a margin on the left
| | 01:58 | side of my screen and this kind works
just like the Auto-hide feature. He is
| | 02:01 | always available, if I place my cursor
over the edge, he opens up; if I move
| | 02:05 | away, he collapses. We can
even take it one extra step.
| | 02:09 | If I place my cursor in this margin
and right click I can select Icons only.
| | 02:14 | This will reduce the entire palette
down to a single icon. Now I have got the
| | 02:18 | best of both worlds. I have got a
humongous palette hidden beneath one icon. If
| | 02:23 | I want to open the palette, I can
hover over the icon, do my work and move
| | 02:28 | away. If we would like the palette to
stay up on screen for any length of time,
| | 02:32 | we can hover over the icon, click the
Auto-hide button again. This puts the
| | 02:36 | palette into a docked state. If I'd
like to restore him to his fully collapsed
| | 02:41 | state I can move up and
click this Minimize icon.
| | 02:45 | palettes are the most versatile
tools on our interface. They can pack the
| | 02:48 | functionality of an entire
dialog box beneath a single tool icon.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reading the Status bar| 00:00 | The area the very bottom of our
interface is reserved for our Status Bar.
| | 00:04 | The Status Bar provides us with information
about the current state of our drawing,
| | 00:08 | our interface and our Mode settings.
| | 00:10 | Now if we look at the left hand side
first, I can see a series of numbers.
| | 00:14 | These numbers represents coordinates
and they give me the current location of
| | 00:17 | my cursor. Now just as I move my
cursor, those numbers are changing. Those
| | 00:21 | numbers will make more sense later,
when we start talking about coordinates.
| | 00:24 | Moving to the right, I have several
icons. Each of these icons represents a
| | 00:29 | Mode setting. Now we will discuss the
functions of the Mode settings later, for
| | 00:33 | right now I just want you to know that
these are toggles. If I click a button
| | 00:36 | once, I turn it on, click it again, I
turn it off. We can tell which Modes are
| | 00:41 | on and off, based on their color. If a
mode is blue, it's on, if it's gray it's turned off.
| | 00:46 | In the interest of synchronization,
I'd like you to go through and turn off,
| | 00:50 | all of your Mode settings. I'm going to
do mine too, let me click both of these
| | 00:54 | guys, and now they are off. We also
had some additional tools in our Status
| | 00:59 | Bar, we will talk about several of
these as we progress through the title. For
| | 01:02 | right now, I'm sure as a beginner,
you can recognize this is where we can
| | 01:05 | access the Pan and Zoom feature.
| | 01:08 | Let's talk about this icon down in
the end, this guy represents our Clean
| | 01:11 | Screen. If you are someone that works
with a small monitor, or who works on a
| | 01:15 | laptop, if you come over and click the
Clean Screen button, AutoCAD will turn
| | 01:20 | off all of your palettes, to give you
as much screen real state as possible to
| | 01:24 | work. To bring the palettes back, we
can come down and click Clean Screen icon again.
| | 01:30 | The Status Bar is kind of like the
junk drawer of our interface. It shows us
| | 01:33 | the state of our Mode settings. It
tells us the location of our cursor, and
| | 01:37 | it's also a warehouse for frequently used tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving your workspace| 00:00 | I'm sure all of us understand the
concept of a workbench. No matter what
| | 00:03 | project you may be doing, a good
workbench will have of your tools with an easy
| | 00:07 | reach. AutoCAD allows us do the same
thing with our interface. By setting up a
| | 00:11 | workspace we can have all the relevant
tools available to accommodate whatever
| | 00:15 | type of work we may be doing.
| | 00:17 | Now a workspace is a saved
configuration of interface elements. Generally
| | 00:21 | speaking, you can set up the screen
however you like, and then you can save
| | 00:25 | that as a workspace, such that you can
restore it again in the future. Now I
| | 00:28 | really haven't made many changes to
the current workspace. I'm going to make
| | 00:31 | one more, just so it looks a little
bit more different, and then we will Save
| | 00:35 | it. I'm going to bring up another
palette, I'm going to come up to my View tab
| | 00:38 | and click, and I'm going to move over
and select the DesignCenter palette. We
| | 00:42 | can use this palette to extract
elements from existing drawings. We will be
| | 00:46 | using this palette a
little bit later in the title.
| | 00:48 | So I'm going to anchor this guy to the
left side of my screen. To do that I'm
| | 00:52 | going to place my cursor over the mast,
right click and select Anchor Left. Now
| | 00:58 | I have my interface set up in the way
which I like to work, so I'm going to
| | 01:02 | Save this as a workspace. To do that,
I'm going to come down and click this
| | 01:05 | gear, and I'm going to select Save
Current As from the menu. I'm going to call
| | 01:11 | this workspace, Jeff's 2D
workspace, and I will click Save.
| | 01:20 | Now think of it this way, workspaces
can be created for specific types of work.
| | 01:26 | When I'm doing 3D drafting, I'm
obviously going to need different tools, than
| | 01:30 | when I'm doing 2D drafting, and maybe
if I'm working on Dimensions, I'm going
| | 01:34 | to need another set of tools. We can
set up the screen for each type of work
| | 01:38 | that we do, and then we can save that
as a workspace, such that the next time
| | 01:42 | we do that type of work, we can quickly
restore the workspace, and have all of
| | 01:46 | our available tools.
| | 01:47 | Now AutoCAD gives us some default
workspaces. Let's look at the 3D Modeling
| | 01:51 | workspace. To do that I'm going to
come down and click the gear, and in the
| | 01:55 | menu, up of the top half, I can see all
of the available workspaces. I'm going
| | 01:59 | to select 3D Modeling. As you can
see this workspace is set up for
| | 02:05 | 3-dimensional drafting, I'm going to
come back down and restore my custom
| | 02:09 | workspace. Once again, I'm going to
click the gear, I'm going to select Jeff's
| | 02:13 | 2D workspace to restore it to my screen.
| | 02:18 | By setting up custom workspaces, you
can always have your tools with an easy
| | 02:21 | reach, no matter what you maybe drafting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing AutoCAD| 00:00 | AutoCAD is a very customizable program.
The amount of flexibility we have, can
| | 00:04 | easily be seen in a sheered number of
available User Preferences. Let's take a
| | 00:08 | look at where we can go when we
want to change the way AutoCAD behaves.
| | 00:12 | To make changes to AutoCAD, I'm going
to go into the Options dialog box. We can
| | 00:16 | find that inside the Menu Browser. I'm
going to come up and click, we will come
| | 00:20 | down to Tools. and then I'm going to
come over. and we will grab the slider,
| | 00:24 | and we will go all the way to the
bottom of the menu, and select Options. This
| | 00:29 | brings up our Options dialog box on
screen, and we can see that this is divided
| | 00:33 | up into tabs. If I click each tab
heading, I can jump to that tab. Notice
| | 00:38 | Setting after Setting after Setting.
| | 00:41 | Now we are not going to go through
all of the Settings obviously in the
| | 00:44 | session. We are going to talk about
some of the essential changes I'd like you
| | 00:48 | to make, some things that would make
things easier for you as a beginner. If
| | 00:51 | you have any questions in the future
about the other Settings, you can simply
| | 00:54 | place your cursor over a Setting, and
AutoCAD will give you more information in
| | 00:58 | the form of a tool tip.
| | 01:00 | If you'd like even more information,
you can always hit your F1 key to go to
| | 01:03 | the Help feature. The first change I'd
like to make, involves the background
| | 01:08 | color of model space. If I moved
outside the dialog box, we can see that the
| | 01:13 | background color of model space is
yellow. Now, it's always been black; 2009 is
| | 01:18 | the first released where model space
was changed to yellow. In my opinion,
| | 01:22 | black gives as much better contrast
between our layer colors, and makes things
| | 01:26 | a little bit easier when we draft.
| | 01:28 | So I'm going to make that change. I'm
going to change the background color. I
| | 01:32 | can do that by going to the Display tab
and clicking. We are going to come down
| | 01:35 | to the Colors area and click, and in
the Drawing Window Colors dialog, I'm
| | 01:41 | going to go up and select, 2D model
space, which is already highlighted. I can
| | 01:45 | come over and select the Uniform
Background, which is also highlighted, and we
| | 01:49 | will come over in the Color area. We
will click the drop down, and we will
| | 01:53 | select Black.
| | 01:54 | At any point if you want to restore
AutoCAD to its Factory Settings, you can
| | 01:59 | click Restore all contexts. Now that I
have made that change, I'm going to come
| | 02:03 | down and click Apply and Close. At this
point I'm going to come down and click
| | 02:07 | OK and save my changes, and dismiss the
dialog, because I want to show you one
| | 02:12 | more thing I want to change. Watch this,
as I move my cursor over my geometry,
| | 02:17 | look at that, as I pass over something,
it highlights on screen. That can be
| | 02:21 | confusing for a beginner because as
you move around you are kind of getting a
| | 02:24 | light show. I'd like to turn that feature off.
| | 02:28 | To do that, once again we are going to
go back to Options, I'm going to go to
| | 02:31 | Menu Browser, Tools, we will come all
over down to the bottom of the menu, and
| | 02:36 | select Options. That specific feature
is located on the Selection tab. Let we
| | 02:42 | click the Selection tab, and we are
going to go to the Selection Preview area,
| | 02:46 | and I'm going to remove the check
from When no command is active. That will
| | 02:50 | prevent those entities these from
highlighting when I pass over them.
| | 02:53 | I'm going to do one more thing, let's
go into Visual Effect Settings. This area
| | 02:57 | controls how the entities are
highlighted. Right now I will set to Both,
| | 03:01 | Thicken and Dash. I'm going to set this
to Thicken. Now even if I do select an
| | 03:06 | entity, or if I do hover over an
entity when a command is active, it's just
| | 03:10 | going to pop up a little bit on
screen. It's not going to be quite so
| | 03:12 | aggressive. When I'm finished making
my Setting, I'm going to come down and click OK.
| | 03:17 | Lastly, I'd like to go the User
Preferences tab. I'm going to come over to the
| | 03:21 | Window Standard Behavior area, and
let's click the right click Customization
| | 03:26 | button. In the interest of making sure
that your set up matches mine, I want to
| | 03:30 | make sure that our dialog boxes have
the same settings. Now these are all set
| | 03:34 | to Shortcut, Shortcut, Shortcut. This
happens to be the default, so unless you
| | 03:39 | have changed yours, our
settings should already be the same.
| | 03:42 | When I'm finished, I'm going to click
Apply and Close, and I'm going to come
| | 03:46 | down and click OK to save the changes
that I have made, and return to model
| | 03:49 | space. At first glance the Option's
dialog box may seem a little intimating,
| | 03:54 | however, as you continue to use the
software, you will begin to recognized the
| | 03:58 | relationship between the Commands,
the interface and the User Preferences.
| | 04:02 | Soon, changing your
Settings will become second nature.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Opening, Viewing, and Saving DrawingsOpening an AutoCAD drawing| 00:00 | All right, we have spent enough time
looking at the interface. Let's find an
| | 00:04 | AutoCAD drawing to open. If I want to
open an AutoCAD drawing, I'm going to
| | 00:08 | come up to the top of the screen, and
I'm going to click the Open icon. This
| | 00:11 | will bring up my Select File dialog box.
Now if I look down at the bottom of
| | 00:16 | the screen in the Files of type area, I
can see that AutoCAD wants to open a DWG
| | 00:20 | file. The DWG extension stands for
drawing file, and all AutoCAD drawings will
| | 00:26 | have a DWG extension.
| | 00:28 | If I select this drop down, I can see
that AutoCAD can also open a couple of
| | 00:32 | your file formats, those include a DWS
file, a drawing standards file; a DXF,
| | 00:39 | which stands for drawing interchange
format. Now not every CAD application can
| | 00:44 | save as DWG, but most of them can save
as a DXF. So I can open those drawings
| | 00:50 | as well, and I can also open a drawing
Template. We will talk about Template in
| | 00:54 | the future session.
| | 00:58 | I'm going to come up to the Look in
area, and I will click the fly out, and
| | 01:02 | this is where I can navigate through my
hard drive to find the drawing to open.
| | 01:06 | I'm going to go inside the exercise
files folder. Let's go inside the Chapter 2
| | 01:11 | directory, and I'm going to grab
this drawing, the very first one, the
| | 01:15 | Entertainment Center. I will highlight
this guy, and when I do, we can see a
| | 01:19 | nice preview of what that drawing
looked like the last time it was saved.
| | 01:23 | Let me come down and select Open to
open the drawing in our interface. Now
| | 01:27 | opening drawings is fairly simple
in AutoCAD. I'd like to open one more
| | 01:31 | drawing, so I want to show you
something that's kind of cool that we can do
| | 01:34 | with our open dialog box. Let me come
back up and click the Open icon again,
| | 01:41 | and this time in the dialog box, we are
going to look at this area to the left,
| | 01:44 | because these are our Favorite places.
If there is a folder that we go to on a
| | 01:48 | regular basis to open drawings, our
exercise files folder perhaps, we can add
| | 01:53 | that to the Favorite
places area. Let's try that.
| | 01:58 | I'm going to click my Up one level icon
to back up through my directories, and
| | 02:03 | I'm going to grab the exercise files
folder, I'm going to click, hold and drag
| | 02:08 | this guy into the Favorite places area.
Now, no matter where I'm in my hard
| | 02:12 | drive, if I'd like to jump into my
exercise files ,I can come over and click
| | 02:19 | the icon in the favorite places. Once
again, I'm going to go to the Chapter 2
| | 02:23 | folder, we will open up that folder,
and then I'm going to click number one the
| | 02:27 | Flashlight drawing, I will
highlight that guy, and we will click Open.
| | 02:34 | Now this is an example of a 3
Dimensional AutoCAD drawing. AutoCAD is probably
| | 02:38 | best known for its 2D drafting, but
it's also very capable of creating 3
| | 02:42 | Dimensional work. If I like to close
an open drawing, I can come up and click
| | 02:47 | this X in the upper right hand corner.
Let me close this drawing, and we will
| | 02:53 | close the Entertainment Center, and
all of our drawings have been closed. We
| | 02:58 | can also open drawings through our
Menu Browser. If I come up and click the
| | 03:02 | Menu Browser icon, I can come down to
the Recent Documents area, and AutoCAD
| | 03:07 | will show me the last several drawings
that I have worked on. If I hover over a
| | 03:12 | drawing, AutoCAD will give me a nice
preview image of what that drawing looked
| | 03:16 | like the last time it was saved. If
I'd like to open a drawing, I can simply
| | 03:20 | click the drawing name, and the
drawing will open up on my screen.
| | 03:24 | Opening drawings in AutoCAD is very
similar to opening files in other Windows
| | 03:28 | Application. However, if we use the
Recent Documents menu, or the Favorite
| | 03:32 | places feature, we get even
faster access to our drawing files.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exercising mouse functions| 00:00 | The days of drafting with a pencil have
come to an end. All of our drafting now
| | 00:04 | will be done by using our mouse.
Let's take a look at the functions we have
| | 00:08 | available on this
computerized drafting instrument.
| | 00:10 | Now to learn about the mouse functions,
I'm going to open a drawing. I'm going
| | 00:13 | to come up and click my Open icon, we
are going to look inside the Exercise
| | 00:18 | Files directory. We'll look in the
Chapter_02 folder, and I'm going to come
| | 00:22 | down and select this drawing, the 02_
Mouse Function. So I'll click on this guy
| | 00:26 | to highlight him, and then
we'll come over and select Open.
| | 00:30 | Let's talk about the left mouse button
or the left click. In AutoCAD, a left
| | 00:35 | click allows us to make a selection.
For instance, if I place my cursor over
| | 00:39 | this line and left click, I've just
selected that line. If I place my cursor
| | 00:44 | over this Dimension and left click,
I've just selected that dimension. If I
| | 00:48 | moved into a tool panel and click a Tool,
I've just selected that tool, and the
| | 00:54 | tool happened to be erase,
and those entities are now gone.
| | 00:57 | So the left click allows us to make
selections, whether it would be entities on
| | 01:01 | screen, or icons in a Tool panel, or
Options in a menu. Now let's talk about
| | 01:07 | the right mouse button, or the right
click. If I right click on AutoCAD, I will
| | 01:12 | bring up a context sensitive menu. For
instance, I'm going to place my cursor
| | 01:17 | on the middle of the screen and right
click. Notice, I get a large menu with
| | 01:21 | several selections. Now I said this
was a context sensitive menu, that's
| | 01:26 | because the menu will change
depending on when and where you right click.
| | 01:30 | For instance, if I place my cursor down
in the command line and right click, I
| | 01:35 | get a different menu. Let me move out
and I'm going to hit my Escape key to
| | 01:39 | clear the menu. If I move over and
select to this dimension and right click, I
| | 01:46 | get a menu that includes options that
are specific for dimensions. Once again,
| | 01:50 | I'm going to hit my Escape key to close
the menu, and now hit my Escape key to
| | 01:54 | deselect the entity.
| | 01:57 | So on AutoCAD, a right click will
bring up a context sensitive menu. Soon the
| | 02:02 | left and right click functionality of
your mouse will become second nature, and
| | 02:06 | you'll wonder how it was possible to
draft in the old days, using a traditional pencil.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Zooming, panning, and regenning| 00:01 | Since all of our drawings are created
at true size, we can have some pretty
| | 00:04 | large areas to navigate on our tiny
computer screen. Fortunately, AutoCAD
| | 00:08 | provides us with the tools necessary for
us to quickly move around in this real
| | 00:11 | world sized environments.
| | 00:13 | The tools I'm speaking of are Pan and
Zoom. Let's open a drawing that we can
| | 00:18 | use to learn about the Pan and Zoom
command. We are going to go into the
| | 00:22 | Chapter_02 folder, and I'd like to
open up the number 3 drawing, Zooming
| | 00:26 | Panning and Regen. So I'll highlight
that guy, and we'll select Open. Now the
| | 00:32 | drawing that we see on screen is an
example of a Floor plan, for a single
| | 00:35 | family home, and before I start
panning and zooming this drawing, I want to
| | 00:40 | mention that I'm using a wheel mouse.
| | 00:43 | In AutoCAD, we would be using the
wheel to pan and zoom. Let's say I like to
| | 00:47 | zoom in on the Kitchen area. What I'm
going to do, is place my cursor inside
| | 00:50 | the Kitchen, and I'm going to roll
the wheel on my mouse forward. If I roll
| | 00:55 | forward, I zoom in, if I roll backwards,
I zoom out. I can also use the wheel
| | 01:01 | to pan. If I hold the wheel down,
remember your mouse wheel is also a button, I
| | 01:06 | can launch the pan command. Now as I
move my cursor, I can pan my drawing on
| | 01:10 | screen. If we need to pan any
significant distance, we can always move, click
| | 01:16 | and hold our wheel, pan, release. I
can move again, click and hold my wheel,
| | 01:23 | pan, and release.
| | 01:25 | Now if you are someone who does not
have a wheel mouse, you can access the pan
| | 01:30 | and zoom functionality, right down here
on our Status bar. Let's click the icon
| | 01:34 | to launch the pan command, I'm going
to come down and click, and when I do,
| | 01:38 | AutoCAD puts me in the panned feature.
If I'd like to pan, I can click and hold
| | 01:42 | down the button on my mouse, and as I
move ,I can release, come over here,
| | 01:47 | click and hold, move, release, so I can
pane. When I'm finished panning, I can
| | 01:52 | right click, and select Exit from the
menu, or from here I can also jump to the
| | 01:56 | Zoom command. Let's do that, I'm going
to select zoom, and at this point, I can
| | 02:02 | hold down my mouse button and I can
push forward to zoom in, or pull back to
| | 02:07 | zoom out. When I've finished using the
command, I'm going to right click, to
| | 02:12 | bring up the context
sensitive menu, and I'll select Exit.
| | 02:14 | Now I'm going to back up just a
little bit, we'll pan over and I'm going to
| | 02:20 | zoom in on the Bedroom 2 area. In
Bedroom 2, I've got a Queen size bed and a
| | 02:26 | night stand. If I look a little
closer at the night stand, I can do that by
| | 02:30 | zooming in. I can see that I've got MP3
player. If I continue to zoom in, I can
| | 02:35 | see the same single family house plan
on the MP3 player. Let's zoom in on the
| | 02:40 | Bathroom area, notice that as I get
closer to the drawing on my screen, the
| | 02:45 | line work never gets pixilated,
that's because AutoCAD drawings are vector
| | 02:49 | based. These are lines, that are drawn
form the coordinate to coordinate, and
| | 02:52 | they are not pixels.
| | 02:55 | Now because of the drawing is vector
based, AutoCAD is having to maintain a lot
| | 02:58 | of coordinates, and a lot of geometry,
because of this, it will sacrifice the
| | 03:02 | quality of the arcs on our screen, to
increase our performance. Notice the
| | 03:07 | Toilet, it's obviously not supposed to
be that angular. Let me show you how we
| | 03:12 | can clean up our arcs. We can do that
by going to the Menu Browser. I'll click.
| | 03:17 | I'm going to come down to the View
menu ,and I'll come over and select Regen.
| | 03:22 | Regen causes a computer to regenerate
the join database, and clean up the arcs
| | 03:28 | on our screen. Now they'll always plot
correct, even though they look a little
| | 03:32 | angular. But by regenning we can
always have the nicest appearance on our
| | 03:36 | screen. Okay, at this point I'm going
to zoom out, I'm going to roll my wheel
| | 03:39 | backwards, and as I zoom back, at some
point I'm going to hit a wall. Notice
| | 03:45 | I'm rolling my wheel, if you look at
the Status bar, I can see the computer
| | 03:48 | saying, Already zoomed out as far as
possible. Let me try and pan at this
| | 03:53 | point, I'm going to hold my wheel
down, and notice as I try and pan, the
| | 03:55 | computer is giving me the brick wall,
it won't let me to move the screen. This
| | 03:59 | is another Regen issue.
| | 04:01 | AutoCAD, is saying, hey, we can't go
any further until we regenerate this
| | 04:05 | geometry. You'll find that if you zoom
in and out significant distances in your
| | 04:09 | drawing, you may have to regen the
drawing, in order to continue to have
| | 04:13 | dynamic panning and zooming. So since
the computer is not going to let me pan,
| | 04:17 | I'm going to regen the drawing again.
| | 04:20 | Once again I'm going to come up and
click my Menu Browser, I'll come down to
| | 04:23 | View, and I'll select regen, and now
I can pan and zoom as normal. One last
| | 04:30 | feature I'd like to show you when you
watch the Zoom command, I'm going to move
| | 04:33 | over and zoom in on my Kitchen again.
Now that I've zoomed into on this room,
| | 04:39 | there may come a time in the near
feature where I'd liked to back up and see
| | 04:42 | the entire contents of my drawing.
| | 04:44 | To do that, it might be a little time
consuming to roll the wheel back, instead
| | 04:49 | what I'm going to do, is double click
the wheel on my mouse, and this will give
| | 04:52 | me a zoom extension and show me the
entire contents of my drawing. Using pan
| | 04:58 | and zoom, we can quickly move around
our drawing environment, no matter how
| | 05:01 | large or small that environment may be.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working in a multiple-document environment| 00:00 | AutoCAD's interface is a multi-
document environment. This means that we can
| | 00:04 | have multiple drawings open up at the
same time. Opening multiple drawings can
| | 00:08 | be helpful, when making design
comparisons or transferring a line work from one
| | 00:12 | drawing to another.
| | 00:14 | Let's try and open a couple of drawings.
I'm going to do that by coming up and
| | 00:18 | clicking the Open icon. We are
going to look inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:23 | directory, inside the Chapter_2 folder
and I like to open these two drawings,
| | 00:27 | the House Floor plan and the Kitchen
Detail. I can do that by clicking one
| | 00:31 | drawing to highlight it, and then I'm
going to hold down my Shift key on my
| | 00:35 | keyboard, and click the other drawing
to select them both, and then I'm going
| | 00:38 | to come down and select Open, and
AutoCAD has opened both drawings in my interface.
| | 00:45 | Now you may be wondering, where is the
other drawing. Let me show you how we
| | 00:49 | can see it. I'm going to come up to
the View tab in my ribbon and click, and
| | 00:53 | I'm going to over to the Window panel,
this is how I can jump or navigate
| | 00:56 | between drawings. I have got a great
big icon here that says, Open Drawings,
| | 01:00 | I'm going to click this guy. When I do
AutoCAD will give me a list of all of
| | 01:04 | the drawings that are currently open.
The one with the check box is the guy
| | 01:08 | that's current on my screen. If I
want to jump to the other drawing, I can
| | 01:12 | select its name, and AutoCAD
makes that drawing current.
| | 01:16 | Now what if I like to view more than
one drawing at a time? This comes in handy
| | 01:20 | if I'd like to do a side by side
comparison, or if I'd like to move geometry
| | 01:25 | from one drawing to another. That's
what these icons are for. I'm going to
| | 01:30 | select this one, this one represents
Tile Vertically, it will give me a nice
| | 01:33 | side-by-side view, of my two drawings.
Now if I'd like to work in a drawing, I
| | 01:39 | will simply click in that model space
environment, and then I can roll my wheel
| | 01:43 | back and forth to zoom. When I'll click
in this drawing, we'll roll back, so we
| | 01:48 | can see the entire contents. Let's
try and use this side-by-side setup in a
| | 01:53 | practical example.
| | 01:55 | Let's say I'm working in a Floor plan,
for a single family home. Now I've got
| | 01:59 | the walls, and the doors in. I'm
going through at this point of inserting
| | 02:02 | Furniture, let me zoom in on the
Kitchen area. In my Kitchen, I've got a large
| | 02:08 | counter top with a small eating area
and next to the eating area, I'd like to
| | 02:12 | place a couple of stools. Now rather
than redrawing these stools from scratch,
| | 02:17 | I think to myself, you know what, a
couple of weeks ago, I created a drawing
| | 02:20 | that was similar to this, where I
drafted some stools. You know what, I'd like
| | 02:23 | to steal the stools from that drawing.
Well, that happens to be the drawing
| | 02:27 | that I have opened over here.
| | 02:28 | Let me click in this view to set this
drawing current, we'll pan over and we'll
| | 02:34 | zoom in on these stools, and if I want
to move the geometry from one drawing to
| | 02:38 | the other, what I'm going to do is,
move up and click on the geometry to
| | 02:43 | highlight it, and then I'm going to
place my cursor on a highlighted edge. I'll
| | 02:49 | click and hold, this copies the
geometry to my cursor, and then I'll just drag
| | 02:53 | it, right it into the other file. At
this point I can release, and the stool is
| | 02:58 | now a part of this drawing. When
I'm finished, I can close the original
| | 03:04 | drawing. No, I'm not going to save
changes, and I'll maximize my Floor plan drawing.
| | 03:11 | Now if I want to have more than one
drawing opened at a time, AutoCAD makes it
| | 03:16 | easy for us to make design comparisons
or share content between our drawings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving your work| 00:00 | The most important feature we have
in AutoCAD is the ability to save our
| | 00:04 | drawings. Saving allows us to walk
away from an unfinished drawing, and then
| | 00:08 | resume work at a later time.
| | 00:09 | Let's take a look at how we can save
our drawings using AutoCAD. Now I'm
| | 00:13 | currently working on a plat of survey
drawing, and I'm almost done, I just need
| | 00:17 | to add a couple more dimensions
and this guy will be finished. But
| | 00:20 | unfortunately, I've to quit working
on this drawing now, because another
| | 00:23 | project is become more important. So
I'm going to save this, so that I can work
| | 00:26 | on the other project, and then I'll
come back to it a little bit later.
| | 00:30 | Now this drawing is currently in an
unsaved state. I can see that by looking up
| | 00:34 | in our Title bar, it still says,
Drawing1.dwg. If I'd like to save this
| | 00:39 | drawing, I'm going to come up and click
on my Save icon, this brings up my Save
| | 00:44 | Drawing As dialog. I'm going to come
down in my favorite places, and select the
| | 00:48 | Exercise Files ,and let's save this
guy inside Chapter_02, and we will just
| | 00:53 | call this plat drawing.dwg, and then
I'll come over and click save. Now if we
| | 01:02 | look at the Title bar, we can
see that, this is a saved drawing.
| | 01:05 | Let's close it and then reopen it.
I'm going to come up and click the X to
| | 01:09 | close this drawing, we'll pretend that
I've finished work on my other project,
| | 01:13 | and now it's time for me to come back.
I'm going to come up and click the Open
| | 01:16 | icon, we'll go inside the Exercise
Files directory again, inside the Chapter_02
| | 01:21 | folder, and I'm going to come down and
we'll grab our plat drawing.dwg. I'll
| | 01:25 | highlight this guy, and we'll click open.
| | 01:29 | At this point I can continue to work on
the file, and when the times comes for
| | 01:32 | me to Save Again, I'll come up and
click my Save icon. Notice that this time,
| | 01:39 | when I clicked save, it didn't bring
up a dialog, that's because this drawing
| | 01:43 | is already a named saved drawing. So
each time I click this icon, AutoCAD, is
| | 01:48 | just going to overwrite the original.
If I'd like to save this drawing with a
| | 01:52 | different name or in a different
location, I'm going to use my Menu Browser.
| | 01:56 | I'm going to come up and click the big
letter A, we'll come down to File, and I
| | 02:01 | can come over and down, and we can
select Save As. In this case I don't want to
| | 02:05 | resave the file with a new name, so I'm
going to move outside the Menu Browser
| | 02:09 | and click in model space.
| | 02:11 | Very seldom, will you start and
finish in AutoCAD drawing doing a single
| | 02:15 | session, if the time comes when you
must walk away from your computer, you can
| | 02:19 | use the Save or Save As features, to
store your drawing, such that you can
| | 02:23 | return to it later.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving time with templates| 00:00 | In addition to starting our drawings
from the default drawing1.dwg, we can also
| | 00:05 | start a drawing from a template. Now a
template is nothing more than an AutoCAD
| | 00:09 | drawing that already has content. Now I
have recently launched my AutoCAD, and
| | 00:13 | I'm sitting in the default drawing1.dwg.
Now this drawing is completely empty.
| | 00:19 | It has no content, everything that I
want in this drawing, I'm going to have to
| | 00:22 | create in this drawing.
| | 00:24 | Now what if I like to start from a
different default drawing? I'm going to show
| | 00:28 | you how we can start a drawing from a
template. To do that I'm going to come up
| | 00:31 | and click my New icon, so it will
allow me to create a new drawing, and by
| | 00:35 | default AutoCAD takes me into the
Template directory. From here I can select
| | 00:40 | from one of AutoCAD's pre-made templates.
Now notice, that these templates have
| | 00:43 | a dwt extension, that stands for
drawing template. Now there is no difference
| | 00:48 | between a dwt file and a DWG file,
they are essentially the exact same thing.
| | 00:53 | I'm going to grab my slider, we'll come
down a little bit and we'll look at these
| | 00:56 | templates. Let's grab the Tutorial-
iArch template. I'll select this guy, I
| | 01:02 | can see a nice preview, and we'll
click Open. Now this drawing looks a little
| | 01:07 | bit different in what we've seen so far.
The most important thing that I wanted
| | 01:10 | you to notice, is that this drawing
contains some content. If I zoom in over
| | 01:15 | here, I can see this drawing contains a
title block, it's got some text in it,
| | 01:18 | its got some line work, looks like
it's got a sheet of paper as well. Let's
| | 01:24 | talk about the concept of the template.
Why would you want to use a template?
| | 01:27 | Well, as we saw before, the default
AutoCAD drawing contains nothing. Why
| | 01:31 | always start with nothing, why not
create a drawing that contains all of the
| | 01:35 | things that you use most, the things
that you use in nearly every file, place
| | 01:39 | it in one drawing and then save that
drawing as a template. That way you can
| | 01:43 | start from a drawing that already
contains the items that you use most.
| | 01:47 | Now I'm going to close this, I'm not
going to save changes. Let me show you how
| | 01:54 | you can create your own template. When
I close that drawing, I returned to my
| | 01:59 | default drawing1.dwg, what we see on
screen is the equivalent of me just
| | 02:04 | bringing up AutoCAD. Now we haven't
talked about how to create content yet. So
| | 02:08 | I'm just going to create something simple.
So I can show you how we can create a template.
| | 02:13 | I'm going to my come up and click my
Circle icon, I'm just going to pick a
| | 02:17 | point on screen, I'll move my mouse away,
and I'll click. Well assume that the
| | 02:23 | circle that I created is my company logo.
Every drawing that I create is going
| | 02:27 | to need my company logo. So it's in my
drawing now. Let save this drawing as a
| | 02:31 | template. To do that I'm going to
come up and click my Save button. AutoCAD
| | 02:36 | brings up the Save Drawing As dialog,
and I'm going to come down in the file
| | 02:40 | type area, click the fly out, and I'm
going to come down and select AutoCAD
| | 02:45 | Drawing Template. When I do, AutoCAD
takes me right to the Template directory
| | 02:50 | where all of the other templates are
located, and I can name my template. I'm
| | 02:53 | just going to call this my custom
template, and I'll click Save. At this point
| | 03:01 | I can give my template a
DEscapeription if I wish, I can also adjust its
| | 03:05 | measurement, English or Metric and I
can identify, what I'd like to do with my
| | 03:11 | New Layer Notification. We are not
going to worry about this feature at this
| | 03:14 | time, and we'll come up and click
OK, and my template has been saved.
| | 03:19 | All right, let's close this drawing,
and let's say, we like to create a New
| | 03:23 | AutoCAD drawing. So I'm going to come
up and click New, AutoCAD takes me right
| | 03:29 | to the Template directory, and if I
come down, I can see my custom template. If
| | 03:33 | I click this, I can see the drawing
that I created, when I click Open, and I'm
| | 03:38 | now starting from my template drawing.
Templates can be a tremendous time
| | 03:42 | saver. Think of it this way, why start
all of your drawings from an empty file,
| | 03:47 | when you can start from a template
that's already set up for your needs?
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Drawing FundamentalsDrawing lines | 00:00 | Let's create our first line work. We
are going to start by looking at the
| | 00:04 | functionality of AutoCAD's Line
command. Now I have got a drawing opened on
| | 00:07 | screen. If you'd also like to open this
drawing, so you can work along with me.
| | 00:11 | This drawing is located inside the
Chapter_03 folder, inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:16 | directory, and this is the number
01 drawing using the Line command.
| | 00:19 | Now I have got a green rectangle on my
screen. This guy is going to act as our
| | 00:24 | sandbox. We are going to play it
around inside this rectangle, and learn how
| | 00:27 | the Line command works.
| | 00:29 | But before we get started, I want to
verify our mode-settings. I want to come
| | 00:33 | down of the bottom of the screen and
make sure that all of your mode-settings
| | 00:36 | are turned off, all these guys should
be gray. If you have one that's on, like
| | 00:40 | this guy, just click it to turn it off.
| | 00:43 | Now AutoCAD's Line command is located
right up here in the Draw panel on the
| | 00:47 | Home tab of our ribbon, and the icon is
are right here, and I'm going to click
| | 00:51 | it to launch the Command. When I do,
if we look down at the command line,
| | 00:55 | AutoCAD is saying, specify first point.
Well, I'm going to click a point on
| | 01:00 | screen, and as I move my cursor away,
notice I have got this rubber band
| | 01:04 | effect. Also notice at the command line,
AutoCAD's saying, Specify next point.
| | 01:09 | Well, that means I can click here, and
I can click here, and any place that I
| | 01:13 | click, I will continue my line segment.
When I'm all done creating my line, I'm
| | 01:18 | going to right click, and select
Enter, to get out of the command.
| | 01:23 | Now let's look at this one more time.
This time we are going to pay a little
| | 01:26 | bit more attention at the command line.
Once again, to launch the command, I'm
| | 01:29 | going to come up and click the Line
icon, we will come down into the sandbox.
| | 01:34 | Let me click. AutoCAD says, specify
next point. I will click again. AutoCAD
| | 01:40 | says, specify next point. Let me
click one more time. Notice at the command
| | 01:44 | line, AutoCAD has some additional
options that are within brackets. These are
| | 01:48 | sub-options of the Line command or
additional functionality that we have in the
| | 01:53 | Line command. Almost all of the AutoCAD
commands will contain sub-options. If I
| | 01:59 | like to access this sub-option for
instance, the Undo option, I can right
| | 02:03 | click, and they are located right here
in the context sensitive menu. Let me
| | 02:08 | select Undo, and notice AutoCAD backs
up one line segment. That means I can go
| | 02:13 | forward, or if I right click, I can
go backward through my line. Notice the
| | 02:21 | other option we have, is Close. If I
right click and select Close, AutoCAD will
| | 02:27 | snap a line from wherever I met, to
wherever I started. Now the line work that
| | 02:32 | we have created so far, is a little
bit on the abstract side, it has no
| | 02:36 | geometric value.
| | 02:37 | Let's look on how we can create some
line work using dimensions. Once again,
| | 02:41 | I'm going to launch the Line command.
I'm going to come up and click, we are
| | 02:43 | moving in the square, and I will click
one point to start my line. This time
| | 02:49 | I'm going to pull my cursor off to the
side, and I'm going to type the number
| | 02:53 | 10 on my keyboard, and hit Enter.
I have just created a line segment,
| | 02:58 | ten-units long in the direction
that I was pulling. Let me pull in this
| | 03:02 | direction, and we will type 5, and hit
Enter. We'll pull in this direction, and
| | 03:06 | we will type 7, and hit Enter. This
is called Direct Distance Entry, and
| | 03:11 | although my line work is still abstract,
it is based on real dimensions. When
| | 03:16 | I'm all finished with my line command,
I can right click, and select Enter to
| | 03:21 | exit the command.
| | 03:22 | Now that we do have a functional
understanding of how to use the Line command,
| | 03:25 | we are ready to move on to our next
lesson, where we will learn how to create
| | 03:29 | some geometrically accurate line work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Maintaining accuracy with the Ortho and Polar modes| 00:00 | The purpose of drafting is to create
and reproduce accurate geometry. In this
| | 00:05 | session we are going to look at how to
use the Line command, to draft some line
| | 00:08 | work that has geometrical value.
| | 00:10 | Now, I have got a drawing open on my
screen. If you'd like to open this drawing
| | 00:13 | as well, so that you can work along
with me, this drawing is located inside our
| | 00:17 | Chapter_03 directory, inside the
Exercise Files folder, and this drawing is
| | 00:22 | called number 02, using Ortho and Polar.
| | 00:25 | Now, I have got a green rectangle
on my screen, this guy represents our
| | 00:29 | sandbox. We are going to be creating
some line work inside the sandbox. In the
| | 00:33 | upper right hand corner, I have a small
drawing that contains some dimensions.
| | 00:36 | What we are going to do, is try to
replicate this geometry using the line command.
| | 00:40 | Now before we get started, I want to
verify that our mode-settings are the
| | 00:43 | same. I want you to come down here,
and I want you to make sure that all of
| | 00:47 | your mode-settings are turned
off. They should all be gray.
| | 00:50 | Okay, let's get started. I'm going to
launch the Line command. I'm going to
| | 00:53 | come up to my Draw panel and click the
line Icon, and I'm going to come down
| | 00:57 | and click inside my rectangle to start
my line. Now as I move, I could take and
| | 01:02 | type a distance, but it wouldn't be
very accurate, because I really don't have
| | 01:05 | any control over the angle of this line.
Let's use one of the mode-settings.
| | 01:09 | I'm going to come down and click this
icon, the third one from the left, this
| | 01:14 | stands for Ortho Mode. If I click
this, it locks my movement to 90 degree
| | 01:19 | angles. Now if I take and pull to the
right, I can type in a distance. Let's
| | 01:23 | type 10, and hit Enter. I have just
created a line segment 10-units long, and
| | 01:29 | it's drawn exactly horizontal to my
screen. Let me pull down, and I can type in
| | 01:33 | another distance, let's say 5. We
will pull to the left, I will type in 10.
| | 01:40 | Then lastly I'm going to right click,
and select Close. Now this geometry is
| | 01:46 | much more accurate than
what we have created so far.
| | 01:48 | Let me create another line segment.
Now that we have seen how the Ortho Mode
| | 01:52 | works, let's try and re-create this
drawing that we see over here. I'm going to
| | 01:56 | launch my Line command. Now, if you
want to shortcut to going back, to go back
| | 02:00 | into our previous command, we can do
that by right clicking and selecting
| | 02:04 | Repeat Line. There we go, let me pick
a point on screen to start my line, and
| | 02:11 | we can start drafting. I'm going to
pull to the right, and type 15, and hit
| | 02:15 | Enter. Let me pull down, type 7, and
hit Enter. Pull to the left, type 8, and
| | 02:22 | hit Enter. We will pull down and type
2, and hit Enter. At any point if you
| | 02:29 | make a mistake, you can always Undo.
I'm pulling to the left, if I accidentally
| | 02:33 | type in 8, oops! I went too far. I can
always right click and select Undo to
| | 02:39 | back-up through my sequence. Let me do
that again, let's hit 7, hit Enter, and
| | 02:47 | then I'm going to right click and
select close. All right, I'm going to pan my
| | 02:51 | drawing to the left, because I have
got another sandbox over here. In this
| | 02:57 | sandbox I have got another
drawing in the upper right hand corner.
| | 03:00 | We are going to learn how we can
replicate this drawing. Once again, I'm going
| | 03:03 | to launch my Line command. I'm going
to do it with a shortcut. I'm going to
| | 03:07 | right click, and select Repeat Line.
When I pick a point on screen, and my
| | 03:12 | Ortho Mode is still locked, that kind
will main locked until we go down and
| | 03:15 | click the icon and turn him off. Now,
sometimes the 90 degree increments are a
| | 03:20 | little bit too far apart. Maybe I'd
like to snap to an angle that's smaller
| | 03:25 | than 90 degrees. For instance, I've
got a couple of 45 degree angles right here.
| | 03:30 | Let's look at another mode-setting. I'm
going to come down and click this icon,
| | 03:34 | this guy represents the Polar Tracking,
fourth icon from the left. Now when I
| | 03:38 | click this guy, watch my Ortho icon.
As soon as I turn on, Polar, Ortho gets
| | 03:43 | turned off. You see Ortho and Polar are
an Either-Or proposition. You can have
| | 03:48 | one, or you can have the other, but
you can't have both. Polar gives me more
| | 03:53 | angle settings.
| | 03:54 | Let's take a look. I'm still in my
Line command and the Polar Mode is turned
| | 03:58 | on. When we move to the right, notice
AutoCAD snaps to a zero-degree angle. If
| | 04:04 | I come down, it snaps to another angle,
if I come over, it snaps to another.
| | 04:08 | Essentially, it's snapping to every 90
degrees. Now, this is really no better
| | 04:12 | than Ortho. Let me show you how we can
make an adjustment. I'm going to come
| | 04:16 | down to my Polar Mode and right click.
Notice I have several angles, I can
| | 04:21 | choose from, right now it's snapping
to every 90. I'm going to click 45, and
| | 04:26 | now I'm still in the Line command. My
Polar is now snapping to every 45 degree angle.
| | 04:33 | Let's try into our square. I'm going
to pull to the right and type 10-units,
| | 04:38 | Enter. And when I pull down, we'll
type 10 and hit Enter. We'll pull to the
| | 04:43 | left, type 10 and hit Enter. And then
I'm going to cheat, I'm going to right
| | 04:48 | click and select Close. Let's try and
replicate this geometry, now that we are
| | 04:53 | using the Polar Mode.
| | 04:54 | I want to launch my Line command. I'm
going to come up and click the Line Icon.
| | 04:58 | I'm going to start right here. Now as
I pull up, my Polar Mode or my Polar
| | 05:04 | Tracking locks in that direction. We
go in and type 10. Let me pull to the
| | 05:10 | right, and we'll type 5. Now I can use
my 45 degree angle. We will type in a
| | 05:16 | distance at 3, and hit Enter. We will
pull to the right, type 3 and hit Enter.
| | 05:21 | We will come down and type 3, and hit
Enter. This is how we can create a bay
| | 05:26 | window. We'll pull to the right, and
we will type 5. Now be careful with the
| | 05:31 | Polar Mode. Ortho forces you to a
specific angle. Polar snaps to angles. If I'm
| | 05:40 | pulling down in this direction, and I
do not see that little ray, I don't see
| | 05:43 | him snapped to the angle, if I type 10,
and hit Enter, I just drew my line
| | 05:49 | incorrectly. So be careful then, if you
are drafting using the Polar Mode, you
| | 05:53 | want to make sure that you
are snapped to the angle.
| | 05:56 | Let me backup. I'm going to right click
and select Undo to go back one segment.
| | 06:00 | Let me pull back in a downward
direction until my angle snaps. I'm going to
| | 06:06 | type 10, hit Enter, and then we will
finish this guy up. I'm going to right
| | 06:10 | click and select Close. As you can see,
when combining the Line command with
| | 06:15 | the Ortho and Polar Modes, we can
quickly create accurate geometry on our screen.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing circles| 00:00 | Drawing a circle in AutoCAD is as easy
as drawing a line. Circles just require
| | 00:04 | us to enter a little bit more
information. In this session we are going to
| | 00:07 | learn how we can draw some circles.
| | 00:09 | Now I have got a drawing open on my
screen. If you like to open the same
| | 00:12 | drawing, it's located inside the
Chapter_03 folder, inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:17 | directory, and this is the number
03 drawing, using the Circle Command.
| | 00:21 | Now before we get started, I want to
verify that our mode-settings are the
| | 00:24 | same. Take a look at your status
bar, and make sure that all of your
| | 00:28 | mode-settings are turned off. All
these icons should appear gray. Now, what
| | 00:33 | does AutoCAD need to create a circle?
| | 00:35 | Well, it needs either a radius or a
diameter. Now, the radius of the circle is
| | 00:40 | the distance from the center point
to the edge, and the diameter is the
| | 00:44 | distance from one edge to the other
that passes through the center point.
| | 00:48 | Essentially, it's the
widest point of the circle.
| | 00:51 | To create a circle, I'm going to come
up to my Draw panel located on the Home
| | 00:55 | tab of our ribbon. And I'm going to
click the Circle icon. Don't click the
| | 00:59 | flyout, make sure that you click the
circle. Now if I look at my command line,
| | 01:04 | I see that AutoCAD is asking me to
specify the center point. I'm going to pick
| | 01:08 | a point on screen, and as I pull my
cursor away, I get the rubber band effect.
| | 01:13 | At this point I could free pick a
point on screen to complete my circle, or I
| | 01:18 | can type in a radius. Let's try
typing in 5, and hitting Enter. I have just
| | 01:24 | created a circle with a radius of 5.
| | 01:25 | Let's create another circle. I'm
going to come up once again and click the
| | 01:29 | icon. I'm going to come right over here
and click to start my circle. And take
| | 01:33 | a look at the command line, AutoCAD
remembers the previous value. So if I want
| | 01:38 | to create a second circle with the same
radius, I can just hit Enter to accept
| | 01:43 | the values within the brackets.
| | 01:44 | Let's create one more circle. I'm
going to use the shortcut method. I'm going
| | 01:49 | to right click, and select Repeat
Circle from the menu. Let me pick a point on
| | 01:54 | screen. This time I'm going to create a
circle using a diameter. If we look at
| | 01:58 | the Command Line, we can see that
AutoCAD has a sub-option of diameter. I can
| | 02:03 | access that by right clicking and
selecting Diameter from the Menu. Let's say I
| | 02:09 | like to create a circle with a
diameter of 6, I will type in 6 and will hit
| | 02:14 | Enter. At this point I'm going to pan
over, because I have got some circles
| | 02:18 | created over here. And I'm
trying to re-create these circles.
| | 02:22 | Before we get started, I want you to
take a look at the dimensions, notice this
| | 02:25 | says, R2.0. The R stands for radius,
so this circle obviously has a radius of
| | 02:30 | 2. This one has a radius of 6. Take a
look at this guy. The circle with the
| | 02:36 | line through it, is your typical
symbol that represents diameter. So when you
| | 02:40 | see this symbol, this means that
this circle has a diameter of 8.
| | 02:43 | Let me backup. I must re-create these
circles. I'm going to come up and click
| | 02:49 | my Circle icon. I will come down and
click a point on screen, and I'm going to
| | 02:55 | type in 2 for radius. AutoCAD is always
expecting a radius. So let me type in 2
| | 03:01 | and hit Enter. We will create our
second circle. I will right click, Repeat
| | 03:05 | Circle. Let me pick a point on screen,
and this guy has a radius of 6. So I
| | 03:10 | will type in 6 and hit Enter. Lastly
we will get the remaining circle. I'm
| | 03:15 | going to right click, Repeat Circle,
we will pick a point on screen, but this
| | 03:19 | time I'm drafting the circle based on
the diameter. So I'm going to right click
| | 03:24 | and select Diameter from the Menu,
and I will type in 8 and hit Enter.
| | 03:30 | Now before we wrap up this lesson, I
want to address this little flyout next to
| | 03:34 | the Circle icon. Before I click that,
I want you to think about what we've
| | 03:38 | just seen. We can create a circle based
on a radius or a diameter. Let me click
| | 03:43 | this flyout. These are specialized
icons that allow us to create circles using
| | 03:48 | various pieces of information. Notice
the default is Center Radius. I can also
| | 03:53 | create a circle based on diameter. I
can also create some other types of
| | 03:57 | circles. Now, the one thing I want
you to know, is that there is only one
| | 04:01 | circle command. Each one of these icons
represents the exact same command. All
| | 04:06 | it does, is it automatically inserts
the sub-options for you. So if I select
| | 04:10 | Center Diameter from the flyout, I
will click to start my circle, and if we
| | 04:17 | look at the Command Line, AutoCAD
automatically put in the D to specify
| | 04:21 | diameter. So there is no magic to the
circle commands in the flyout, they are
| | 04:25 | all the same command. Let me hit Escape
to cancel this circle. The reason why I
| | 04:30 | show you this, is because whichever
one you use last, that's the one that's
| | 04:34 | going to appear right here. So keep
that in mind when you use the circle
| | 04:37 | command. I prefer to always use
the Center Radius, and select the
| | 04:42 | sub-options myself. Once again, I'm
going to hit Escape to clear this command.
| | 04:46 | At this point of our training we are
capable of creating any circle we wish, so
| | 04:50 | long as we are given the radius or the diameter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Activating the heads-up display| 00:00 | A major drawback to using the command
line is that we must continually glance
| | 00:04 | back and forth between our drawing
area in the bottom of our screen. This
| | 00:07 | problem can easily be solved by
activating our heads-up display. Now I have
| | 00:12 | opened a drawing and if you'd like
to open the same drawing, it's located
| | 00:14 | inside the Chapter_03 folder inside
the Exercise Files directory. This is the
| | 00:19 | number 4 drawing,
Activating the heads-up display.
| | 00:22 | Now before we start this drawing, I
want to make sure our modes setting are the
| | 00:25 | same. Let's come down at the bottom
of the screen, I want you to check your
| | 00:28 | Status Bar and make sure that all of
your modes are turned off. They should all be gray.
| | 00:34 | Okay. Now that we've verified that your
modes are off, I'd like you to turn one
| | 00:37 | of them on. Let's come down and click
this icon, the third one from the right.
| | 00:42 | This one stands for Dynamic Input. This
guy activates our heads-up display. If
| | 00:46 | I click this guy, the icon turns blue,
he is now on. When he is on, we really
| | 00:51 | don't notice anything until we launch a command.
| | 00:54 | Let's see, I'm going to come up and
click my Line command. Notice that AutoCAD
| | 00:59 | is now speaking to me from the cursor.
Let me pick a point to start my line
| | 01:03 | segment and when I do, as I move, I
can see a couple of fields. One field
| | 01:09 | represents the length of my line and
the other one represents the angle. If I
| | 01:13 | hit my Tab key on my keyboard, I can
jump back and forth between the fields.
| | 01:19 | Let's say I'd like to create a line
segment 25 units long. I'm going to hit Tab
| | 01:24 | until I'm focused on the length and
I'm going to 25. Now I'm going to hit Tab
| | 01:29 | again to jump to the angle, notice when
I do, AutoCAD locks the length of that
| | 01:34 | line and at this point it's
just waiting for an angle.
| | 01:38 | Let's say I'd like to draw that line
25 units directly East, directly to the
| | 01:42 | right. That would be a 0 degree angle.
So I'm going to type 0 since I'm focused
| | 01:48 | on the angle, and hit Enter. I have
just created a line segment 25 units long
| | 01:53 | going directly East. Let's complete the
square. I'm once again going to type a
| | 01:58 | distance of 25 and hit Tab; don't hit
your Enter key, if you hit Enter it will
| | 02:03 | do Direct Distance entry. You have to
hit Tab such that it focuses on the angle.
| | 02:09 | Now I'm going to pull it in the
downward direction. What angle is this going to
| | 02:12 | be? I have made it easy, I have created
a little compass over here to help you
| | 02:16 | out. I will pull down and I'm going to
type 90 for a 90-degree angle and hit Enter.
| | 02:23 | Now the angles that we are typing are
directions. They have nothing to do with
| | 02:27 | the previous line segment. For instance,
I'm still working on my square, so I'm
| | 02:31 | going to pull in this direction. I'm
going to type 25 for my length, then I'm
| | 02:35 | going to hit Tab to put the focus on
the angle. The angle in this case you
| | 02:39 | might think is 90, because I'm coming
from straight down, but in fact, remember
| | 02:45 | these angles are directions.
| | 02:47 | I'm heading West in this case and West
is a 180-degree angle. So let me type in
| | 02:52 | 180 and hit Enter, and then lastly we
will finish our square. I will pull it in
| | 02:59 | upward direction and I will type 25 for
my length. I will hit Tab and this guy
| | 03:05 | is in angle of 90 degrees. Let me type
90 and we will hit Enter. When I'm all
| | 03:10 | finished with the command, I'm
going to right click and select Enter.
| | 03:14 | I was just able to create that square
using accurate dimensions and angles and
| | 03:18 | I did not have to use Ortho or Polar.
The heads-up display can be a very
| | 03:23 | helpful tool to use as we are drafting.
Not only does it give us additional
| | 03:27 | control over the creation of our lines,
it also allows AutoCAD to speak to us
| | 03:31 | from our cursor.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Controlling Drawing UnitsDefining units of measure| 00:00 | Up to this point we have been
referring to our distances as units. Now are
| | 00:04 | these units inches, millimeters or feet?
Let's take a second and discuss how we
| | 00:08 | can assign a real world unit
of measurement to our drawing.
| | 00:10 | I'm going to create a line segment.
I'm going to come up and click my Line
| | 00:14 | icon. Let me pick a point on the screen
and I'm going to pull off to the right
| | 00:18 | some odd angle, and I'm going to type
in a distance of 1 and hit Enter. When
| | 00:22 | I'm all done with the command,
I'm going to hit my Escape key.
| | 00:27 | Now I have just created a line
segment one unit long. Now does that line
| | 00:31 | represent one inch? Does it represent
one foot? Does it represent one mile?
| | 00:35 | Well, that line represents whatever
unit of measurement I want it to represent.
| | 00:39 | You see, when we create a drawing in
AutoCAD, we need to ask ourselves, what's
| | 00:43 | the most convenient unit of
measurement for me to use to create this drawing?
| | 00:47 | Let me give you an example.
| | 00:48 | I'm going to open a couple of drawings.
I'm going to come up and my click my
| | 00:51 | Open icon. We are going to go inside
the Exercise Files directory. We are going
| | 00:56 | to look inside the Chapter_04
folder and let's open up these first two
| | 00:59 | drawings. I can do that by clicking on
the first drawing, to highlight it. I
| | 01:03 | will hold my Shift key and click the
drawing just beneath him, and now that
| | 01:06 | they are both selected I'm going to click Open.
| | 01:10 | Now the drawing that we see on screen
is an NBA basketball and the typical
| | 01:14 | diameter of an NBA basketball is 9.39
inches. So when I created this drawing, I
| | 01:19 | asked myself what would be a
convenient unit of measurement for me to use?
| | 01:22 | Well, if every unit equaled one inch
that would be very convenient, because
| | 01:26 | then when I create my circle, I can
set it for a diameter of 9.39. So in this
| | 01:32 | drawing every unit equals one inch.
| | 01:34 | Let me close this guy. Now in this
drawing I created a basketball court, and
| | 01:40 | once again I asked myself, what
would be the most convenient unit of
| | 01:43 | measurement for me to use? Well, if
every unit equaled one foot. That would be
| | 01:47 | very convenient. Because when I
create my rectangle I can just draw a line
| | 01:50 | straight up, 94 units. I can draw a
line to the right, 50 units and so on until
| | 01:55 | I finished my drawing. So in this
drawing every unit equals one foot.
| | 02:00 | Let me close this drawing and we will
return to our single line segment. Now
| | 02:05 | there are industry standards that we
use when we create drawings. If you are an
| | 02:09 | Architect your drawing will always be
set such that one unit equals one inch.
| | 02:13 | If you are a Civil Engineer, your
drawing will always be set such that one unit
| | 02:17 | equals one foot. If you do mechanical
drafting or metric drafting the results
| | 02:22 | will differ, depending on the size of
the project that you are working on.
| | 02:26 | Let's look at where we can apply a
unit of measurement to our drawing. To do
| | 02:30 | that I'm going to come up to the
Tools tab and click, and I'm going to come
| | 02:33 | over to the Drawing Utilities panel
and I'm going to click this icon. This
| | 02:37 | represents my Units. When I click
that, it will bring up my Drawing Units
| | 02:40 | dialog box. Now in this area, this is
where I'm declaring to the world whatever
| | 02:45 | unit in my AutoCAD drawing is
equivalent to. In its current state every unit
| | 02:49 | equals one inch.
| | 02:50 | Now I have other choices, if I click
the drop-down, I can see that I had
| | 02:53 | several choices available unless you
work for NASA, you probably won't be using
| | 02:57 | these ones at the bottom of the list.
I'm going to leave the set to inches.
| | 03:01 | Notice just above this it says, Units
to scale inserted content. That means if
| | 03:06 | my buddy next door is creating an
AutoCAD drawing, and he sets his such that
| | 03:09 | one unit equals one millimeter, if I
was to insert his drawing into mine,
| | 03:13 | AutoCAD will automatically rEscapeale
his drawing such that it comes in the
| | 03:17 | appropriate size.
| | 03:19 | Now I have some additional settings in
this dialog box, right up here. These
| | 03:23 | control how AutoCAD lists my geometry.
The way it's currently set, if I was to
| | 03:28 | list a line segment, for instance,
AutoCAD will give me the length using
| | 03:32 | decimals to a precision of four decimal
spaces. It will also show me the angle
| | 03:37 | using decimals with a precision of the
even degree. Let me click OK and let's try that.
| | 03:44 | Since I'm on the Tools tab, I'm going
to come up in the Inquiry panel and I'm
| | 03:47 | going to click this List button. This
will allow me to get information about my
| | 03:50 | entities. I click List, let me select
my line and then I'll right click. This
| | 03:57 | brings up my Text window and I can see
the length of this entity is given to me
| | 04:00 | in decimals to four decimal spaces. I
can also see that my angle is being given
| | 04:05 | to me to the even degree. Let me
close the Text window and return to model space.
| | 04:10 | Let's return to our Units dialog box.
I'm going to come up and click the icon
| | 04:15 | to return that to my screen. Now I have
additional settings under Length. If I
| | 04:20 | click the flyout, I can have AutoCAD
list my lengths using architectural
| | 04:24 | measurements, engineering, fractional
or scientific. The two main ones that you
| | 04:28 | are going to use are these right here.
If you are an Architect, you will always
| | 04:32 | use architectural. Let me
set it to architectural.
| | 04:35 | Notice that my precision is now set to
fractions. This will list my entities
| | 04:39 | using fractional measurements. If I
come over to Angle, I can click the
| | 04:43 | drop-down and I can set various
methods of listing my angles, Deg/Min/Sec,
| | 04:46 | Grads, Radians or Surveyor's Units. I
have a separate precision control for my angles.
| | 04:55 | Notice that we can set decimal
precision all the way up to eight spaces to the
| | 04:58 | right of the decimal. Let me click
outside the pull-down to close the menu. So
| | 05:03 | to close out this dialog, I'm going to
set my type to Decimal, I'm going to set
| | 05:08 | my precision to 2 and I'm going to
leave my Insertion Scale set to inches.
| | 05:13 | So as we leave this dialog box, we are
saying that in this drawing, every unit
| | 05:17 | equals one inch and we would like
AutoCAD to list our entities using decimals
| | 05:22 | with a precision of two spaces to the
right of the decimal. Let me come down
| | 05:25 | and click OK to dismiss the dialog box.
| | 05:29 | AutoCAD, by nature, is flexible
enough to allow you to draft using whatever
| | 05:32 | unit of measurement is most convenient
for you, and whether you like drafting
| | 05:36 | in inches, millimeters, feet or
something else entirely, you can always find
| | 05:41 | whatever you need in the Units dialog box.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drafting with architectural units| 00:00 | If you decide you'd like to draft using
architectural units, it's important to
| | 00:04 | note that AutoCAD is little bit picky
about how you enter your values. So in
| | 00:08 | this session, we are going to look at
how to give AutoCAD what it needs, when
| | 00:10 | we want to enter architectural
measurements. Now on my screen I have got a
| | 00:14 | floor plan for a single family home.
If you'd like to open the same drawing,
| | 00:18 | it's located inside your Chapter_04
folder inside the Exercise Files directory.
| | 00:23 | This is drawing number 2, Architectural Units.
| | 00:25 | Now this drawing was created using
architectural units. We can verify that by
| | 00:30 | going to our Tools tab and coming
over to the Drawing Utilities panel and
| | 00:34 | selecting the Units icon. I can
see, yes this drawing is set up for
| | 00:39 | architectural. This is how it's going
to list the entities, and I can see that
| | 00:43 | every unit equals one inch. Let me come
down and click OK to dismiss the dialog box.
| | 00:48 | Now I'm going to zoom in on the Bedroom
3 area. Now in the third bedroom I have
| | 00:56 | drawn a Queen size bed; the standards
dimensions for a Queen size bed are 6
| | 01:00 | feet 8 inches x 5 feet. I have also
drawn a nightstand with a circle that
| | 01:05 | represents a lamp. I'd like to
replicate this geometry over here, and we are
| | 01:10 | going to create this line work
using architectural measurements.
| | 01:13 | Now since I'm going to be creating a
line work, I'm going to the Home tab of my
| | 01:18 | ribbon and I'm going to select my
Line icon. Now AutoCAD is asking me to
| | 01:24 | specify first point. Now don't worry
too much, do I have to make this a certain
| | 01:29 | distance away from the wall, don't
worry about that. We will worry about that
| | 01:32 | later. For right now we are
worried more about function than form.
| | 01:35 | Let me click on the screen to start by
rectangle. Now my Ortho is locked, so at
| | 01:42 | this point I can either go to the left
or I can go straight up. I'm going to go
| | 01:46 | to left. Now what we are going to do
is nothing new. The only thing different
| | 01:50 | is, we are going to be inserting
architectural measurements. I'm going to go to
| | 01:53 | left and I'm going to type in 5 and
then an apostrophe. This is the key right
| | 01:58 | next to your Enter key on your keyboard.
The apostrophe represents feet. Let me hit Enter.
| | 02:03 | I have just constructed a line segment
5 feet long. Since my Ortho is locked, I
| | 02:08 | will pull up and we will type in 6
feet 8 inch. I have got to use the quotes;
| | 02:16 | that is also the key next to your
Enter key on your keyboard. We'll just use
| | 02:19 | the Shift to get the quotes. The
quotes represent inches. Let me hit Enter.
| | 02:25 | Now remember to use the quotes or the
apostrophe. If you do not, AutoCAD will
| | 02:29 | assume inches. For instance, if I pull
to the right and I type 5 and just hit
| | 02:34 | Enter, I have created a line segment 5
inches long. Let's undo. I'm going to
| | 02:39 | right click and select Undo from the
sub-options. That just backed us up and
| | 02:46 | let's finish this guy up. I'm going
to pull to the right and type 5 feet,
| | 02:50 | Enter, and I'm going to cheat, I'm
going to right click and select Close. I
| | 02:56 | have just constructed my Queen
size bed. Let's create the nightstand.
| | 03:00 | I'm going to go right back into the
Line command. So I'm going to right click
| | 03:04 | and select Line from the menu. Let me
pick my first point on screen, and this
| | 03:10 | time we are going to draft counter
clockwise. We will go up first. Let me pull
| | 03:15 | up and I'm going to type 2 feet 3
inches, Enter. Let me pull to the left, now
| | 03:22 | this is the one that's little bit tricky,
because now I'm inserting fractional
| | 03:25 | inches. Here is the format, 2 feet, 2-
3/4 inches. You have to put the dash
| | 03:36 | between the inches and the fractional
inches in order for it to work. Let me
| | 03:40 | hit Enter. There we go, we
will do our next segment.
| | 03:43 | Once again I'm going to come down and
I'm going to type 2 feet 3 inches, Enter
| | 03:48 | and then we will finish this guy up.
I'm not going to cheat, I'm doing this for
| | 03:51 | you. I'm doing it the hard way. 2 feet,
2, remember to put the dash between the
| | 03:57 | whole and the fractional inches, 3/4
inches, Enter. Now that my shape is
| | 04:05 | finished, I can right click and select
Enter or I can hit Escape to cancel out of
| | 04:09 | the command.
| | 04:09 | Lastly, we will do the nightstand.
This guy is a circle and I can see by the
| | 04:13 | dimension that it's obviously a
diameter. Let me come up and click my Circle
| | 04:17 | icon. I'm just going to pick a point
right here approximately at the middle of
| | 04:21 | the nightstand. I want this to be a
diameter, so I'm going to utilize a
| | 04:26 | sub-option. Let's right click and
select Diameter from the menu. Now my
| | 04:32 | diameter is going to be 11 inches.
I'm going to type in 11 inches, Enter. I
| | 04:38 | have replicated that geometry.
| | 04:40 | As you can see, entering
architectural measurements involves a little extra
| | 04:44 | work on our part, but it's still
quite simple so long as we remember how
| | 04:47 | AutoCAD wants us to enter the values.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with metric units| 00:00 | So you'd like to draft using metric
units. Well, in the big scheme of things
| | 00:04 | I'm afraid there is little more to
drafting in metric than merely changing our
| | 00:07 | unit settings. The first thing we
need to understand is that AutoCAD, by
| | 00:11 | default, is set to an
imperial drafting environment.
| | 00:14 | Now I'm currently sitting at my
desktop, let's launch the AutoCAD 2009
| | 00:18 | application. I'm going to move over
and double click the icon. Now AutoCAD
| | 00:24 | always defaults to a blank
drawing, the infamous Drawing1.dwg.
| | 00:30 | Let's take a look at our Units settings.
We are going to go to the Tools tab of
| | 00:34 | our ribbon. We will come over to the
Drawing Utilities panel and I'm going to
| | 00:37 | select the Units icon. Now in the
Drawing Units dialog box, I can see that our
| | 00:44 | current drawing is set to
inches; every unit equals 1 inch.
| | 00:48 | Now you may think that if you want to
work in metric, you can simply click this
| | 00:51 | drop-down and grab a metric setting.
I'm afraid there is a little bit more to
| | 00:56 | it than that. While this does take
care of our units as far as drafting, it
| | 01:00 | doesn't take into consideration the
units of our linetypes or the size of our
| | 01:04 | paper. Let me show you what I mean.
| | 01:06 | I'm going to click OK to accept this
value. I'm going to come up and click the
| | 01:10 | Plot icon. When the dialog box comes up,
notice that my paper size is still set
| | 01:16 | for inches. If this was truly a metric
environment, this guy would also be set
| | 01:20 | to millimeters.
| | 01:21 | So just making that change in the
Units dialog box, isn't enough to be fully
| | 01:26 | working in a metric environment. Let
me click outside the menu to close the
| | 01:30 | flyout and I'm going to
cancel the Plot dialog box.
| | 01:36 | The easiest way to work in metric is to
start from a template. Let's try that.
| | 01:40 | I'm going to come up and click the New
icon, because I'd like to create a new
| | 01:43 | drawing. This takes me to the Template
folder. Inside the Template folder I'm
| | 01:48 | going to come down and select acadiso(
ph). This drawing is set up as a metric
| | 01:52 | environment.
| | 01:53 | Let me select this drawing and I will
click Open. Now there is no content in
| | 01:58 | this drawing, but this drawing
already has the proper settings for our
| | 02:01 | linetypes, our paper and our units.
Let's take a look. I'm going to come up and
| | 02:06 | click Units. Notice this guy is set to
millimeters. Let's close the dialog box.
| | 02:12 | Let's take a look at the Plot dialog box.
| | 02:14 | Once again I'm going to come up and
click the Plot icon. Notice this is also
| | 02:18 | set to a metric measurement. So this
is a metric drafting environment. Once
| | 02:23 | again I'm going to come up and
click the X to close this dialog.
| | 02:26 | Now you may be asking yourself what
drawing does AutoCAD default to? Once again
| | 02:32 | I'm going to come up and click New. By
default, AutoCAD always starts with the
| | 02:36 | acad template. This is set to
an imperial drafting environment.
| | 02:41 | Now the next question you may have is,
is it possible to default to the other
| | 02:44 | drawing? Can I start from this drawing?
Yes, you can. Let me show you how we
| | 02:49 | can do that. I'm going to come up click
the X to close this dialog box. To make
| | 02:54 | this change we are going to
go into our Options dialog box.
| | 02:57 | To do that I'm going to go to the Menu
Browser and click. Let's come down to
| | 03:01 | Tools. I'm going to come over. I will
grab the slider. I will click and drag
| | 03:06 | and will come all the way down and
select Options. From here I'm going to go to
| | 03:10 | Files tab, and from here I'm going
to come down to Template Settings.
| | 03:14 | I'm going to click the + to open it up.
I'm going to come down to the Default
| | 03:18 | Template File Name for QNEW. Let me
click the + to open this guy up. Right now
| | 03:24 | this is set to none. I'm going to click
this word to highlight it and I'm going
| | 03:28 | to come over and click Browse.
| | 03:30 | AutoCAD will take me directly to the
template directory. From here I can select
| | 03:35 | the acadiso template. I will click
Open. I have now applied that drawing to
| | 03:43 | this setting. I will come down and
click OK to save my changes. Let me close AutoCAD.
| | 03:51 | From now on every time I launch
AutoCAD it's going to default to the metric
| | 03:55 | template. Let's try. I'm going to come
over and double click the icon. Now as
| | 03:59 | AutoCAD comes up, if you watch real
quickly at the bottom of the screen, you
| | 04:02 | can see acadiso.dwt. Let's test it.
| | 04:06 | Let me click my Units icon. Notice
this guys is set to millimeter. Once again
| | 04:12 | we will check the Plot. This guy is
also set to millimeter. So now we are
| | 04:16 | defaulting to a metric environment.
| | 04:20 | Now after making that change what if
you want to put it the way it was? Maybe
| | 04:25 | after a couple of weeks of defaulting
to metric, maybe you decide you know
| | 04:28 | what, the imperial settings really
weren't that bad. How can I put this back?
| | 04:32 | Once again we are going to go to our
Options dialog box. Let me show you a shortcut.
| | 04:36 | If you right click in the middle of the
screen, you can come down to the bottom
| | 04:40 | of the menu and select Options. Once
again we are going to go to the File tab.
| | 04:45 | We will come down to Template Settings.
We will open this guy up. We will go to
| | 04:50 | Default Template File Name for QNEW.
| | 04:52 | We will open this guy up. What I'm
going to do is select this path and then I'm
| | 04:57 | going to come over to the right and
click Remove. There we go. Now when I click
| | 05:01 | OK to save my changes, from now on,
AutoCAD will always default back to the
| | 05:06 | imperial drafting environment.
| | 05:09 | If you have a desire to draft using
metric units, it's nice to know that
| | 05:12 | AutoCAD can be configured to suit your
needs. If you are an occasional metric
| | 05:16 | drafter, you can simply choose the
acadiso template drawing when needed.
| | 05:20 | For those of you who feel metric units
are your way of life, AutoCAD can easily
| | 05:24 | adapt to a default metric environment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Controlling AccuracyUnderstanding Cartesian coordinates| 00:00 | In this session, we are going to take
a closer look at model space, otherwise
| | 00:03 | known as our drafting board. Our
approach is going to be a little bit
| | 00:06 | different, because we are going to
look at model space from the computer's
| | 00:09 | point of view. Taking this behind the
scenes look, it can be very helpful in
| | 00:13 | teaching us how AutoCAD maintains our line work.
| | 00:16 | Model space is essentially an
infinitively large sheet of graph paper. Now we
| | 00:21 | construct our geometry on this graph
paper and AutoCAD uses this graph paper to
| | 00:25 | maintain the accuracy of our drawing.
AutoCAD does this through the use of base
| | 00:29 | lines and AutoCAD uses base lines to
organize the 2D space. Now there is a
| | 00:34 | major East-West base line,
this guy is called the X axis.
| | 00:38 | Now the X axis is a number line,
and any value to the right of zero is
| | 00:42 | considered positive X and any value to
the left of zero is considered negative
| | 00:47 | X. There is also a major North-South
base line and is called the Y axis. The Y
| | 00:53 | axis is also a number line. Any value
above the X axis is considered positive Y
| | 00:59 | and any value below the X
axis is considered negative Y.
| | 01:03 | Now this graph paper is completely
invisible, we do not see this in AutoCAD,
| | 01:06 | but this is going on in the background.
This system of organizing locations in
| | 01:10 | space through base lines is called
the Cartesian Coordinate System. AutoCAD
| | 01:15 | uses this system to identify all
locations in space. Now AutoCAD uses a term
| | 01:19 | for locations in space and that term
is Coordinates. Now AutoCAD references
| | 01:24 | coordinates using the format X,Y and
AutoCAD uses coordinates to recognize what we draft.
| | 01:31 | Let us take a look at the
intersection of my X and Y axis. This guy has a
| | 01:35 | coordinate value of 0,0. This
intersection also has a special name, it's called
| | 01:41 | the Origin. All AutoCAD coordinates are
measured from the origin. Let us take a
| | 01:45 | look at how this system works.
| | 01:48 | If I was to choose this point on
screen, this point would have a coordinate
| | 01:51 | value of 4,2. I'm four units in the
positive X direction and I'm two units in
| | 01:57 | the Y direction. Let's try another
point. This guy has a coordinate value of
| | 02:01 | 3,9. Once again, three units on the X
and nine units on the Y. This guy has a
| | 02:08 | coordinate value of -6,4, because
I'm moving six units in the negative X
| | 02:14 | direction and four units in the
positive Y. It is kind of like playing
| | 02:18 | battleship. Last one, this location has
a coordinate of -5,-7. Let us use this
| | 02:25 | coordinate system to demonstrate
how we create a line in AutoCAD.
| | 02:29 | First we look at it from our prospective.
If I'm creating a line, first I pick
| | 02:33 | a point in space, then I come over and
pick my next point and AutoCAD draws the
| | 02:37 | line between them. Now from AutoCAD's
perspective, what AutoCAD sees is a line
| | 02:42 | segment that is drawn from -8,-3 to 8,10.
At this point I'm going to return to AutoCAD.
| | 02:50 | As I move my cursor around on screen,
if we look at the lower left hand corner
| | 02:54 | of our Status Bar, I can see the
coordinate values now; hopefully those make
| | 02:58 | more sense, I can see my X and Y
coordinates. Likewise, this little guy down in
| | 03:03 | the corner, this is our UCS icon.
This guy identifies the direction of our
| | 03:07 | positive X axis and our positive Y axis.
| | 03:11 | Now I'd like to do a little bit of
drafting using coordinates, usually we do
| | 03:14 | not draft too much by entering
coordinate values, but it is possible. I just
| | 03:18 | want to give you an idea of how it
works. Since we're going to draft using
| | 03:21 | coordinates, I want you to make sure
that your heads-up display is turned off.
| | 03:25 | I'm going to come down and click this
guy to turn him off. The heads-up display
| | 03:28 | takes a few liberties with coordinates,
and I do not want to get into that
| | 03:31 | right now. If we turn him off,
we would not have any problems.
| | 03:34 | I'm going to start by creating a
circle. I'm going to come up and click my
| | 03:37 | circle icon and AutoCAD says, specify
center point of circle. I'm going to type
| | 03:42 | in a coordinate, let us type in 25,25,
and hit Enter. Let's draw this guy with
| | 03:49 | a radius of 10. I will go ahead and
type in 10, and hit Enter. Notice I cannot
| | 03:53 | see my circle. Why? Because that
particular coordinate value is not visible on
| | 03:57 | my screen. I can draft the locations
off my screen, remember that model space
| | 04:02 | is infinite in size.
| | 04:04 | Let us take a look at that circle. I'm
going to double click my wheel to do a
| | 04:06 | zoom extents. There he is, I'm going
to backup a little bit, will pan over. I
| | 04:13 | want to create another circle. So I'm
going to come up and click my circle
| | 04:18 | icon. Once again AutoCAD is saying,
specify center point of circle. This time
| | 04:23 | I'm going to type in 75,25. I'm going
75 units in the X direction, 25 units in
| | 04:30 | the Y direction. Let me hit Enter. I
have just created a second circle and I'm
| | 04:34 | going to accept the 10
unit radius, I will hit Enter.
| | 04:38 | Now what if I wanted to create a line
segment that was drawn from the center of
| | 04:42 | one circle to the center of the other.
Well, I know what those coordinates are.
| | 04:45 | Let us do that. I'm going to come up
and launch my Line command, specify first
| | 04:50 | point, 25,25, Enter. I have just
started that line from the center of this
| | 04:57 | first circle, and let us draw it to
the center of the other one. I'm going to
| | 05:01 | type in a coordinate 75,25 and hit
Enter. When I'm all done using the Circle
| | 05:07 | command, I'm going to hit Escape.
| | 05:09 | Now most of the time we'll not be
entering coordinates as we draft. However, it
| | 05:13 | is important for you to understand the
fundamental way AutoCAD processes our
| | 05:16 | line work in the background. Think
of it this way. AutoCAD is a vector
| | 05:20 | application whose job is simply
creating and maintaining geometry. Everything
| | 05:25 | we draft is mapped out on an underlying
X,Y coordinate system, and AutoCAD uses
| | 05:30 | this system to maintain
the accuracy of our drawings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Maintaining accuracy with object snaps| 00:00 | One thing is certain: we will never
create a drawing by simply free picking
| | 00:04 | points on screen. If we want to draft
accurately, we will need to know how to
| | 00:07 | use AutoCAD's coordinate system to
lock on to our geometry. Now I have got a
| | 00:11 | drawing open on screen. If you'd like
to work along with me, this drawing is
| | 00:15 | located inside the Chapter_05 folder
inside our Exercise Files directory. This
| | 00:20 | drawing is number 02, Using OSNAPS.
| | 00:22 | Now before we start this drawing, I'd
like you to come down to your status bar
| | 00:26 | and verify that all of your Mode
settings are turned off. All of these guys
| | 00:29 | should be in a gray state. Our job in
this session is to take the line work
| | 00:34 | that we see on the left and complete
it such that it looks like the drawing
| | 00:38 | that we see on the right. Now I'm going
to complete this star by using the Line
| | 00:41 | command. Let me come up and launch my
Line tool, it's located inside the Draw
| | 00:45 | panel. Now AutoCAD is saying, specify
first point. Then I wish I knew what the
| | 00:51 | coordinate was at the endpoint of this line.
| | 00:54 | As I hover around on top of this guy,
I can look down in my coordinate area,
| | 00:58 | then I can guess what that coordinate is.
Endpoint obviously has a coordinate,
| | 01:04 | but I'm still trying to figure out what
the coordinates are, I'm going to use a
| | 01:06 | feature in AutoCAD called Object
Snaps. This will allow us to lock on to
| | 01:10 | various coordinates in relation to our
geometry. Now I'm going to access the
| | 01:14 | Object Snaps feature through a toolbar.
I can turn on the toolbar by moving up
| | 01:18 | to my Quick Access toolbar and right
clicking, I'm going to come down to the
| | 01:22 | toolbar's Option and in the AutoCAD
flyout I'm going to come down and select
| | 01:27 | Object Snap.
| | 01:29 | This brings up a toolbar of all of the
Object Snaps in AutoCAD. Now I'm going
| | 01:33 | to click and hold on the handle, we
will drag this guy to the middle of our
| | 01:36 | screen, I will release and for right
now we will leave it right there. I'm
| | 01:42 | still in the Line command. AutoCAD is
saying, specify first point. I'm going to
| | 01:46 | come up and select the Endpoint
Object Snap. If I click this, at my command
| | 01:51 | line AutoCAD is saying, Endpoint of.
If I place my cursor next to this line,
| | 01:56 | notice that AutoCAD finds the endpoint.
| | 01:58 | As soon as I see that icon pop up, I
can click and AutoCAD grabs that point.
| | 02:04 | Now I'd like to go to the endpoint over
here. Once again, I'm going to come up
| | 02:08 | and click the Endpoint Object Snap. I
will come over and click to finish my
| | 02:12 | line. When I'm finished I'm going to
hit my Escape key. Let's do the last two. I'm
| | 02:16 | going to right-click, go back into my
Line command, I'd like to create a line
| | 02:20 | from the endpoint of this line to the
endpoint of this one and I will hit Escape.
| | 02:30 | Last one, we will right click to go
right back into the Line command. I want to
| | 02:33 | create a line from the endpoint of
this line to the endpoint. Now before I
| | 02:41 | click this last point, watch this, as
I place my cursor on the line, notice I
| | 02:46 | can be this far away and AutoCAD will
still find the endpoint. In fact, I can
| | 02:50 | be 50% or greater. As soon as I get
beyond 50% I can grab the other endpoint.
| | 02:55 | The thing I'm trying to stress is that
you don't have to be on that point to
| | 02:58 | grab it. I can click right here and
still get that endpoint. When I'm all done
| | 03:04 | I will hit Escape. That is
the Endpoint Object Snap.
| | 03:07 | Now I'm going to hold down my wheel
and I'm going to pan this drawing up, we
| | 03:11 | are going to look at another one. In
this case, we are going to look at the
| | 03:15 | Center Point Object Snap. This guy
allows as to snap to the center of a circle
| | 03:20 | or an arc. Once again I'm going to
complete this drawing with the Line command.
| | 03:24 | So let me come up and launch my Line
tool. I want to create a line from, this
| | 03:30 | guy right here represents center
point. Let me click, now AutoCAD at the
| | 03:34 | Command Line is saying, center of,
think of AutoCAD's cursor as AutoCAD's
| | 03:40 | eyeball. Put the eye on the
arc and AutoCAD finds the center.
| | 03:45 | As soon as I touch the arc I can click
and AutoCAD grabs the center point. So
| | 03:49 | I'm going to draw my line from the
center of that first circle to the center
| | 03:55 | of, I will put the eye on the arc and
click, AutoCAD finds the center. From
| | 03:59 | here, I can go to the center of this
circle and when I'm finished I will hit
| | 04:04 | Escape, let's finish it up. I'm going to
right click and grab the Line tool, we
| | 04:08 | will go from the center here, to the
center here and I will hit Escape. Let's pan
| | 04:18 | this guy up and we will look at another one.
| | 04:19 | In this case, we are going to look at
Midpoint. I can snap to the midpoint of
| | 04:25 | my entities. I'm going to come up and
launch my Line command. I'm going to
| | 04:29 | create a line from, this Object Snap
means midpoint, I will click this guy. As
| | 04:35 | I place my cursor on the entity now,
notice AutoCAD finds the midpoint, also
| | 04:40 | notice that each Object Snap icon
looks different. The midpoint looks like a
| | 04:43 | little triangle. So I can click right
here and still find the midpoint. As long
| | 04:48 | as the icon is on screen I will grab that point.
| | 04:51 | I'd like to go to the midpoint, down
here. Let me hit Escape. We will go right
| | 04:56 | back into the Line command and we will
finish. Line from the midpoint here to
| | 05:03 | the midpoint over here, Escape. I will try
the next one. I'm going to pan up, this
| | 05:11 | time we are going to look at Intersection.
| | 05:12 | I'm going to start by creating the
large circle. So I'm going to come up and
| | 05:17 | click my circle icon and I'm going to
start my circle at the intersection of
| | 05:21 | these two lines. The Intersection
Object Snap is right here. Intersection of
| | 05:28 | this, I'm going to click. Now what am
I going to use for a Radius? Well, I
| | 05:32 | don't know what the number value is,
but remember, I can also set my Radius by
| | 05:36 | picking a point on screen. How about
if I came up and said the intersection
| | 05:41 | right here...
| | 05:42 | Let's finish this up. I'm going to
launch the Circle command again. This time
| | 05:46 | we will mix it up a little bit. I
want to create a circle from the endpoint
| | 05:50 | here to the intersection right there.
Lastly, we will right click, go right
| | 05:56 | back to circle from the endpoint here
to the intersection right there. All
| | 06:04 | right, let's pan it up.
| | 06:06 | This time we are going to talk about
Quadrant. Now quadrants are associated
| | 06:11 | with circles and arcs. If I move up and
click on the circle to highlight it, I
| | 06:16 | will see a little blue square at the
locations of my quadrants. Generally
| | 06:20 | speaking, a quadrant is the North, South,
East or West location of your circle
| | 06:26 | or arc. So let me hit Escape to clear
these little blue squares and we will finish
| | 06:30 | this drawing.
| | 06:30 | I'm going to launch the Line command.
I want to create a line from the
| | 06:34 | quadrant, we will use this icon. Now
I will move down and I will place my
| | 06:39 | cursor on the arc. Notice the closer
I'm to a particular quadrant I will
| | 06:44 | determine which quadrant I select. I
will click to select this one, I want to
| | 06:49 | draw that to the quadrant of the bottom.
Notice once again I do not have to be
| | 06:54 | at that point. I can be this far away
and click and still get that location.
| | 06:57 | Let me hit Escape, we will right click,
we'll go to right back in the line, we
| | 07:02 | will go from the quadrant here to
the quadrant here. We will hit Escape.
| | 07:07 | Let's pan this up, we are going to look
at two more. This one is Tangent. Now a
| | 07:15 | tangent is usually associated with an
arc. In this case, a line is tangent to
| | 07:19 | an arc if it intersects at one and
one only point. So I can use the Tangent
| | 07:24 | Object Snap to find tangency points on
my arcs or circles. Let's finish this
| | 07:30 | drawing. I'm going to come up and
launch the Line command. I'm going to come
| | 07:33 | over and use my Tangent Object Snap.
| | 07:35 | Notice that the ones associated with
circles are together in the toolbar. Let
| | 07:39 | me click my Tangent Object Snap. I'm
going to move close to this line and
| | 07:44 | click, and as I pull away I'm getting
a rubber band effect, but notice, no
| | 07:48 | matter where I'm at AutoCAD
maintains the tangency of my line to the arc.
| | 07:52 | I'd like to draw this to a point
tangent right down here. I will click and I
| | 07:57 | will hit Escape, I'm going to right
click and jump right back into the Line
| | 08:02 | command. I'm going to start my line
from tangent to this circle to tangent to
| | 08:10 | this one, Escape. Last one we are going
to look at is the Perpendicular Object
| | 08:17 | Snap. This allows us to snap to a
point perpendicular to a line segment or an
| | 08:22 | arc. Perpendicular means a 90 degree angle.
| | 08:25 | I'm going to start by launching my
Line command. I'm going to start my line
| | 08:29 | from the endpoint here and I'm going
to draw it perpendicular to the square.
| | 08:34 | Let me hit Escape. We will create
another line from the endpoint here,
| | 08:43 | perpendicular to the square, Escape.
Last two, we will right click and Repeat
| | 08:48 | LINE, from the endpoint here,
perpendicular to the square. Once again I can be
| | 08:54 | anywhere on this square and still
grab that same perpendicular point and we
| | 08:59 | will do the last one. Line from the
endpoint here perpendicular to the square.
| | 09:08 | When I'm finished I will hit Escape to
clear the command. Now this toolbar is
| | 09:11 | going to be pretty important. From now
on, we will always be using Object Snaps
| | 09:15 | when we construct our geometry. So I'm
going to dock this guy on my screen, so
| | 09:18 | he is always available. To do that I'm
going to click and hold on this handle.
| | 09:23 | I'm going to drag him over to the right
side of the screen and release, and he
| | 09:28 | is now in a docked state.
| | 09:29 | Since I have just made a change to my
interface, let's save the workspace. I'm
| | 09:33 | going to come down and click the
workspace Gear, I'm going to select Save
| | 09:38 | Current As, and I'm just going to
click the flyout and select my current
| | 09:44 | workspace to override it. I will
click Save and yes I'd like to replace it.
| | 09:50 | From this moment on, we will always use
Object Snaps as we draft. Using Object
| | 09:55 | Snaps is the only way to guarantee
that we are creating accurate geometry.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Automating object snaps| 00:00 | Sometimes, it can be very tedious if
you have to select the same object snap
| | 00:04 | over and over again. Let us look at a
way we can automate our object snaps and
| | 00:07 | make our life little easier. Now I have
opened a drawing, you can open the same
| | 00:11 | drawing if you'd like to work along
with me. This drawing is located inside the
| | 00:14 | Chapter_05 folder of our Exercise
Files directory, and this is the number 03
| | 00:19 | drawing, Automating our Object Snaps.
| | 00:21 | Now this is an architectural example,
this is a floor plan for a single family
| | 00:26 | home, and one way I know this is an
architectural example, is by looking down
| | 00:30 | here on my Status Bar. If it is an
architectural drawing, as I move around, I
| | 00:33 | will see my coordinates listed in feet
and inches. Now my goal in this session
| | 00:37 | is to finish drafting my garage doors.
So I'm going to zoom in, in this area,
| | 00:43 | will pan that over so it's centered on
the screen, and I'm going to create the first door.
| | 00:48 | I'm going to do that by coming up and
launching my Line command. Now I want to
| | 00:52 | use a coordinate, I do not want to free
pick points on screen, so I'm going to
| | 00:55 | grab the endpoint object snap, I'm
going to start from the endpoint here and
| | 01:01 | I'm going to draft the endpoint here.
We will go to the endpoint here.
| | 01:09 | Notice all the screen movement I have
to do, I have to go all the way over and
| | 01:12 | grab the endpoint here. We'll grab
that point and then lastly, I'm going to
| | 01:17 | make it even more monotonous. Lets go
over and will grab another endpoint and I
| | 01:21 | will click right there. When I'm
finished, I'm going to hit my Escape key.
| | 01:25 | While we drafted that very accurately,
it was a little bit tedious, because we
| | 01:28 | had to go all the way across the screen
and back to grab our object snaps. Let
| | 01:32 | us look at how we can set
some running object snaps.
| | 01:36 | To do that, I'm going to come down to
my Status Bar, and I'm going to click my
| | 01:39 | object snap mode, we will click him
once to turn him on. Now let us find out
| | 01:44 | exactly what we turned on. If I right
click on this icon and select settings,
| | 01:50 | this is where I can set running object
snaps. In its current state I can see
| | 01:54 | that four are selected, I'm going to
remove the check from Extension and
| | 01:58 | Intersection, and I'm going to
leave the check in Center and Endpoint.
| | 02:03 | So as this sits, I have two running
object snaps. I'm going to come down and
| | 02:07 | click OK to dismiss the dialog. That
means that as I'm working, any point
| | 02:11 | AutoCAD is looking for a coordinate,
it's automatically going go to be
| | 02:15 | searching for one of those
running object snaps. Let us try it.
| | 02:18 | I'm going to come up and click my Line
command again. Now on my command line
| | 02:21 | AutoCAD is saying, specify first
point. Since my running object snaps are
| | 02:25 | turned on, notice as I get close to
this line, AutoCAD automatically finds the
| | 02:29 | endpoint. Let me click, that means I
can now come over here and click. I can
| | 02:35 | come down here and click, over here
click, and then I can finish it up and hit
| | 02:41 | Escape. I'm going to double click my
wheel to do a zoom extents. Let us take
| | 02:44 | a look at the entire floor plan.
| | 02:49 | Lets zoom in on the bedroom free area.
I want to show you that although we used
| | 02:55 | endpoint in the previous example,
center point is also available. If I was
| | 02:59 | constructing a line, I can come up
and click my Line command and if I hover
| | 03:02 | close to a line segment, I grab the
endpoint. If I hover close to an arc, I can
| | 03:06 | also grab the center. Let me
hit Escape to cancel the command.
| | 03:10 | Now, running object snaps can be
dangerous. Since you are starting out, I'd
| | 03:14 | like you to select no more than two,
pick your two favorites. Then the rest of
| | 03:19 | them I'd like you to select from the
toolbar. It may seem like a good idea to
| | 03:23 | come down to the icon and right click,
select Settings, and check a whole bunch
| | 03:28 | of these guys. The more running object
snaps you set, the more danger you have
| | 03:33 | of clicking an incorrect point. So I'm
going remove these checks and leave it
| | 03:37 | with just the two. Let me
click OK to clear the dialog box.
| | 03:42 | If at any point you'd like to make a
quick change to your running objects
| | 03:45 | snaps, you can come down and right
click on the object snap mode. You can see
| | 03:50 | your selected object snaps in the list.
From here I can click one more if I
| | 03:54 | like or I can click an existing one to
turn it off. Let me right click, we will
| | 04:01 | go back up and turn it back on.
| | 04:04 | Running object snaps are a fantastic
tool to help us increase our speed when
| | 04:07 | drafting. However, they should be used
sparingly. It is like the old saying,
| | 04:11 | "Too much of a good thing can be bad for you".
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Specialized Draw CommandsDrawing rectangles| 00:00 | Quite often we have to create
rectangular shapes in AutoCAD. Let's look at a
| | 00:04 | way we can create them that's faster
than using the traditional Line command.
| | 00:07 | Now I've got a drawing open on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:10 | drawing so that you can work along
with me, this guy is located inside the
| | 00:13 | Chapter 06 folder of our Exercise Files
directory, and this is the 01_Rectangle drawing.
| | 00:19 | Now I've got a couple of rectangles
drawn on my screen and if we look at the
| | 00:22 | dimensions we can see that this is an
architectural example. That means in this
| | 00:26 | drawing, one unit equals one inch. Now
our goal right now is to recreate these
| | 00:31 | rectangles. Let's do that. To create a
rectangle I'm going to come up to the
| | 00:34 | Draw panel and click the Rectangle tool.
| | 00:38 | When I do, AutoCAD is asking me to
Specify first corner point. Now notice
| | 00:42 | AutoCAD is asking me that at my cursor,
it's doing that, because I have my
| | 00:46 | Dynamic Input turned on. Let me
click my first point and notice I get the
| | 00:51 | Rubber band effect. At this point, in
order to complete this rectangle, AutoCAD
| | 00:56 | only needs to know where the other
corner is located. Now I could free pick a
| | 01:00 | point on screen if I wished, but
instead I want to enter some dimensions.
| | 01:04 | Take a look at the Command Line, notice
we have a sub option of Dimensions. To
| | 01:08 | use that sub option I'm going to
right click and in the menu I'm going to
| | 01:11 | select Dimensions. Now AutoCAD wants
to know the length for my rectangle, so
| | 01:17 | I'm going to type in 5 feet. Don't
forget the apostrophe, remember this is an
| | 01:21 | architectural example. I'll hit Enter.
In my width it's going to be 2 feet 6
| | 01:28 | inches and I'll hit Enter.
| | 01:30 | Now it looks like the rectangle is
finished but we still have one more step.
| | 01:34 | AutoCAD is still wanting us to
specify the other corner point. We've just
| | 01:38 | inserted the dimensions, but the corner
point could exist here, it could exist
| | 01:42 | over here or down here or over here.
So once we enter the dimensions, it's
| | 01:48 | important for us to click on screen to
set the location of the other corner.
| | 01:53 | Once we create this rectangle, I'm
going to right click and in the menu I'm
| | 01:56 | going to select Repeat RECTANG. Let
me pick my first point on screen, once
| | 02:01 | again I'm going to use the
Dimensions sub option. So I'll right click and
| | 02:05 | select Dimensions. Notice that AutoCAD
remembers our previous entry. Now that
| | 02:10 | happens to be perfect for the
rectangle that we're currently making. So I'm
| | 02:13 | going to hit Enter to accept the
default. Let me type in my width, 1 foot 10
| | 02:20 | inches and I'll hit Enter. Then lastly
I'm going to click to identify the other
| | 02:25 | corner point. Let's use the
Rectangle command in a practical example.
| | 02:29 | I'm going to zoom out, we'll pan over
and as you can see I've got a portion of
| | 02:35 | a bathroom created on my screen. I'd
like to create a rectangular counter top
| | 02:39 | on this side of the room. I'd also like
to create a rectangular shape that will
| | 02:43 | represent a shower stall and one that
will represent a whirlpool tub. Let's do
| | 02:47 | the rectangle up here first.
| | 02:48 | I'm going to zoom in. Let's launch the
Rectangle command. I'm going to come up
| | 02:54 | and click the icon, AutoCAD says,
Specify first corner point. Now I happen to
| | 02:58 | be using a Running Object Snap, so I'm
going to place my cursor next to this
| | 03:01 | line and click to grab that end point.
Now I'm going to right click to access
| | 03:07 | the Dimensions sub option. What's my
length? 9 feet, Enter. What's my width? 2
| | 03:14 | feet, Enter. Then lastly, I have to
click to set the location on the opposite
| | 03:19 | corner. Now I don't have to click right
at that corner point as long as I click
| | 03:23 | in this area, that's good enough.
Let me click to finish my rectangle.
| | 03:26 | Let me pan this guy up and we'll take
care of these last two. Now to relaunch
| | 03:32 | the Rectangle command, I'm going to
right click and select Repeat RECTANG. Now
| | 03:37 | in this case I want to create a
rectangle whose dimensions are 3 feet 2 inches
| | 03:41 | x 3 feet 2 inches, but you know what, I
don't have to enter any dimensions this time.
| | 03:45 | Watch this. Let me click my first
corner point. I'll click right here to grab
| | 03:49 | that end and I can finish this
rectangle by simply coming up and clicking this
| | 03:54 | end point. Remember, AutoCAD really
doesn't need dimensions, it just needs the
| | 03:57 | location of the other corner point. I
happen to have an Object Snap at that
| | 04:01 | location. So I'll click and finish
my Rectangle. Let's do the last one.
| | 04:06 | We'll right click, select Repeat
RECTANG and I'm going to try and do the same
| | 04:10 | thing. Now you might think if I click
the end point here, I really don't have a
| | 04:14 | good object snap on this side. I'm just
going to start from a different corner.
| | 04:18 | Let's try this. Let me click my first
corner point right here, and I'll come
| | 04:23 | down and I'll select my
other corner point right here.
| | 04:27 | Once again, I was able to create
that rectangle without needing to enter
| | 04:30 | dimensions. Rectangular shapes are huge
part of two-dimensional drafting. They
| | 04:36 | appear frequently in Civil,
Architectural and Mechanical drawings. I'm sure
| | 04:39 | you'll agree that using the specialized
tool can make us a much more efficient drafter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing ellipses| 00:00 | Back in the old paper and pencil
days creating an ellipse wasn't easy. It
| | 00:04 | usually required the use of a
template or various sized French curves.
| | 00:07 | Fortunately, those days are long behind
us as AutoCAD has provided us a tool to
| | 00:12 | easily create an ellipse of any size
we can imagine. Now I've got a drawing
| | 00:16 | open on my screen, if you'd like to
open the same drawing and work along with
| | 00:19 | me you certainly can. This drawing is
located inside the Chapter 06 folder,
| | 00:23 | inside our Exercise Files directory,
and this drawing is 02_Ellipse.
| | 00:29 | Now, I've got a diagram of an ellipse
on my screen, and an ellipse is kind of
| | 00:33 | like a circle that has two
diameters and each diameter happens to be a
| | 00:37 | different length. The horizontal
diameter is called the Major Axis and the
| | 00:42 | vertical diameter is called the Minor
Axis. Creating an ellipse is very similar
| | 00:46 | to creating a circle. Let's try, I'm
going to pan my drawing over, I've got a
| | 00:52 | couple of ellipses here
that I'd like to recreate.
| | 00:54 | Now before I start, take a look at my
Mode Settings down at the bottom of the
| | 00:57 | screen. I'm currently using my Ortho
Mode, I've got that guy turned on. I'm
| | 01:02 | also using Running Object Snap. If I
right click on this guy, I can see that I
| | 01:06 | have two Running Object Snaps, one for
Center and one for Endpoint. Let me hit
| | 01:10 | Escape to clear that Menu. I'm also
running my Dynamic Input, which will give me
| | 01:15 | my Heads-up Display.
| | 01:16 | All right, let's create an ellipse. To
do that I'm going to come up to the Draw
| | 01:19 | panel and click the Ellipse icon. Make
sure that you don't click the flyout.
| | 01:24 | Let me click the icon. AutoCAD is
asking us to Specify the center point, just
| | 01:29 | like a circle. Let me click to
identify the center and since my Ortho is
| | 01:33 | locked, I can pull to the right. Now
I'm going to enter the length of my Major Axis.
| | 01:38 | Now in example above, my Major Axis
is 42 inches. Remember I'm drawing this
| | 01:43 | ellipse from the center. So I'm going
to have to enter half the distance. So
| | 01:46 | I'll type in 21 inches. This happens to
be an architectural example. Let me hit
| | 01:52 | Enter and then we'll put up or down to
identify our Minor Axis. Since it's 28
| | 01:58 | inches overall, I'm going to type in
14 inches since I'm drawing it from the
| | 02:01 | center. Let me have my quotes, and hit
Enter. I've just recreated that ellipse.
| | 02:06 | Let's do this one. Once again I'm
going to come up and click my Ellipse icon,
| | 02:10 | I'll pick my center point. We'll pull
to the right, and I'm going to type in
| | 02:15 | half of my Major Axis. We'll type in
15 inches, Enter. Then I'm going to pull
| | 02:21 | it in upward direction and we'll type
in 10 inches for the Minor Axis and hit Enter.
| | 02:26 | Now let's address this little flyout,
next to the Ellipse icon. There are
| | 02:30 | several ways to create an ellipse in
AutoCAD. If I click the flyout, I can see
| | 02:35 | each method, the Center, Axis End or
Elliptical Arc. Now the reason why I show
| | 02:40 | you this is because if you
accidentally click one of these, that will end up
| | 02:43 | being the default from now on. AutoCAD
normally defaults to the Center method,
| | 02:48 | so I'm going to click the flyout and
select Center to put that guy back on top.
| | 02:52 | Then I'm going to hit my Escape
key to cancel out of this command.
| | 02:56 | Let's use the Ellipse command for a
practical example. I'm going to zoom out a
| | 03:00 | little bit and pan over. I've got a
portion of a bathroom created on my screen.
| | 03:06 | Now I've already created the geometry
for my shower stall and my whirlpool tub.
| | 03:10 | At this point I'm working on this
counter top, let's zoom in and I'd like to
| | 03:15 | have two basins. I've already
constructed one, I need to add the other one over
| | 03:19 | here. Now I'd like to use basins to be
centered in this area. Let me show you
| | 03:23 | how we can do that.
| | 03:24 | I'm going to create a line segment,
I'm going to come up and launch my Line
| | 03:27 | command, and since I have a Running
Object Snap set, I'm going to come over to
| | 03:32 | click right here. Notice as I move my
Ortho is locked, that's fine, I can still
| | 03:38 | draw to the end point right here.
Let me hit Escape to cancel the command.
| | 03:42 | Now I'm sure that you'll agree that the
midpoint of this line is the center of
| | 03:46 | this area. Let's create an ellipse at
the midpoint of this line. Let me come up
| | 03:51 | and click the Ellipse command. AutoCAD
says Specify center, now I don't have a
| | 03:56 | Running Object Snap set for midpoint,
so I'm going to grab that from the
| | 04:00 | toolbar. Let me come over and click
Midpoint and then we'll click the Line.
| | 04:06 | Okay, let me pull that to right and
we'll identify our Major Axis, remember,
| | 04:10 | one half the distance. So since it's 20
inches I'm going to type 10 inches and
| | 04:14 | hit Enter. I will then pull upward and
will type 9 inches for the Minor Axis
| | 04:21 | and hit Enter. Let's make the last
ellipse. I'm going to come up and click the icon.
| | 04:27 | Now watch this, remember I've got a
Running Object Snap for center point as
| | 04:31 | well. AutoCAD is asking me to specify
the center of my ellipse. If I place my
| | 04:35 | cursor on the ellipse, AutoCAD will
find the center. AutoCAD can find the
| | 04:39 | center of ellipses as well as circles.
| | 04:42 | So I'm going to click right here to
grab the center. I'll pull to the right and
| | 04:47 | I'm going to type 7 inches for my
Major Axis and hit Enter. We'll pull up and
| | 04:52 | we'll type 6 inches for the Minor Axis
and hit Enter. When I'm finished, I'm
| | 04:57 | going to click this line and
press my Delete key on my keyboard.
| | 05:04 | Once you understand the concept of
the Major and Minor Axis, creating an
| | 05:07 | ellipse is as easy as drawing a circle.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organizing with hatch patterns| 00:00 | Hatch patterns have been a major part
of drafting since the days of paper and
| | 00:03 | pencil. Well-placed hatch patterns can
add visual interest to your drawings and
| | 00:07 | help you represent materials to be
used for construction. They are also very
| | 00:11 | easy to create. Now I've got a
drawing open on my screen, if you'd like to
| | 00:14 | open the same drawing and work along
with me, this drawing is located inside
| | 00:18 | the Chapter 06 folder, inside our
Exercise Files directory, and this is the
| | 00:22 | 03_Hatch drawing.
| | 00:24 | Now right now I've got some abstract
geometry on my screen. We're going to use
| | 00:28 | these guys to learn how a Hatch Pattern
works. We're going to start by hatching
| | 00:32 | this circle. So I'm going to click and
hold my wheel to pan over and we'll roll
| | 00:36 | the wheel forward to zoom in,
and we'll launch the Hatch command.
| | 00:42 | Now the Hatch command is located inside
the Draw panel, the icon is right here,
| | 00:46 | I'll click that guy and that brings up
a great big dialog box. Now there are
| | 00:51 | certainly a lot of settings in this
dialog box and we aren't going to be going
| | 00:54 | through all of them, we certainly don't
have to set all of these guys to create
| | 00:58 | hatch. If you have any questions about
what any of these settings do, simply
| | 01:02 | place your cursor over the setting and
AutoCAD will give you more information.
| | 01:06 | Let's start in the Type and pattern
area. This is where we select our Hatch
| | 01:10 | pattern. If you're good with names you
can click this flyout and select a Hatch
| | 01:15 | pattern from the list. Now I'm not
very good at remembering what each name
| | 01:20 | represents, so I'm going to hit the Escape
key to clear that menu and I'm going to
| | 01:23 | click this Ellipses button. This is
probably the most efficient way to select
| | 01:26 | your Hatch patterns.
| | 01:28 | When I do, AutoCAD brings up the
Hatch Pattern palette dialog box, and this
| | 01:32 | dialog allows us to select our Hatch
patterns from Swatch samples. Notice the
| | 01:37 | samples are organized in the tabs,
clicking the tab name allows me to jump
| | 01:42 | through the various tabs. Notice I've
a tab called Custom. We can create our
| | 01:46 | own custom hatch patterns in AutoCAD
and if we had any and we clicked Custom,
| | 01:50 | they would be located here. Now we
don't have any custom hatch patterns, so we
| | 01:53 | won't be using this tab.
Let's go down to the ANSI tab.
| | 01:56 | I'm going to hatch my circle using the
ANSI31 pattern. So I'll select that guy
| | 02:02 | and click OK. Now that he is selected,
I can see the pattern right down here in
| | 02:07 | the Swatch area, and now I can go
ahead and choose my boundary. Now there are
| | 02:11 | two ways to define your hatch
boundary in AutoCAD. We can either select an
| | 02:15 | existing object or we can pick points.
We're going to look at the Select Object
| | 02:19 | method first.
| | 02:19 | Let me click this button, AutoCAD says
Select objects, let me click the circle,
| | 02:25 | and then I'll right click and in the
menu I'm going to come down and select
| | 02:28 | Preview to view our hatch. Now that
pattern is awfully dense, that isn't
| | 02:33 | exactly what I wanted. It is hatched,
but I'd like to make a couple of changes.
| | 02:38 | Notice we're in the Preview feature of
the Hatch command. AutoCAD is saying if
| | 02:42 | I pick or press Escape I can return to
the dialog box, or if I like this hatch
| | 02:47 | pattern I can right click to accept it.
I'm going to hit my Escape key to go back
| | 02:51 | to the dialog box.
| | 02:52 | Let's take a look at the Angle and
scale area. I'd like to change the scale of
| | 02:56 | this hatch pattern. Now right now it's
set to one, I could click this flyout to
| | 03:00 | change the scale, but it's not very
useful, it really only goes up to 2. I'm
| | 03:04 | going to click in the Scale area and
I'm going to type 10, let's change the
| | 03:08 | scale to 10 times what it is right now
and then I want to come down and click Preview.
| | 03:12 | Okay, that works for me let's keep
this. To accept this hatch, I'm going to
| | 03:18 | right click. Let's back up I'm going to
roll my wheel and will pan over here a
| | 03:23 | little bit. We'll zoom in on this guy.
In this case I'd like to create a hatch
| | 03:27 | pattern between the circle and the
rectangle. Now this rectangle was created
| | 03:32 | using the Rectangle command. So AutoCAD
treats it as a single entity. I'm going
| | 03:36 | to hit Escape to de-select the object.
Let's watch the Hatch command again.
| | 03:40 | Let me come up and click Hatch. Let's
choose a different pattern. I'm going to
| | 03:44 | go to my Swatch selector, and this
time I'm going to try ANSI38 and click OK.
| | 03:51 | Once again we're going to do Select
objects, and when AutoCAD says Select
| | 03:57 | objects I will select the circle and
then I will select the rectangle and right
| | 04:01 | click and then in the menu I'll select Preview.
| | 04:05 | Notice if I select two closed objects,
AutoCAD will hatch the area between
| | 04:09 | them. Once again I'd like to make a
small change, I'm going to hit Escape to go
| | 04:13 | back to the dialog box. Let's change
the angle, I'm going to click the flyout
| | 04:17 | and we'll change this to 90 degrees
of what it is now, and as long as we're
| | 04:21 | here I want you to take a look at the
Options area. Notice I have a check in
| | 04:25 | the Associative option,
let's come down and click OK.
| | 04:29 | Now I've accepted that hatch, it's now
90 degrees rotated to what it was. Let's
| | 04:34 | talk about what that Associative option
does for us. Associative means that the
| | 04:38 | hatch is tied to our entities, they
have a relationship. Let me show you what I
| | 04:43 | mean. If I click this rectangle to
select it, I can click this little blue
| | 04:47 | square, and I can move it another
place on my screen and click again. Notice
| | 04:52 | the hatch pattern is smart enough to go
along for the ride. I can click, move,
| | 04:57 | click, and the hatch pattern always
stays with the entities. That's what the
| | 05:01 | Associative option does for us. Let me
hit Escape to de-select by line work and
| | 05:06 | I'd like to hatch one more thing. Let
me back up, we'll pan up, I'd like to
| | 05:10 | hatch these entities.
| | 05:12 | Now in this case, I don't have a nice
closed object that I can select. In this
| | 05:16 | case I have three individual line
segments and I'd like to hatch the area in
| | 05:21 | between them. Let me hit Escape to de-
select them and I'll try and hatch this
| | 05:25 | area. I'm going to come up and launch
my Hatch command. We'll pick a different
| | 05:29 | pattern, let me click the Ellipses.
Let's go to Other Predefined and see what we have.
| | 05:33 | Let's come down and grab EscapeHER, this
is probably the only time in your life
| | 05:38 | we'll use the EscapeHER hatch pattern.
I'll click OK, I'm going to leave Angle and
| | 05:43 | Scale alone. This time we're going to
choose our Hatch Boundary by picking
| | 05:46 | points. If I do not have closed objects,
I will use the Pick Points method. Let
| | 05:53 | me click, AutoCAD is saying Pick
internal point, I'm going to click right
| | 05:57 | inside these three lines. When I do,
AutoCAD finds the edges; it's very similar
| | 06:03 | to throwing a rock in a puddle, I
throw the rock, the waves fan out and they
| | 06:07 | find the edges.
| | 06:09 | Now that AutoCAD has identified my
boundary I'm going to right click and select
| | 06:12 | Preview, and that area is now hatched.
In this case I'm going to accept the
| | 06:17 | hatch pattern, so I'm going to right
click. Now if you'd like to edit existing
| | 06:23 | hatch, it's very easy, just place your
cursor on top of the hatch and double
| | 06:26 | click. When you do, AutoCAD takes you
right back to the Hatch Edit dialog box,
| | 06:31 | and it's just like you're creating it
for the first time. You know what, I
| | 06:34 | didn't want it to be the ANSI38, I'd
have rather had this be the ANSI37. I'll
| | 06:40 | select a new pattern, we'll click OK,
and we'll click OK, and the pattern has
| | 06:44 | changed. Let's try and use the
Hatch command in a practical example.
| | 06:48 | Let me back up, we'll pan over. I've
got a portion of a bathroom drawn on my
| | 06:54 | screen. I'm starting to get a lot of
line work in this drawing. What I'd like
| | 06:58 | to do is I'd like to place a hatch
pattern on the interior of my walls to help
| | 07:02 | simplify the appearance of this drawing.
Now my walls are individual entities.
| | 07:08 | I don't have a nice shape that I can
click to define the boundary. Let me hit
| | 07:11 | Escape to de-select and
we'll try and hatch the walls.
| | 07:14 | I'm going to come up and launch my
Hatch command. When this comes up, I'm going
| | 07:18 | to use the Pick Points method, AutoCAD
says Pick internal point, I'm going to
| | 07:24 | place my cursor in between the walls
and click. Notice AutoCAD worked this way
| | 07:28 | all the way around and it's stopped at
the window. That's all right, because
| | 07:31 | AutoCAD is still allowing me to pick
another internal point. Let me click over
| | 07:35 | here to finish my selection.
| | 07:37 | When I'm done I'll right click and
select Preview, and I'm still using that
| | 07:42 | EscapeHER pattern. Let me roll my wheel
back. I'd rather use the pattern that we
| | 07:46 | started with. Since I'm in the Preview
Mode I'm going to hit my Escape key to go
| | 07:50 | back to the dialog box and let's use
this button, Inherit Properties. If I
| | 07:56 | click this button, AutoCAD says,
Select a hatch object. If I come over and
| | 08:00 | select an existing hatch object,
AutoCAD will populate the dialog box with
| | 08:05 | those settings. Then I can come
down and click OK to accept my hatch.
| | 08:12 | Hatch patterns can be very effective
in helping you visually organize your
| | 08:15 | drawings. They can also quickly
transform an average drawing into a
| | 08:18 | professional looking presentation.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing polygons| 00:00 | Another shape we see frequently in
our AutoCAD drawings are polygons.
| | 00:04 | A polygon, generally speaking is a closed
object whose sides are all of the same
| | 00:08 | length. An example would be a
Hexagon or an Octagon or a Square.
| | 00:12 | Polygons are used for everything from
Callout Symbols to hex bolts to gazebos.
| | 00:16 | Let's look at how we can create them
using AutoCAD. Now I'm working in an
| | 00:19 | existing drawing. If you'd like to
open this drawing as well, it's located
| | 00:23 | inside the Chapter 06 folder, inside
your Exercise Files directory and this is
| | 00:27 | the 04_Polygon drawing.
| | 00:30 | Now if we look at the screen, we can
see several examples of Polygons. Each of
| | 00:34 | these guys was created using the
Polygon command in AutoCAD. One important
| | 00:38 | note, every polygon we create in
AutoCAD will have sides of equal length,
| | 00:43 | that's because every polygon is created
based on imaginary circle. If I pan my
| | 00:47 | drawing over just holding the wheel
down on my mouse to pan, I can see the
| | 00:54 | imaginary circle that was used
to create each of these polygons.
| | 00:57 | Creating a polygon in AutoCAD is
actually very similar to creating a circle.
| | 01:01 | AutoCAD will first ask us the number
of sides and then it will ask us for a
| | 01:04 | center point and a radius. There is
just one more thing that we need to think
| | 01:08 | about when creating a polygon, is it
inscribed or circumscribed? Let me pan
| | 01:13 | over again, we'll back up a little bit.
| | 01:17 | If I know the distance to the corners,
the polygon is an Inscribed Polygon
| | 01:22 | because it falls on the inside of the
imaginary circle. If I know the distance
| | 01:26 | to the faces, I have a Circumscribed
Polygon because the polygon falls on the
| | 01:31 | outside of the imaginary circle.
Let's try and create some polygons.
| | 01:34 | I'm gong to pan my drawing over. I've
got a metric example over here. This is a
| | 01:39 | metric socket wrench and what we're
going to do is recreate some of these
| | 01:43 | sockets. Let's start with the one of
the left first. I'm going to zoom in,
| | 01:47 | we'll center this guy on screen. Now
before we get started, I want to mention
| | 01:51 | that I'm using my Dynamic Input, I also
have some Running Object Snap set. If I
| | 01:55 | right click on this mode we can see
that I'm currently running Center and
| | 01:59 | Endpoint. Let me hit Escape to clear that
menu and my Ortho mode is also locked,
| | 02:04 | so I'm restricted to 90 degree movements.
| | 02:06 | All right, let's recreate this polygon.
To do that I'm going to come up with
| | 02:10 | the Draw panel, and click the Polygon
tool. AutoCAD is asking me for the number
| | 02:15 | of sides. Now four happens to be
perfect, so I'm going to hit Enter to accept
| | 02:19 | that number. Now AutoCAD is asking me
to specify the center of my polygon.
| | 02:24 | Well, since I have a Running Object
Snap for center point, I can just place my
| | 02:27 | cursor on the arc and click,
and AutoCAD finds the center.
| | 02:31 | Is this an Inscribed or a
Circumscribed Polygon? Well, I know the distance to
| | 02:36 | the faces, so it's circumscribed. Let
me select Circumscribed and then AutoCAD
| | 02:41 | is asking me a radius. Here's the
trick, the dimension that we're given is
| | 02:45 | actually the diameter of the imaginary
circle, so my radius is going to be half
| | 02:50 | the distance. Let me type 8 and hit
Enter and I've just recreated that polygon.
| | 02:55 | Let me pan this over, and let's
recreate this guy. Once again I'm going to come
| | 03:01 | up and click my Polygon tool. For my
number of sides I'm going to type 6, and
| | 03:06 | hit Enter. I will specify the center
point I'm going to come down and place my
| | 03:10 | cursor on the arc and click to grab
the center. Now is this inscribed or
| | 03:14 | circumscribed? Well, in this case I
know the distance to the corner, so this
| | 03:18 | one is inscribed. So I'll select that option.
| | 03:21 | Then finally, what's my Radius?
Once again, I have the diameter of the
| | 03:26 | imaginary circle and my Ortho is
locked, so I'm going to pull in the
| | 03:30 | appropriate direction to define my
rotation and we'll type 10 for a Radius and hit Enter.
| | 03:39 | The Polygon command is a much more
efficient way of creating equilateral shapes
| | 03:42 | than drafting them by hand. Once you
understand the meaning behind inscribed
| | 03:46 | and circumscribed, you can easily
create any polygon you can imagine.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Primary ModificationsMoving and copying elements| 00:00 | AutoCAD's Move and Copy commands work
side by side, allowing us to quickly
| | 00:04 | reposition or duplicate our entities.
Now I say side by side, because these
| | 00:08 | commands essentially work the
same way. Let's take a look.
| | 00:12 | Now I've got an existing drawing on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:15 | drawing so that you can work along
with me, this guy is located inside the
| | 00:19 | Chapter 07 folder inside our Exercise
Files directory and this is the 01_Move
| | 00:25 | and Copy drawing.
| | 00:25 | We're going to take a look at the Move
command first. Now I've got two squares
| | 00:30 | on my screen. Right now my smaller
square is centered on the upper left corner
| | 00:35 | of the large square. Let's say I'd
like to move my small square from this
| | 00:40 | corner to this corner, I'm going to
do that by using the Move command.
| | 00:44 | Now if I'm moving an object, I'm making
a modification. So we're going to look
| | 00:48 | in the Modify panel and the Move
command is right here. When I launch the Move
| | 00:54 | command AutoCAD asks me to select
objects. I will place my cursor on the square
| | 00:59 | and click. Notice AutoCAD doesn't
recognize that I'm done selecting objects. If
| | 01:04 | we want to identify to AutoCAD that we
have finished selecting objects, we need
| | 01:08 | to right click.
| | 01:10 | Now AutoCAD is asking me to specify
a base point, what would be the most
| | 01:13 | logical point for me to use to pick
up this object? Well I've got a Running
| | 01:17 | Object Snap set for Endpoint. I'm
going to move in and I'm going to click the
| | 01:21 | Endpoint right here. I've just picked
that square up from that endpoint. Now
| | 01:26 | AutoCAD is saying Specify second point.
Where do I want to put this down? Well
| | 01:31 | I'm going to move over and I'll click
the endpoint right here. I've just moved
| | 01:35 | the square from one corner
to the other. Let's undo.
| | 01:40 | I'd like to move this square again,
this time I'd like to use a different
| | 01:43 | method. Let's launch the Move command.
Once again, select objects, I'll click
| | 01:49 | the square and then right click,
specify base point. I'm going to pick the
| | 01:54 | point right here and let's say I'd like
to move the square 8 units to the right
| | 02:00 | or directly horizontal on my screen.
Let me come down and lock my Ortho and
| | 02:06 | we'll pull in this direction and I'm
going to type in 8 and hit Enter. I've
| | 02:12 | just moved the square 8 units. I did
that using the Direct Distance Entry
| | 02:17 | method. Let's undo again.
| | 02:20 | Let's look at an interesting feature
that involves the Move command. Once again
| | 02:23 | I'm going to come up and click Move,
we'll select our square and right click,
| | 02:28 | base point. I'm going to click the
endpoint right here. I'm now holding the
| | 02:32 | square from that location, notice I
have a ghosted version of the square's
| | 02:37 | original location. I have access to
the Object Snaps on the ghosted version.
| | 02:43 | Let's place into the endpoint here.
Once again I'm going to undo. Let's take a
| | 02:48 | look at the Copy command.
| | 02:49 | Now Copy and Move are essentially the
same command, the only difference being
| | 02:54 | that when I copy I get to keep my
original. The Copy command is located right
| | 02:58 | up here, let me click the icon, select
objects, we'll grab the square and right
| | 03:04 | click, specify base point. Let's pick
him up from the corner point again. I'm
| | 03:09 | now holding him from a central location
and where do I want to place him? Let's
| | 03:13 | place him to the other corner point.
I'll click, I've just made a copy, notice
| | 03:18 | I'm still in the Copy command.
AutoCAD defaults to a multiple copy mode.
| | 03:24 | So if wanted to create more copies I
could come down and click one here. I can
| | 03:27 | drop another one here, I can free pick
squares on my screen if I wanted. When
| | 03:33 | I'm all done I can right click and
select Exit to cancel the command. Let's
| | 03:38 | undo. Let's try using the Move and
Copy commands in a practical example. I'm
| | 03:43 | going to zoom out a little bit. We'll
pan the drawing up and we'll zoom in.
| | 03:48 | Now, this is a Civil Engineering
example, what I have are a series of parking
| | 03:53 | stalls that are on the South side of a
proposed building. Now if I look at our
| | 03:58 | handicap stall, technically this guy
was drawn incorrect. Usually we have the
| | 04:03 | symbol on the left side and the hatch
pattern on the right. Let's correct this
| | 04:07 | using Move and Copy.
| | 04:08 | I'm going to come up and launch my Move
command, AutoCAD says move what? Let me
| | 04:13 | click this symbol and then right click.
Now base point, where would I like to
| | 04:18 | pick this guy up from? Now it's not
going to help me very much to pick a point
| | 04:22 | on the object, I tell you what, this
stall and this stall share a common point.
| | 04:28 | I'm going to pick him up from the
endpoint here and I'm going to place him to
| | 04:33 | the endpoint here. Now he is in the
right location. Let's move again. I'm going
| | 04:39 | to right click and select Repeat MOVE.
| | 04:42 | Let's grab the hatch pattern, we'll
grab this line. Let's grab the ramp and the
| | 04:48 | score lines and then we'll right click
to let AutoCAD know we're done selecting
| | 04:52 | objects. Specify base point, once
again I'm going to choose a common point
| | 04:57 | between the stalls. I'll pick them up
from the endpoint here and I'll place
| | 05:02 | them to the endpoint here. I've got one
more thing I need to correct, I'd like
| | 05:06 | to add a line right here. Let's do
that with the Copy command. I'm going to
| | 05:10 | come with launch Copy, AutoCAD says
copy what, we'll select this guy and right
| | 05:16 | click. I'd like to copy him from the
endpoint here to the endpoint there and
| | 05:21 | when I'm finished with the command
I can right click and select Exit.
| | 05:25 | Now knowing the Move and Copy command,
I could quickly create two more handicap
| | 05:29 | stalls. Let's try that. I'm going to
come up and click Copy, let's copy the
| | 05:35 | symbol and the hatch. The line will
grab our ramp and the two score lines, I'm
| | 05:41 | just going to click on everything that
I want to copy and when I'm done, I'll
| | 05:44 | right click, and we'll copy these
guys from common points, I will copy them
| | 05:50 | from the endpoint here to the
endpoint here, to the endpoint here. When I'm
| | 05:56 | finished, I can right click and select
Exit or we can always hit our Escape key to
| | 06:01 | cancel the command.
| | 06:02 | As you can see, the functionality of
the Move and Copy commands are essentially
| | 06:06 | the same. The only real difference is
whether or not your selected objects
| | 06:10 | remain in their original position.
Knowing how to use these commands can save
| | 06:14 | us a great deal of time when
we're redrawing our entities.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rotating elements| 00:00 | Rotate is another fundamental skill we
need to work effectively in AutoCAD. I'm
| | 00:04 | sure you'd agree that it's much faster
to rotate a chair than it would be draw
| | 00:08 | a new one at a different rotation.
Let's look at how we can use AutoCAD to
| | 00:12 | rotate our entities. Now I've got an
existing drawing open on my screen. If
| | 00:16 | you'd also like to open this drawing
and work along with me, this drawing is
| | 00:20 | located inside the Chapter 07 folder
inside our Exercise Files directory and
| | 00:25 | this is the 02_Rotate drawing.
| | 00:27 | Now I've got an abstract drawing of a
clock on my screen, and we're going to
| | 00:32 | use this guy to learn how the Rotate
command works. Now if I'm going to rotate
| | 00:36 | entities, I'm making a modification.
So we'll find the Rotate command in the
| | 00:40 | Modify panel on our ribbon. Let me
come up into the Modify panel and I'll
| | 00:44 | select the Rotate tool. AutoCAD asks
me to select objects, well, I'd like to
| | 00:49 | rotate this hand, so I'm going to
click on it to select it and then I'm going
| | 00:53 | to right click so that AutoCAD
knows I'm done with my selection.
| | 00:56 | Now AutoCAD is asking me to specify a
base point. At what point would I like to
| | 01:02 | rotate my entity around? Well, I'd like
to rotate it around the center of this
| | 01:07 | hand. Now I happened to have a Running
Object Snap set for center point, so as
| | 01:11 | I place my cursor close to the arc
AutoCAD will find the center. Now I have to
| | 01:16 | be careful because I also have a
Running Object Snap set for endpoint and if
| | 01:19 | I'm a little bit too close to the one
side I may grab the wrong object snap. So
| | 01:23 | let me move up and I'll click right
here to grab the center and I'm now able to
| | 01:28 | rotate this entity.
| | 01:30 | Now I could free pick a point on
screen but instead I'm going to type in an
| | 01:34 | angle. I'm going to type in 45 for 45
degrees and hit Enter. Now if we enter a
| | 01:42 | positive angle in AutoCAD, the
entity will rotate in a counter-clockwise
| | 01:47 | direction. If we enter a negative
angle, the entity will rotate clockwise.
| | 01:53 | Let's rotate this guy again.
| | 01:54 | I'm going to come up and click the
Rotate tool, AutoCAD asks me to select
| | 01:58 | objects. We'll grab the hand and right
click. Specify base point, once again
| | 02:04 | I'm going to grab the center of the
hand, I'll click right here and this time
| | 02:10 | before we do our rotation I want you to
take a look at the command line. Notice
| | 02:13 | I have some sub options. We're going
to try the Copy sub option. Let me right
| | 02:17 | click and select Copy.
| | 02:20 | Now when I rotate my entity, I will
still be able to keep the original. This
| | 02:25 | time I'm going to set my rotation
for -60 degrees. I'm going to create my
| | 02:30 | rotated copy 60 degrees clockwise.
Let me hit Enter to finish the command.
| | 02:37 | Let's try the Rotate command in a
practical example. I'm going to zoom back,
| | 02:41 | we'll pan over a little bit,
we'll zoom in on this geometry.
| | 02:46 | Now on my screen I've got some cubes.
These are similar to what you'd see in an
| | 02:49 | office or a bank environment. I'm
currently putting in the furniture and I've
| | 02:54 | just finished copying my chair from one
cube to another. Now this chair happens
| | 02:58 | to be facing the wrong direction, let's
fix him with the Rotate command. Let me
| | 03:03 | zoom in, I'm going to come up and
launch the Rotate command, AutoCAD says
| | 03:08 | select objects, I'll click the chair
and right click. Specify base point, now
| | 03:14 | this is a chair, I really don't need a
high degree of mathematical certainty
| | 03:18 | when I grab my center point, I'm just
going to pick a point right here in the
| | 03:21 | middle of the seat. Specify rotation
angle, I want to rotate this guy a 180
| | 03:26 | degrees, so I'm going to type 180
and hit Enter and that chair has been corrected.
| | 03:32 | Let's turn it up a notch, I'm going to
back up a little bit, we'll pan to this
| | 03:36 | cube in the upper right. What if I'd
like to rotate the entire contents of this
| | 03:40 | cube, 90 degrees? Well, since this guy
by definition is a cube, it's a perfect
| | 03:45 | square. Let's rotate the contents
around the center of this area. I'll define
| | 03:51 | the center of this area, I'm going to
create a line segment. I'm going to come
| | 03:54 | up and click the line and I want to
create a line from the endpoint here to the
| | 03:59 | endpoint here. When I'm done I'll hit Escape.
| | 04:03 | Now the midpoint of this line
represents the center of the space. Let's rotate
| | 04:08 | our entities around that point. Let
me hit Escape to de-select my line and
| | 04:13 | we'll launch the Rotate command. I'm
going to come up and click the Rotate
| | 04:16 | icon, AutoCAD says Select objects,
we'll grab at the two tables, the chair and
| | 04:23 | the computer and right click. Specify
base point, well, I don't have a Running
| | 04:28 | Object Snap set for midpoint so I'm
going to grab it from the toolbar. I'm
| | 04:31 | going to come over and click right
here from midpoint and then I'll select my line.
| | 04:37 | Now for an angle I'm going to type
in 90 degrees, because I'd like him to
| | 04:40 | rotate counter clockwise. Let me hit
Enter to complete my rotation and then
| | 04:45 | lastly we'll get rid of our sketch line.
I'll click this guy once to select him
| | 04:49 | and then we'll hit the
Delete key on our keyboard.
| | 04:53 | The most important thing to
remember about the Rotate command is that a
| | 04:56 | positive angle will rotate your objects
counter-clockwise. Once you understand
| | 05:00 | this concept, the power of this
command is only limited by your imagination.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating offset lines| 00:00 | The Offset command is yet another way
to make copies of our entities. What
| | 00:03 | makes the Offset command special is
that it makes parallel copies. Now I've got
| | 00:07 | an existing drawing open on my screen.
If you'd like to open the same drawing,
| | 00:11 | it's located inside the Chapter 07
folder inside the Exercise Files directory
| | 00:16 | and this is the 03_Offset drawing.
| | 00:19 | Now, I've got some abstract geometry on
my screen, and we're going to use this
| | 00:23 | line work to learn how the Offset
command works. Now an offset is a
| | 00:27 | modification so we'll find the command
on the Modify panel of our ribbon. We'll
| | 00:32 | come up and click the icon right here.
The first thing AutoCAD wants is my
| | 00:37 | Offset Distance. For example, I'm
going to type in 0.5 and hit Enter. Now
| | 00:43 | AutoCAD says Select object to offset,
let's select this arc. I'll come over and
| | 00:48 | click and then AutoCAD says specify
point on side to offset. AutoCAD knows it's
| | 00:53 | creating a parallel copy, it just needs
to know which side you'd like to place your copy.
| | 00:59 | Let me click on the outside to create
my copy. Notice I'm still in the Offset
| | 01:05 | command. That means if I wanted to
create a copy on the other side, I could
| | 01:09 | select my original entity again and
then click on the inside. Once again, I'm
| | 01:14 | still in the command. Offset is kind of
like the command that doesn't know when
| | 01:17 | to quit. If we would like to cancel
out of the Offset command we can right
| | 01:21 | click and select Exit.
Let's create another offset.
| | 01:25 | I'm going to come up again and click my
Offset icon. This time for my distance
| | 01:30 | I'm going to type 0.75 and hit Enter.
Object to offset, I'm going to select
| | 01:35 | this circle and we'll offset it to
both the outside and we'll click it again
| | 01:40 | and we'll offset it to the inside.
Let's offset this line, I'm still in the
| | 01:44 | Command. Let me click the line.
AutoCAD wants me to choose a side. Now notice
| | 01:50 | that I've got a Running Object Snap set.
Be careful if you use Running Object
| | 01:55 | Snaps when you're doing an offset,
because if I click here to identify my side,
| | 02:01 | I'm actually picking the endpoint of
that line which falls on the line itself,
| | 02:05 | and I'm forcing AutoCAD to guess
which side I'd like to create my Offset.
| | 02:09 | I'm going to move down and click
right here to identify the side. When I'm
| | 02:13 | finished I'll right click and select
Exit to cancel the command. Let's try and
| | 02:17 | use the Offset command in a practical
example. I'm going to zoom out, we'll pan
| | 02:22 | over a little bit. Now the drawing I
have on screen is a Civil Engineering
| | 02:27 | example. In this drawing every unit
equals one foot. Now in the drawing I've
| | 02:32 | got an existing property line. I've
got a proposed building, and a proposed
| | 02:37 | parking lot. Let's finish this drawing
using the Offset command. We'll do the
| | 02:41 | building first.
| | 02:42 | Let me zoom in, we'll center this guy
on screen. This line represents the outer
| | 02:47 | edge of my foundation. Now my
foundation is going to be one foot wide so I'd
| | 02:52 | like to offset this line in one foot to
represent my foundation. Let's do that.
| | 02:58 | I'm going to come up and launch the
Offset command. Let me set my distance to 1
| | 03:03 | and hit Enter. Select object to offset,
I'll grab the building and I'll click
| | 03:07 | on the inside to create my foundation.
| | 03:11 | Now that I'm finished, I'm going to
right click and select Exit. Let's finish
| | 03:15 | up our parking lot striping. Now a
typical parking stall is nine feet wide, I'd
| | 03:21 | like to offset this original line
several times until I fill up this space with
| | 03:25 | parking stalls. Let's try that, I'm
going to launch the Offset command, specify
| | 03:30 | distance, I'm going to type 9, and
hit Enter. I do not need to use an
| | 03:35 | apostrophe, remember this is a Civil
Engineering example, so every unit equals
| | 03:39 | one foot. Select object to offset,
I'll grab this line, and I want to make a
| | 03:43 | copy on this side. Then I'll grab the
line and I'll make a copy and I'll grab
| | 03:48 | the line and I'll make a copy. Now as
fun as that is, it could be very tedious
| | 03:52 | especially if you have a large space
to fill. Let me show you a shortcut.
| | 03:56 | If I click the line to offset, notice
at the Command Line I've got a sub option
| | 04:01 | of Multiple. Let's access the sub
option, I'm going to right click, select
| | 04:06 | Multiple and now as fast as I click
I'm creating an offset copy from every
| | 04:11 | subsequent copy. We'll keep clicking
until the parking lot is full. When I'm
| | 04:16 | finished I'm going to
right click and select Exit.
| | 04:19 | Now the primary use of offset is to
create a parallel copy. Offset also does a
| | 04:24 | fantastic job in locating points in
space. Let me show you what I mean. I'm
| | 04:29 | going to pan this to the middle of the
screen. I've got a stop sign right down
| | 04:34 | here. Now this line represents my
property line but this line represents my
| | 04:39 | edge of pavement as the people are
driving out of the parking lot. I'd zoom in.
| | 04:45 | Let's say I'd like to place the stop
sign exactly three feet away from my
| | 04:49 | property line and three feet away
from my edge of pavement. I can use the
| | 04:53 | Offset command to find that location
in space. Let me come up and launch
| | 04:58 | Offset. My distance is going to be 3,
Enter. I will offset my property line in
| | 05:05 | this direction. This shows me all
points 3 feet away from my property line. I
| | 05:10 | will then click my edge of pavement and
make a parallel copy to this direction,
| | 05:15 | this shows me all points three feet
away from edge of pavement and where these
| | 05:19 | two lines intersect that's
where I want to place my stop sign.
| | 05:23 | Now that I'm finished with the Offset
command, I'm going to right click and
| | 05:25 | select Exit. Let's move the Stop sign.
I'm going to come up and launch my Move
| | 05:30 | command, AutoCAD says move what, I'll
click the sign and then right click. Base
| | 05:35 | point, where do I want to pick it up?
Now I've got a Running Object Snap set
| | 05:38 | for center point, so I'm just going
to click on the arc, AutoCAD finds the
| | 05:43 | center. Now where do I want to
place this? I want to place it at the
| | 05:46 | intersection of those two lines. Now I
don't have a Running Object Snap set for
| | 05:50 | intersection so I'm going to grab it
from the toolbar. I'll come over and
| | 05:54 | click. I'll place them on the
intersection and click. When I'm done I can click
| | 05:59 | my two copies to select them and then
I'll hit my Delete key on my keyboard.
| | 06:05 | The Offset command is probably one of
AutoCAD's most useful tools. Not only is
| | 06:10 | it great for making parallel copies,
it's also fantastic for finding locations in space.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Erasing elements| 00:00 | Change is a fact of life and if you
draft architectural plans for a living
| | 00:04 | you'll find that changes happen about
every ten minutes. Sometimes the changes
| | 00:08 | we make require us to remove line work
from our drawing. Let's look at how we
| | 00:12 | can use AutoCAD to erase entities.
| | 00:14 | Now I've got an existing drawing that
I've opened on my screen. If you want to
| | 00:17 | open the same drawing and work along
with me, this drawling is located inside
| | 00:21 | the Chapter 07 folder inside our
Exercise Files directory and this is the
| | 00:25 | 04_Erase drawing.
| | 00:27 | Now I've got an example of a Civil
Engineering drawing on my screen. This is a
| | 00:32 | drawing that represents some handicap
parking stalls that are on the South side
| | 00:36 | of a proposed restaurant. Now let's
assume that the architect has moved the
| | 00:40 | entrance of the building to the North
side. That means that these handicap
| | 00:44 | stalls are going to move along with
the entrance. So I no longer need them on
| | 00:48 | this side of a building. So I'm going
to need to remove some geometry from my
| | 00:52 | drawing. I can do that by
using the Erase command.
| | 00:55 | Now I can find the Erase command
right up here in the Modify panel of our
| | 00:59 | ribbon. Let me click the Erase tool.
AutoCAD asks me to select objects, we'll
| | 01:04 | grab this symbol, I'll come over and
I'll click this symbol and I'll click this
| | 01:08 | one. After I've grabbed those three I
will right click to finish my selection
| | 01:12 | and those guys are erased. It's that
simple. Let's get rid of the rest of the
| | 01:15 | stuff that we don't need.
| | 01:16 | Once again, I'm going to come up and
click Erase. Select objects. Now I don't
| | 01:21 | need the ramps, or the score lines,
or these hatch patterns. So we'll click
| | 01:27 | each one that we want to remove. I've
got one more line down here I want to get
| | 01:34 | rid of, there we go. Now that I've
selected everything that I'd like to erase,
| | 01:38 | I'm going to right click
to finish the selection.
| | 01:41 | So if your design requirements change
or if the needs of your client change or
| | 01:46 | if you just feel like throwing away a
part of your drawing and starting over
| | 01:49 | you could always remove your unwanted
entities by using the Erase command.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Undoing and redoing actions| 00:00 | If you were to ask most AutoCAD users
what their favorite command is, Undo
| | 00:04 | would most likely be their answer.
Let's face it, we all make mistakes and when
| | 00:08 | we do, it's nice to know that the Undo
command will let us put things back the
| | 00:12 | way they were. Now I've got an
existing drawing on screen. If you'd like to
| | 00:16 | open this same drawing, it's located
inside the Chapter 07 folder inside the
| | 00:20 | Exercise Files directory.
| | 00:22 | Now this is a metric example, this is
a metric socket wrench, and I've got a
| | 00:26 | couple of sockets. Now to demo the
Undo command first I have to do something.
| | 00:32 | So I'm going to finish this socket down
on the end. Let me zoom in and this is
| | 00:37 | going to require me to create a Polygon.
Let me come up and click my Polygon
| | 00:41 | tool in the Draw panel of our ribbon.
Number of sides, I'm going to set this to
| | 00:46 | 8, I will hit Enter. Specify center
of polygon, now I have a Running Object
| | 00:51 | Snap set for center so I can place my
cursor on the arc and click. Is this
| | 00:57 | inscribed or circumscribed? I'm going
to select Inscribed, and I'm going to set
| | 01:01 | the radius of my circle to 10, and hit Enter.
| | 01:05 | So I've just done one thing, let's do
one more thing. I'm going to pan back and
| | 01:10 | let's zoom in on this thumb switch.
I'd like to change the rotation of this
| | 01:16 | thumb switch, let's do that, I'm going
to use my Rotate command, I will click
| | 01:20 | Rotate. Select objects, I'll grab the
switch and then right click. Base point,
| | 01:26 | at what point would I like to rotate
this guy? I'm going to place my cursor on
| | 01:31 | the arc and grab the center point and
click and for a rotation angle I'm going
| | 01:36 | to type in something that's obviously
wrong I'm going to type in a 180 and hit Enter.
| | 01:41 | Well, now that's incorrect. I'd like to
undo that particular command. Up at the
| | 01:47 | top of my interface, notice I have a
little backwards facing arrow. This guy
| | 01:51 | represents our Undo command. If I click
Undo, AutoCAD will remove the previous
| | 01:56 | command. Now before I click this guy,
take a look at the icon right next to
| | 02:00 | him. This guy represents Redo and his
is currently grayed out. Okay, let's click Undo.
| | 02:06 | Notice the command was removed, I'm
back where I started and now I have access
| | 02:11 | to Redo. You see I can use Undo and
Redo to go forward and backward through my
| | 02:16 | drawing. Let's go back one more step.
Let me click Undo that removes my pan or
| | 02:22 | my view change. If I click Undo again
I remove my polygon. Let's click Redo,
| | 02:28 | we'll go forward, I'll click Redo,
it gets me my polygon back. Click Redo
| | 02:32 | again, takes me back to the thumb
switch and then Redo again, puts it back to
| | 02:36 | the incorrect location.
| | 02:38 | Once again I'm going to click Undo to
take that incorrect rotation away. Now
| | 02:42 | it's important to note that a Redo
can only follow an Undo. If I launch the
| | 02:48 | Move command, perhaps as soon as I
click Move, notice the Redo command is now
| | 02:53 | grayed out. That means Redo is no
longer available. So the Redo command can
| | 02:57 | only follow an Undo. I'm going to
hit Escape to cancel the Move command.
| | 03:03 | The Undo command is a lot like an
insurance policy. No matter what we may do to
| | 03:07 | our drawing, we can always use the
Undo command to go back and restore our geometry.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Selecting EntitiesSelecting elements with windows | 00:00 | As we become more experienced using
AutoCAD, the drawings we create will become
| | 00:03 | larger and contain more entities.
Sometimes making changes may require us to
| | 00:08 | select several objects at a time.
Let's look at how we can use AutoCAD to
| | 00:12 | efficiently select multiple objects.
I've got an existing drawing open on my
| | 00:16 | screen. If you'd like to open the
same drawling, it's located inside the
| | 00:20 | Chapter 08 folder inside the
Exercise Files directory. This is drawing
| | 00:24 | 01_Window_Crossing Window.
| | 00:27 | Now I've got a series of nine circles
on my screen and let's say I'd like to
| | 00:31 | erase four of them. Let's try and
erase these four. I'm going to come up and
| | 00:35 | click my Erase icon and then I'm going
to come down and I could pick each of
| | 00:40 | these guys individually, but instead
I'm going to select them a different way.
| | 00:44 | I'm going to select them by using a
window. To do that I'm going to move right
| | 00:48 | up here, the upper left hand corner
and click. As I move my cursor down into
| | 00:53 | the right, notice I'm creating a blue
shape, more importantly look at the liner
| | 00:57 | on the outside it happens to be a solid line.
| | 01:00 | What I'm doing is I'm creating a
window selection. Anything that falls
| | 01:04 | completely within this window will be
selected. So if I was to move all the way
| | 01:09 | down here, and click to finish my
window, notice only these four circles were
| | 01:14 | selected, because they were the only
ones that fit completely within the
| | 01:17 | window. Let me right click to
finish the Erase command. Let's undo.
| | 01:24 | This time let's try the Move command.
Let's say I'd like to move these four
| | 01:27 | circles. I'm going to come up and
click my Move icon. Once again AutoCAD says
| | 01:32 | select objects. Let's try a different
type of selection. This time I'm going to
| | 01:37 | move to the upper right of my objects
and click and as I move my cursor down
| | 01:42 | and to the left notice I'm creating a
green shape. Once again, notice the edge
| | 01:46 | it's a hidden dashed line.
This is called a Crossing Window.
| | 01:51 | Now with a crossing window, I will
select everything that falls completely
| | 01:54 | within or crosses over the edge of
the window. So if want to select these
| | 01:58 | bottom four circles, I can finish my
window right here and I'll still grab all
| | 02:04 | four of them because these two fell
within the selection and these two crossed
| | 02:08 | over the edge. Once again, I can right
click to finish my selection and then if
| | 02:12 | I wanted to, I could continue with the
Move command. Instead, I'm going to hit
| | 02:16 | my Escape key to cancel.
| | 02:17 | Now there is no magic to accessing
the Window or the Crossing Window. It's
| | 02:22 | essentially controlled by the direction
you move your cursor. Let me show you.
| | 02:27 | I'm going to launch the Rotate command
for instance. Any command that asks you
| | 02:31 | to select objects, you can use the
Window or the Crossing Window. Let me click
| | 02:36 | right here on my screen and notice
if I move to the right I'm creating a
| | 02:40 | Window, if I move to the left I'm
creating a Crossing Window. Then I'm going to
| | 02:45 | hit Escape to cancel the command.
| | 02:46 | Let's try and use the Window and the
Crossing Window in a practical example.
| | 02:50 | I'm going to zoom out, we'll pan over.
On my screen I've got a drawing of a
| | 02:57 | typical chessboard. Now I've got half
of my pieces set up. One thing we know
| | 03:02 | about the chessboard, the pieces on one
side are identical to the pieces on the
| | 03:05 | other. Let's say I'd like to copy this
row of pawns up to this row. I'm going
| | 03:10 | to launch my Copy command , I
will come up and click the icon.
| | 03:15 | AutoCAD says Select objects, I'm
going to use a Window. I'm going to click
| | 03:19 | right here, I'll come down to the right
and I'm going to click right over here
| | 03:26 | and notice that only the pawns were
selected, because they were the only shapes
| | 03:30 | that fell completely within the
window. Let me right click to finish my
| | 03:34 | selection, and then I will copy those
from the endpoint here to the endpoint
| | 03:39 | here. When I'm finished I'm going to
hit my Escape key to cancel the command.
| | 03:43 | Now let's say I'd like to erase all of
the red lines. Let's try that. I'm going
| | 03:48 | to come up and launch my Erase command.
AutoCAD says select objects. Well, I'm
| | 03:52 | going to click right up here and I'm
going to come down and to the left and
| | 03:57 | create a Crossing Window. Let me click
to finish the window and notice AutoCAD
| | 04:01 | selected all of the vertical lines as
well as the lines that fell completely
| | 04:05 | within the window. Also notice AutoCAD
is still asking me to select objects.
| | 04:10 | Let's make another Crossing Window.
I'm going to click right here, I'll come
| | 04:14 | down to the left and I'll click and I
selected all of the horizontal lines
| | 04:19 | because each of them crossed over my
window. When I'm finished, I'll right
| | 04:24 | click to finish the
command and my lines are erased.
| | 04:27 | More than half of the work you do
in AutoCAD will require you to make
| | 04:30 | selections. Knowing how to efficiently
select multiple objects is one of the
| | 04:34 | fastest ways to increase your productivity.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Removing elements from selections| 00:00 | Occasionally, when selecting multiple
objects, we may select more than what we
| | 00:03 | intended. When this happens it's
important to know that AutoCAD also gives us
| | 00:08 | the ability to de-select the entities.
Now I've opened a drawing on my screen,
| | 00:12 | if you'd like to open the same drawing
and work along with me, this drawing is
| | 00:15 | located inside the Chapter 08 folder
inside our Exercise Files directory and
| | 00:20 | this drawing is called 02_
Adding and Removing from Selections.
| | 00:25 | Now, I've got an example of a
chessboard on my screen and we're going to use
| | 00:29 | this guy to learn how to remove items
from a selection. For instance, let's
| | 00:34 | make the assumption that I'd like to
erase this row of pawns. I'm going to come
| | 00:39 | up and launch my Erase command by
clicking on the icon. Let me click out in
| | 00:43 | space and I'm going to make a nice
window. I want to make my window this big.
| | 00:48 | Let me come over and click to finish
my window and notice I've selected too
| | 00:52 | many. This line happens to fall within
my selection. That's all right. I don't
| | 00:56 | have to hit Escape, I don't have to undo.
| | 00:58 | If I'd like to remove an item from a
selection, I can simply the hold the Shift
| | 01:03 | key on my keyboard and then click the
entity and AutoCAD removes it. Now I've
| | 01:08 | selected everything that I need, I can
right click to finish the command and
| | 01:12 | those pieces are erased. Let's undo,
let's try and erase them again. I want to
| | 01:17 | come up and click my Erase icon. This
time I'm going to make a big mistake. I'm
| | 01:23 | going to select them from over here.
I'm going to click, and I'm going to
| | 01:27 | create a Crossing Window, which is
probably the worst type of window I can use
| | 01:31 | to make the selection. Let me click to
finish the window, and notice that I've
| | 01:35 | selected way too many items.
| | 01:38 | Once again, I don't have to worry, I
can de-select these. I'm going to move
| | 01:42 | back over to the right side and I'm
going to hold my Shift key and click and
| | 01:48 | notice that I can make a Crossing
Window while my Shift key is down and so as
| | 01:52 | long as the Shift key is depressed
while I'm doing the selection, AutoCAD will
| | 01:57 | de-select those entities. Now I'm left
with just what I need and I can right
| | 02:02 | click to remove those pieces.
| | 02:04 | Let's try and use this technique in a
practical example. I'm going to zoom out,
| | 02:08 | we'll pan over. Let's zoom in to take a
look at this gear. Now this gear has a
| | 02:14 | problem. Unfortunately it has the
incorrect number of teeth. The rest of the
| | 02:18 | drawing is great, but unfortunately all
of these teeth need to be erased. So my
| | 02:23 | goal is to erase all the teeth while
still leaving the rest of the geometry.
| | 02:27 | Let's try that.
| | 02:29 | I'm going to launch the Erase command.
Let's click right up in space up here.
| | 02:34 | I'm going to come down to the right
to make a nice window selection. Let me
| | 02:38 | click to finish the window. This
selects everything. Now I'm going to move
| | 02:43 | inside the gear, I'm going to hold my
Shift key and click again and I'm going
| | 02:48 | to make a Crossing Window in this
direction. Let me click to finish my window
| | 02:54 | and the entire inside of the gear is
now de-selected. So when I right click,
| | 02:59 | I'm only erasing the incorrect information.
| | 03:02 | So, the next time you select more than
what you need, whether it be intentional
| | 03:06 | of unintentional, you could always
remove entities from your selection by using
| | 03:10 | your Shift key.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using key-ins| 00:00 | Sometimes, a rectangular window isn't
the most effective way to select our
| | 00:03 | objects. At times like these, we can
use the key-in functions to quickly select
| | 00:08 | objects that are difficult to select
using normal methods. Now, I have got a
| | 00:11 | drawing open on my screen. If you'd
like to open the same drawing, this guy is
| | 00:15 | located inside the Chapter_08 folder
inside the Exercise Files directory and
| | 00:20 | this drawing is called 03_Using Key-ins.
| | 00:22 | Now, the first key-in we are going to
look at is All. I can use this to select
| | 00:27 | everything in my drawing. For instance,
I'm going to come up and click my Erase
| | 00:30 | icon and when AutoCAD asks me to select
objects, I'm going to type All and hit
| | 00:36 | Enter. Notice, everything has been
selected. Let me right-click to finish the
| | 00:41 | selection and everything has been erased.
| | 00:43 | Now, any command that asks us to
select objects, we have the opportunity of
| | 00:47 | typing All. Now, I'm going to click my
Undo button to bring my geometry back.
| | 00:52 | Let's look at another one. I'm going
to zoom in on this thumb switch. So I'm
| | 00:56 | going to roll my wheel forward and
then we will hold the wheel down on our
| | 01:00 | mouse and pan over to center this guy
on screen. Now, I'd like to move this
| | 01:04 | thumb switch portion 5 millimeters to
the right. Unfortunately, it's not a nice
| | 01:09 | rectangular selection. So I'm
going to select it a different way.
| | 01:13 | Let me come up and launch my Move
command. Now to select objects prompt, I'm
| | 01:17 | going to type wp and hit Enter. This
stands for Window Polygon. AutoCAD is now
| | 01:24 | asking me to specify my first polygon
point. So I'm going to click here, let's
| | 01:28 | click here and here, and I will keep
working my way around. Notice the color of
| | 01:34 | the selection I'm making. More importantly,
notice the edge of the selection I'm making.
| | 01:39 | Essentially, what I'm doing is making a
window selection, but I'm not having to
| | 01:43 | conform to a rectangle. Let me keep
working my way around. Now, be careful when
| | 01:48 | you are making a Window Polygon,
especially if have a running object snap. If I
| | 01:53 | accidentally click and grab this
endpoint, my part technically isn't falling
| | 01:56 | completely within the window. To be on
the safe side, I'm going to come down
| | 02:01 | and click my Object Snap mode and turn that off.
| | 02:04 | Let's finish our selection. I will
click here and here and now that I have
| | 02:09 | completely encircled my part, I'm
going to right-click and select Enter. Now
| | 02:14 | that I have finished my window, I will
right-click to finish the selection. To
| | 02:18 | move this guy, I need to pick him up
from a logical base point. I'm going to
| | 02:21 | use the center of the thumb switch.
Now since my object snaps are turned off,
| | 02:25 | I'm going to grab them from the toolbar.
So let me come over and click Center,
| | 02:28 | I will pick it from the center here. Now,
I'd like to move it to the right. So
| | 02:33 | let's come down and lock our Ortho
to restrict our movement to 90 degree
| | 02:37 | angles. There we go. Now, I'm going to
pull to the right and I'm going to type
| | 02:40 | 5 for 5 millimeters and hit Enter
and I moved him a little bit too far.
| | 02:47 | I'd like to move him back about 2
millimeters. Here is my problem. It's going
| | 02:51 | to be hard to select him now especially
with a window because it's really tight
| | 02:55 | here. Let's look at another key-in. I'm
going to launch the Move command again
| | 03:00 | and this time at the Select objects
prompt, I'm going to type p, p stands for
| | 03:04 | Previous. Let me hit Enter and
notice that AutoCAD reselects the previous
| | 03:10 | selection. Let me hit Enter to finish
selecting objects. I'm going to move this
| | 03:15 | guy from the center of the thumb
switch and I'm going to pull him back to the
| | 03:20 | left and type 2 for 2 millimeters and hit Enter.
| | 03:25 | As you can see the key-ins options
are helpful alternative to the selection
| | 03:29 | window, and they give us the ability
to work outside the box when making our selections.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Making Major ChangesTrimming and extending elements| 00:00 | As we create geometry on our screen we
will need to pause from time to time and
| | 00:04 | do a little clean up on our drawing.
The Trim and the Extend commands do a
| | 00:08 | great job helping us fix our line work
after we have made some changes. Let's
| | 00:12 | take a look at how they work.
| | 00:13 | Now I have got a drawing open on my
screen, if you'd like to open the same
| | 00:17 | drawing, it's located inside the
Chapter 09 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:21 | directory and this is
the 01_Trim-Extend drawing.
| | 00:24 | Now we are going to look at the Trim
command first. Let's take a look at this
| | 00:30 | abstract geometry on my screen and
let's make the assumption that I drew my arc
| | 00:34 | and my line segment a little bit too
long. I intended for these guys to stop at
| | 00:38 | this vertical line. No problem, I will
just take and use the Trim command to
| | 00:42 | cut these guys off.
| | 00:44 | We can find the Trim command in the
Modify panel on our ribbon. The icon is
| | 00:49 | right here. Let me launch the
command and AutoCAD is asking us to select
| | 00:53 | objects. Take a look at the command
line. It's a little bit more dEscaperiptive
| | 00:57 | down there. AutoCAD says Select
cutting edges. You see when I use the Trim
| | 01:01 | command I'm using one entity to cut another.
| | 01:05 | So I'm going to click my vertical line
that's going to be cutting edge and I
| | 01:09 | will right click to finish my
selection and then I can click each entity that
| | 01:13 | I'd like to trim. When I'm done, I
can right click and select Enter.
| | 01:18 | Let's take a look at the geometry down
here. In this case, my geometry is the
| | 01:22 | exact opposite problem. This line and
this arc should have been drawn a little
| | 01:25 | bit farther forward such that they met
this vertical line. No problem, we can
| | 01:30 | fix this using the Extend command.
| | 01:32 | I'm going to come up to Modify panel
and click Extend. Once again, AutoCAD is
| | 01:37 | asking us to select objects. If I look
at the command line, this time AutoCAD
| | 01:41 | is looking for a boundary edge. You see
with the Extend command I'm projecting
| | 01:46 | entities forward to meet another entity.
| | 01:49 | So my boundary edge is going to be
this vertical line. Let me click that's
| | 01:52 | where I want my entities to stop. I
will right click to finish my selection and
| | 01:57 | then I will click my line and my arc to
extend them to the vertical line. When
| | 02:02 | I'm done I will right click and select Enter.
| | 02:05 | Now the Extend and the Trim commands
are essentially the same command. You see
| | 02:09 | the Trim command pulls entities back
to meet an existing line and the Extend
| | 02:14 | command projects entities forward to
meet an existing line. We pan my drawing
| | 02:20 | over. I'm going to hold the wheel
down on my mouse to push this guy over. I
| | 02:24 | have got some more
abstract geometry on my screen.
| | 02:27 | Let's say we would like to convert
this line work into the appearance of a
| | 02:31 | ladder. I'm obviously going to have
to trim some entities and I'm obviously
| | 02:35 | going to have to extend some others.
| | 02:37 | Let's try and do it completely from
within the Trim command. I'm going to come
| | 02:41 | up and launch the Trim command from the
icon. AutoCAD is saying Select objects.
| | 02:48 | I'm going to use this object as a
cutting object and I will use this one as a
| | 02:51 | cutting object and I will right click.
Now I can click the entities that I'd
| | 02:55 | like to trim.
| | 02:57 | Now up until this point I have been
picking them one at a time. I can also use
| | 03:00 | a Crossing Window. Let me come over to
this side and click and we will make a
| | 03:04 | Crossing Window. Let me click to
finish my window and those entities are
| | 03:08 | removed. Now take a look at my
command line. AutoCAD says Select objects to
| | 03:12 | trim or Shift+Select to extend.
| | 03:16 | That means I don't have to launch the
Extend command to finish this guy up. If
| | 03:20 | I hold my Shift key the Trim command
becomes the Extend command. So I'm going
| | 03:24 | to hold down my Shift key and I can
click and each one of these guys will
| | 03:28 | extend to my boundary edges. Let me
right click to finish the command and I
| | 03:33 | will select Enter.
| | 03:35 | Let's try and use the Trim and Extend
command in a practical example. Let's say
| | 03:41 | that I'm an architect and I'm designing
a house for a client and this window is
| | 03:45 | going to be used in front of the
house. Maybe the client comes in for a
| | 03:49 | meeting, takes a look at the window and
says, you know that's kind of nice but
| | 03:52 | it's a little bit boring. Could we do
something maybe put an arch to top on
| | 03:56 | this. Since this is going to be on the
front of the house, I'd like it to look
| | 03:59 | a little nicer. No problem, let me take
and pan this drawing over to the right
| | 04:04 | and through the miracle of stop motion
animation, I have already created the
| | 04:09 | two circles necessary to create my arch top.
| | 04:12 | Let's see if we can finish this window
using Trim and Extend. Well, when I look
| | 04:17 | at this I can see that I don't need
the bottom half of these circles. Let's
| | 04:21 | trim them off. I'm going to come up
and launch my Trim command, I'm going to
| | 04:25 | use this cutting edge, right click and
then I can make a Crossing Window over
| | 04:30 | my circles to remove the bottom
half's. Let me right click to finish the
| | 04:34 | command and I will select Enter.
| | 04:36 | Now I also don't need this piece or
this piece. Let's trim those off. Once
| | 04:41 | again, I'm going to launch the Trim
command. I'd like to use this arch as my
| | 04:46 | cutting object. I will right click to
finish my selection and then I will click
| | 04:51 | to pieces that I'd like to remove.
| | 04:52 | Now I'm not going to finish the
command just yet because I'd also like to
| | 04:56 | extend these dividers up into the
arched area. If I hold my Shift key at this
| | 05:01 | point, the Trim command
will become the Extend command.
| | 05:04 | So let me move right down here. I'm
going to hold my Shift key and click and
| | 05:08 | make a Crossing Window across these
dividers. I will click to finish the window
| | 05:14 | and those lines are projected up to
the boundary edge. Let me right click and
| | 05:18 | select Enter to finish the command.
| | 05:21 | The last thing I have to do is clean up
a bunch of little short pieces. I have
| | 05:24 | to trim all of these guys out. Let's
do that with the Trim command. I'm going
| | 05:28 | to come up and launch Trim. Take a
look at my cursor. AutoCAD says Select
| | 05:31 | objects or Select all. I need to
select my cutting edges right now.
| | 05:36 | If I hit Enter AutoCAD will select all
which means everything is able to cut
| | 05:42 | everything else. Let me hit enter. Now
I can select my objects to trim. I can
| | 05:48 | go through and just pick the pieces I
want to remove to take them out of the
| | 05:52 | drawing. When I'm finished I
will right click and select Enter.
| | 05:57 | As you can see the Trim and Extend
commands have essentially the same work
| | 06:00 | flow. Jumping from one to the other is
as simple as pressing your Shift key.
| | 06:05 | Knowing how to use both of these
commands will allow you to quickly and
| | 06:08 | accurately clean up your geometry.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating fillets| 00:00 | Quite often sharp corners aren't
acceptable for all of our intersecting line
| | 00:03 | work. In some cases we may need to
create rounded corners at our intersections.
| | 00:08 | We can easily create rounded
corners using AutoCAD's Fillet command.
| | 00:12 | Now I have got a drawing open on my
screen, if you'd like to open the same
| | 00:15 | drawing it's located inside the
Chapter 09 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:19 | director and this drawing
is the 02_Fillet drawing.
| | 00:23 | Now I have got some abstract geometry
on my screen. We are going to use this
| | 00:28 | line work to use how to learn how the
Fillet command works. Now the Fillet
| | 00:31 | command will take two intersecting
lines and create a nice rounded corner.
| | 00:35 | To launch the Fillet command I'm
going to come up to the Modify panel. The
| | 00:38 | command is right here. Now notice
the Fillet command has a flyout. That's
| | 00:43 | because Fillet and Chamfer are
together in the same place. If for some reason
| | 00:48 | you don't see the Fillet icon,
you can grab it from the flyout.
| | 00:52 | Let me click to launch the command.
Notice AutoCAD is saying Select first
| | 00:55 | object. When we run the Fillet command
that's essentially what AutoCAD wants.
| | 01:00 | It's just say, hey man, click one
object and then click the other object and I
| | 01:03 | will create the Fillet.
| | 01:04 | Let's try it. I will click one object,
I will click the other object and
| | 01:09 | AutoCAD creates the Fillet. Now you
are probably saying that was supposed to
| | 01:12 | create a rounded corner and it didn't.
That's right. We did leave one thing
| | 01:17 | out. We didn't set a Radius. Let's
do it again. I'm going to Undo. Let me
| | 01:22 | launch the Fillet command again.
| | 01:25 | This time let's take a look at the
Command Line. Notice I have got a sub-option
| | 01:28 | for Radius. Let me right click, select
Radius and I'm going specify a Radius of
| | 01:36 | 3 inches. So I'm going to
type 3 inches and hit Enter.
| | 01:41 | Now I'm going to pick my two objects.
Let me click my first one, I will click
| | 01:45 | my second one and AutoCAD creates the
rounded corner. Now the area on the line
| | 01:49 | where you click makes a difference.
When you are creating a Fillet the part of
| | 01:53 | the line that you click is the part of
the line that you are going to keep. Let
| | 01:56 | me show you want I mean.
| | 01:58 | This X is identical to what we used
to have over here. I want to launch the
| | 02:04 | Fillet command again. AutoCAD remembers
my Radius. Let me click my first object
| | 02:10 | and I'm going to click my second
object. Notice where I'm clicking, notice
| | 02:14 | which lines were capped.
| | 02:15 | Let's try and use the Fillet command in
a practical example. I'm going to zoom
| | 02:20 | out by rolling my wheel back. Let me
hold the wheel down on my mouse to pan.
| | 02:25 | Let's zoom in on this kitchen sink. I
have got to finish the Fillets on this basin.
| | 02:32 | Let's launch the Fillet command. I'm
going to come up and click the icon. Let's
| | 02:36 | set our Radius. I'm going to right
click and select Radius from the menu. Now
| | 02:41 | the Radius that I'd like to use is 3.5
inches. Since this is an architectural
| | 02:46 | example, I'm going to type 3-1/2 inches.
We always separate the whole and the
| | 02:54 | fractional with a dash. Let me hit Enter.
| | 02:57 | Now I will select my first object
and my second object. Now here is the
| | 03:01 | problem. When we run a Fillet, AutoCAD
assumes we only want to do one. In this
| | 03:06 | case I still have some more I want to
do. Let's look at how we can do this a
| | 03:10 | little bit faster.
| | 03:12 | Once again I'm going to launch the
Fillet command. AutoCAD remembers my 3.5
| | 03:16 | inch Radius. This time I'm going to
use the Multiple sub-option. This will
| | 03:20 | allow me to create multiple Fillets.
I'm going to right click to select
| | 03:25 | Multiple from the menu. Let's finish
this guy up. I'm going to click this line
| | 03:29 | and this line to create a Fillet. We
will click this line and this line and
| | 03:33 | then we will click this line and this line.
| | 03:35 | When I'm finished I'm going to click
my Escape key to cancel out. I have got one
| | 03:40 | more Fillet that I want to create,
right over here. That guy is going to have a
| | 03:44 | Fillet Radius of 4 inches. So let's
launch the Fillet command. I'm going to
| | 03:48 | right click, I'm going to grab Repeat
FILLET from the menu. Let's right click
| | 03:52 | and select the Radius sub-option
and we will set this to 4 inches.
| | 03:58 | Let me hit Enter and we will finish
this up. I'm going to click this line and
| | 04:02 | this line to complete my Radius. I'm
going to roll the wheel on my mouse back.
| | 04:06 | We will zoom out just a little bit.
Take a look at this area right here. I'd
| | 04:11 | like to finish my counter top. I'd
like this to be a nice sharp corner.
| | 04:16 | We can use the Fillet command to create
sharp corners as well. Let's try that.
| | 04:20 | I'm going to launch the Fillet command.
Watch this I'm going to come up and
| | 04:23 | click my first object even though my
Radius is still set to 4 inches. When I
| | 04:27 | click this guy, AutoCAD says Select
second object or Shift+Select to apply corner.
| | 04:33 | It means if I hold my Shift key when
I click the second object AutoCAD will
| | 04:38 | create a sharp corner
regardless of what the current Radius is.
| | 04:42 | Fillet is a tool that gives us more
control over our intersecting geometry.
| | 04:46 | Whether our design requires a rounded
corner or even a sharp corner we can
| | 04:50 | always use the Fillet command.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating chamfers| 00:00 | Sometimes our design may require a
beveled or angular corner. In cases like
| | 00:04 | this we can use AutoCAD's Chamfer
command. Chamfer works the exact same way as
| | 00:09 | the Fillet command except that
it results in a beveled corner.
| | 00:13 | Now I have opened a drawing, if you'd
like to open the same drawing and work
| | 00:16 | along with me, this drawing is located
inside the Chapter 09 folder inside the
| | 00:20 | Exercise Files directory and this
drawing is called 03_Chamfer drawing.
| | 00:26 | Now on my screen I have got a
conceptual layout of a single family home and I'd
| | 00:30 | like to do a little work in the
kitchen area, so I'm going to place my cursor
| | 00:33 | there and I'm going to roll the wheel
on my mouse forward to zoom-in. Let me
| | 00:37 | hold my wheel down and we will
pan and center this guy on screen.
| | 00:40 | Now I'm expecting a lot of foot
traffic moving around the outside of this
| | 00:45 | counter top and any time you have a
sharp corner you run the risk of injury. So
| | 00:50 | I'd like to chamfer these corners.
| | 00:53 | Let's zoom-in a little bit more and we
will launch the Chamfer command. Now the
| | 00:59 | Chamfer command is located inside the
Modify panel and if you don't see the
| | 01:03 | icon right here, you can click the
flyout and select it from the list. You see
| | 01:08 | whichever command you used last,
whether it be Fillet or Chamfer, that's the
| | 01:13 | icon that you will see in the panel.
| | 01:14 | Now Chamfer essentially works the exact
same way as Fillet. All it really wants
| | 01:20 | is two lines. Before I click my lines
I have to determine which method I'm
| | 01:24 | going to use to create my chamfer. Now
there are two types. There is Distance
| | 01:28 | and there is Angle.
| | 01:29 | We will look at Distance first. Let
me right click and select the Distance
| | 01:34 | method and AutoCAD asks me what's my
first chamfer distance? I'm going to type
| | 01:39 | 3 inches because this is an
architectural example, so I'm using the quotes,
| | 01:45 | Enter and my second chamfer distance,
I'm going to set to 1 inch. Just so that
| | 01:51 | there is enough of a
difference that we notice it on screen.
| | 01:54 | Let me hit Enter to accept that value
and now I can select my two lines. Here
| | 01:59 | is how it works. The first line that I
click is going to use the first distance
| | 02:04 | that I enter. So AutoCAD is going
to move three inches away from this
| | 02:07 | intersection. Now when I click my
second line AutoCAD is going to move my
| | 02:12 | second distance, so it will come back
one inch from this intersection and then
| | 02:16 | it will bevel off the corner. Let me
click to finish the chamfer and notice the result.
| | 02:21 | Let's do another one. We will zoom-in
on this corner. I'm going to come up and
| | 02:27 | launch the Chamfer command. I'm going
to reset my distances. I will right click
| | 02:32 | and select Distance from the Menu. We
will enter 6 inch for our first distance
| | 02:37 | and hit Enter and we will enter 3 inch
for our second distance and hit Enter. I
| | 02:41 | will click my first line, I will click
my second line and AutoCAD creates the chamfer.
| | 02:47 | Let's create a chamfer down here and we
will use the other method. We will use
| | 02:51 | the angular method. I'm going to zoom-
in, we will launch the Chamfer command
| | 02:57 | and we will right click and select
Angle. Now with the angular method I will
| | 03:01 | supply a chamfer length, let's do that.
I will type 4 inches and hit Enter and
| | 03:06 | then I will supply an angle. In this
case, I'm going to type 45 and hit Enter.
| | 03:12 | Here is how it works. I will click in
my first line and AutoCAD will back up
| | 03:16 | that distance four inches and then it
will turn 45 degrees and chamfer the
| | 03:21 | corner. So let me click my first line,
let me click my second line and I create my chamfer.
| | 03:26 | Now the Chamfer command can be used
for more than just counter tops. Let me
| | 03:31 | back up a little bit. Let's take a look
at the Master Suite. Notice that I have
| | 03:37 | a tray ceiling. Hopefully when you look
at this shape you see a rectangle that
| | 03:41 | has had the corners chamfered.
| | 03:44 | Once again, I'm going to back up. I'm
going to roll my wheel backward. We will
| | 03:47 | hold the wheel down and pan. Let's
zoom-in on the dining room and we will
| | 03:51 | finish this tray ceiling using the
Chamfer command. I'm going to come up and
| | 03:55 | launch Chamfer. I will right click
and I will select the Angle method. My
| | 03:59 | Chamfer length for the first line,
I'm going to type 4 feet, Enter and I'm
| | 04:03 | going to use a 45 degree angle. Let me
click my first line and my second line
| | 04:09 | and I create my chamfer.
| | 04:10 | Unfortunately, AutoCAD only assumes
you'd like to create one chamfer at a time.
| | 04:15 | Let me show you how we can quickly
chamfer the other three sides. I'm going to
| | 04:18 | launch the Chamfer command again.
Notice at the Command Line I have got a
| | 04:21 | sub-option of Multiple. This will
allow me to create multiple chamfers.
| | 04:25 | I'm going to right click and select
Multiple, AutoCAD remembers my previous
| | 04:30 | settings, so I will click this line and
this one, this line and this one and we
| | 04:35 | will click this line and this one.
When I'm finished I will right click and
| | 04:39 | select Enter to finish the command.
| | 04:42 | The Chamfer command gives us yet
another choice when dealing with intersecting
| | 04:46 | geometry. If a sharp or rounded corner
isn't acceptable for our design, we can
| | 04:50 | also use the Chamfer
command to create beveled corners.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating patterned copies with arrays| 00:00 | Sometimes making manual copies of our
entities can be tedious. Especially if our
| | 00:04 | copies have to fall into a rectangular
or rotational pattern. The Array command
| | 00:08 | can be used to quickly make
patterned copies of our selected objects.
| | 00:12 | Now I've got a drawing up on screen if
you'd like open this same drawing, it's
| | 00:16 | located inside the Chapter_9 folder,
inside our Exercise Files directory. And
| | 00:20 | this drawing is called number 04_array.
| | 00:23 | Now if you look on the screen I've
got an example of a typical high school
| | 00:26 | classroom. Now it's not completely
typical because we still need to add the
| | 00:30 | desks. Now I constructed my first desk
it's over here in the lower left-hand
| | 00:34 | corner and I'd like to create copies
of this desk to fill up the classroom.
| | 00:39 | Now if I use the traditional Copy
command, this would be very tedious because
| | 00:44 | I'd have to use measurements to locate
where I want to put each desk in this room.
| | 00:48 | Instead, since my desks have to fall
into a patterned copy of columns and rows,
| | 00:54 | I'm going to use AutoCAD's Array
command. We can use the Array command to
| | 00:58 | create patterned copies, but the Array
icon is located in the Modify panel of
| | 01:02 | our ribbon. I need to come over and
click the flyout and I will select the
| | 01:06 | Array icon right here.
| | 01:07 | Now there are two ways to create an
array, the Rectangular and the Polar
| | 01:13 | Method. We can look at Rectangular first.
| | 01:15 | I'm going to come over and click my
Select Objects button to identify the
| | 01:20 | objects I'd like to copy. AutoCAD is
asking me to select objects, I will come
| | 01:23 | down and click my desk
and then I'll right-click.
| | 01:27 | At this point I can fill out the
settings that I'm going to use for my
| | 01:30 | rectangular array. As I make changes,
keep an eye on my pseudo preview over to
| | 01:35 | the right; this will give me an idea
of what my array is going to look like.
| | 01:39 | Now a number of rows, I'm going to try
five rows of desks, let's come over and
| | 01:43 | we'll try five columns of desks. Once
again as I make changes we can see the
| | 01:48 | little preview change.
| | 01:51 | Row offset how far do I want my desks
to be apart front-back. I'm going to
| | 01:56 | highlight this guy and type 5 feet,
this is an architectural example, so I'm
| | 02:01 | going to be using the apostrophe.
Now this is not 5 feet of walking space
| | 02:06 | between the desks, this is the
distance from center-to-center.
| | 02:08 | Let me highlight my Column offset and
I'm going to set this to 5 feet as well,
| | 02:14 | and then I'm going to
come down and click Preview.
| | 02:17 | Now this doesn't look too bad, but I
think I can fit an extra row of desks in
| | 02:21 | this classroom, these guys are pretty
far apart right now. Let's try and add an
| | 02:25 | extra row. Now I happened to be in the
Preview feature of the Array command, I
| | 02:30 | can see at the command line, AutoCAD is
saying, pick on screen or press Escape
| | 02:34 | to return to the dialog box, or if I
like this array I can right-click to accept it.
| | 02:39 | I'm going to hit my Escape key to
return to the dialog box. Let's make a
| | 02:43 | change. I'm going to try and add a
sixth row, so I'm going to highlight this
| | 02:47 | number five and we'll change to six.
Then I'm going to come down to the Row
| | 02:51 | offset area, I'll highlight this guy
and we'll set it to 4 feet or move the
| | 02:55 | desks a little bit closer together.
Let's come down and click Preview again.
| | 02:59 | Now that will work perfect. Now I'm
able to fit 30 desks in this classroom and
| | 03:04 | I still have plenty of space for all
those students. Since I like this array
| | 03:08 | I'm going to right-click to accept it.
| | 03:11 | Let's look at this other type of array
we can make. If I place my cursor on the
| | 03:15 | teacher's desk and roll my wheel
forward, I'll zoom in and on the teacher's
| | 03:19 | desk I've got a drawing of a gear. Now
one thing I want to address, notice my
| | 03:24 | circles look a little bit angular,
this is a re-gen issue, I need to
| | 03:28 | re-generate or refresh my database,
such that my arcs looks smooth again. Let's
| | 03:33 | do that, I'm going to go to the Menu
Browser and click. I'm going to come down
| | 03:37 | to the View menu and then we'll come
over and up and select Regen, and that
| | 03:42 | will clean up our arcs.
| | 03:44 | Now take a look at the gear on the
left. It would be very time-consuming to
| | 03:47 | construct all of these teeth manually.
In fact, we don't have to, we are going
| | 03:52 | to create this gear using a
rotational array or a rotational copy.
| | 03:57 | If I look at the example on the right;
this is all of the geometry that we need
| | 04:01 | to create this gear. Let's try and
finish the gear using a rotational array.
| | 04:06 | Once again I'm going to come up to the
Modify panel and click the flyout. Now
| | 04:10 | I'm going to be using the Array
command a couple of times, so I'm going to
| | 04:13 | click this push pin so that my panel
stays in the expanded state. Let me come
| | 04:18 | up and click array, in this case I'd
like to do a Polar Array or a Rotational
| | 04:22 | Copy. When I click the button, notice
the Settings in the box below change,
| | 04:27 | these are now settings that are
associated with a Polar Array.
| | 04:31 | Once again I'm going to select my
objects first, I'm going to come over and
| | 04:34 | click this button. Let's do the circle
first, I need four of these guys in my
| | 04:39 | gear. So I'm going to come over and
click the circle to select it and then I
| | 04:43 | will right-click.
| | 04:43 | Let's come up to the center point, at
what point would I like to rotate my
| | 04:49 | copies around. I'm going to come over
and click this button, this button allows
| | 04:52 | me to select my center point. I'd like
to use the center of this circle as the
| | 04:58 | center of my rotational array. Let me
come over and click the Center Object
| | 05:03 | Snap, I will then place my cursor on
the arc and find the center point, and
| | 05:08 | then we'll look at total number of items.
| | 05:10 | Notice this doesn't say, number of
copies. I want to create three copies, but
| | 05:15 | what I want is four items when I'm
finished. So this will be 4, Angle to fill
| | 05:20 | 360, so it's going to make the copies
all the way around. If I was to set this
| | 05:26 | to something like 90 and click in
the other field, I'm creating my copies
| | 05:31 | across to 90 degree angle.
| | 05:33 | Let's set this back to 360, and we
will come down and click Preview. Perfect!
| | 05:39 | That's exactly what I want, I'm
going to right-click to accept the array.
| | 05:44 | Let's take care of the teeth. Once
again I'm going to come up and launch my
| | 05:47 | Array command. Select Objects, I'll
click the icon and I'm going to select the
| | 05:53 | big gap and the geometry
that represents the tool.
| | 05:57 | Let me right-click to finish my
selection. AutoCAD will remember my previous
| | 06:02 | center point. Now, how many teeth do I
want. If I click and slide this dialog
| | 06:07 | box down, I can see that there are 30
teeth in the gear, so I want to create 30
| | 06:12 | teeth. Let me highlight this
number and we'll set it up to 30.
| | 06:16 | Once again I'm going to come down and
click Preview and take a look. Let me
| | 06:20 | zoom in, that's exactly what I want.
Once again I'm going to right-click to
| | 06:25 | accept the array.
| | 06:27 | Now that I'm finished with the
command, I'm going to click my push pin to
| | 06:30 | collapse the panel.
| | 06:32 | Always keep your eyes open for a
chance to use the Array command. If you can
| | 06:36 | train yourself to recognize
rectangular and rotational patterns, you can save
| | 06:40 | yourself a lot of time by not
having to do a bunch of tedious copying.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating mirror images| 00:00 | Whenever you're working with
geometry that's symmetrical, keep the Mirror
| | 00:03 | command in the back of your mind.
Sometimes making a mirrored copy can quite
| | 00:07 | literally cut your work in half.
| | 00:09 | Now, I'm working in an existing
drawing, if you'd like to open the same
| | 00:12 | drawing, it's located inside the
Chapter_9 folder, inside our Exercise Files
| | 00:17 | directory. And this is the number 5
mirror drawing. Now I've got some abstract
| | 00:22 | geometry on my screen, we're going to
use this geometry to learn how the Mirror
| | 00:26 | command works.
| | 00:27 | Now, what I have is one-half of a
wine glass. Now it's not the best looking
| | 00:32 | wine glass in the world, but it will do
for our example. In addition to my wine
| | 00:37 | glass I also have a line
that represents my mirror.
| | 00:40 | Since this wine glass is a symmetrical
shape, I don't have to draw both sides.
| | 00:46 | I can draw one side and then create a
reflected or mirrored copy to create the
| | 00:50 | other side. Let's try that.
| | 00:52 | In order to create a mirrored copy
AutoCAD needs two things. First, it needs an
| | 00:57 | object to copy and then it needs a
line that represents the mirror. Since I
| | 01:02 | have both of those items let's press on.
| | 01:04 | I'm going to hit Escape to select my
entity, and let's launched the Mirror
| | 01:08 | command. Now the Mirror command is
located right up here in the Modify panel of
| | 01:13 | our ribbon. If I click the icon it
will launch the command. AutoCAD says,
| | 01:17 | Select Objects, object what I like to
copy. I will click this one, and then
| | 01:22 | I'll right-click to finish my selection.
| | 01:24 | Now AutoCAD is asking me to specify the
first point on my mirror line. You know
| | 01:30 | what I'm going to come down and turn
on my running object snaps. And let me
| | 01:34 | right-click on this verify to
verify what my running object snaps are.
| | 01:38 | Okay, I've got a running object snap
for center and endpoint, that's good. Let
| | 01:41 | me hit my Escape key and then
we'll return to the command.
| | 01:45 | AutoCAD is asking me to specify the
first point on my Mirror, that will be the
| | 01:49 | end point right here, let me click.
And then as I come down notice AutoCAD is
| | 01:53 | creating the copy, it just needs to
know where the other end of my Mirror is .
| | 01:57 | Let me come down and select the end point here.
| | 02:01 | Lastly, AutoCAD says, do you want to
erase the source objects, I don't have to
| | 02:05 | keep them, but I don't want to, let me
right-click and I'm going to select no.
| | 02:10 | And I have just created my mirrored copy.
| | 02:13 | Let's try and use the Mirror command in
a practical example. I'm going to roll
| | 02:16 | my wheel back and zoom out, I'll hold
the Mouse wheel down and pan over. And
| | 02:21 | let's take a look at this geometry.
Let's assume I'm a Furniture Designer and
| | 02:26 | I'm designing an entertainment center.
| | 02:29 | Now I've created the door on the left
side, this is a raised panel door with a
| | 02:33 | handle. Now it didn't take a long to
draft but it wasn't exactly quick. Now the
| | 02:38 | lower half of this entertainment center
is symmetrical. So what I'm going to do
| | 02:42 | is mirror the word Geometry and the
drawer handle to create the right side. The
| | 02:48 | first thing I'm going to do is
create my mirror line, let's do that.
| | 02:52 | I'm going to launch the Line command
and since this piece is symmetrical, I'm
| | 02:55 | going to draw a line from the mid-point.
I don't have a running object snap for
| | 02:59 | mid-point, so I'm going to grab it
from the toolbar. Let me come up and click
| | 03:02 | Mid Point, I want to draw it from the
mid-point here to the mid-point down
| | 03:09 | here. When I'm finished I'm
going to hit my Escape key.
| | 03:13 | Let's do our Mirror. I'm going to
come up and launch the Mirror command.
| | 03:16 | AutoCAD says Select Objects. I'm
going to click right here and I'm going to
| | 03:20 | create a window and I'm going to go all
the way around the drawer pull. Let me
| | 03:24 | click to finish the window and then
I'll right-click to finish the selection.
| | 03:29 | Now AutoCAD wants me to pick the two
points on my Mirror. Let me pick the end
| | 03:33 | point here and I'll click the end
point here. Lastly I will right-click and
| | 03:38 | select No, because I don't
wan to erase the source objects.
| | 03:42 | Okay, now that I've created my Mirror,
this may be shocking, but I'm going to
| | 03:46 | Undo, because I want to show you
something. Let me Undo again and take away my
| | 03:50 | mirror line. We don't have to have a
physical line to create our mirror. The
| | 03:56 | only thing AutoCAD needs are the object
snaps. Let's mirror this guy again but
| | 04:00 | this time I'm not going to
have the physical line segment.
| | 04:02 | I'm going to click Mirror, I'm going
to create my Window Selection. I will
| | 04:08 | click to finish the window and then
I'll right-click to finish my selection.
| | 04:12 | First point on my Mirror, I'll grab the
Mid Point here and the other point will
| | 04:17 | be the mid point right down here.
| | 04:21 | Lastly, I'm going to right-click, I'm
going to select No because I don't want
| | 04:25 | to erase the originals.
| | 04:26 | I'm going to use the Mirror command one
more time to finish this upper drawer.
| | 04:31 | Mirror - Select Objects, we will make
the window, right-click, let me click the
| | 04:36 | first point on my Mirror, second point
on my Mirror, right-click and select No.
| | 04:43 | Remember that every time you are
working with symmetrical geometry, you have an
| | 04:46 | opportunity to use the Mirror command,
and if you use it properly you will be
| | 04:50 | making AutoCAD do half of your work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Stretching elements| 00:00 | The Stretch command is often
misunderstood by AutoCAD users because at first
| | 00:03 | glance it appears to be
selecting more than what we intended.
| | 00:06 | When it comes right down to it, the
Stretch command is nothing more than an
| | 00:10 | endpoint mover. Now I've opened a
drawing, if you'd like to open the same
| | 00:14 | drawing and work along with me, this
drawing is located inside the Chapter_9
| | 00:18 | folder of the Exercise Files
directory, and this is the number 6 stretch drawing.
| | 00:24 | Now this is an architectural example,
one way I know that is by looking at the
| | 00:28 | Status Bar, I can see that my
coordinates are reading in feet and inches.
| | 00:32 | Now I'd like to make this rectangle
longer. I'd like to stretch it 3 inches to
| | 00:37 | the right, let's try that. I'm going
to launch the Stretch command. Now the
| | 00:41 | Stretch command is located inside the
Modify panel of our ribbon. Let me come
| | 00:45 | up and click the Stretch icon. And
AutoCAD says to Select Objects. Now take a
| | 00:51 | look at the command line AutoCAD says
select objects to stretch by using a
| | 00:55 | crossing window, let's do that.
| | 00:58 | I'm going to click right here and I'm
going to come down into the left, I'm
| | 01:02 | creating a crossing window. Now
here's the trick, when we finished our
| | 01:06 | selection, the only entities that are
going to move are the end points that
| | 01:09 | fall within the selection.
| | 01:11 | Let me click to finish my window,
and then I'll right-click to finish my
| | 01:15 | selection. Now AutoCAD is saying
Specify base point. Well, I've got a running
| | 01:20 | object snap set for endpoint. So I'm
going to grab the endpoint right here and
| | 01:24 | notice as I move my cursor I'm now
stretching this rectangle. Also notice that
| | 01:30 | the only points that are affected are
the endpoints that fill with the next selection.
| | 01:33 | Now I'd like to stretch this guy 3
units to the right. I'm going to come down
| | 01:37 | and lock my ortho, let's click the
ortho mode and turn it on, this will
| | 01:41 | restrict my movement to 90 degree angles.
Now I can pull to the right and I can
| | 01:47 | type 3 inches and then Enter.
| | 01:49 | Let's try another one. I'm going to
back up a little, I'll pan this up. Once
| | 01:56 | again, I'm holding down my Mouse wheel
to pan. Let's stretch this rectangle.
| | 02:01 | Same work-flow I'm going to come up
and launch the Stretch command, AutoCAD
| | 02:05 | says, Select Objects, once again I'm
going to do a crossing window, I'm going
| | 02:08 | to click right here, I'm going to come
down and make my crossing window. Notice
| | 02:13 | how many endpoints fall within the
selection. Let me click to finish the window
| | 02:17 | and we will right-click to finish
the selection. Notice almost half of my
| | 02:21 | screen is highlighted, it doesn't
matter, only the rectangle is going to be
| | 02:25 | affected because only the endpoints of
the rectangle fell within my selection.
| | 02:30 | AutoCAD says, Specify base point, I'm
going to grab the endpoint right here. My
| | 02:35 | Ortho is locked, I'm going to point
pull to the right and I'm going to type in
| | 02:37 | 3 inches, and hit Enter.
| | 02:41 | Let's try and use the Stretch command
in a practical example. I'm going to roll
| | 02:45 | my wheel back and zoom out, we will
pan all over a little bit. Let's assume
| | 02:49 | that I'm a Furniture Designer and I
just finished creating this drawing of this
| | 02:53 | entertainment center.
| | 02:55 | Now after finishing the entertainment
center I'd like to create a matching
| | 02:58 | bookshelf. Let's do that using the
Stretch command. The first thing I want to
| | 03:03 | do is I'm going to erase some of the
components I don't need. I'm going to come
| | 03:06 | up and click Erase, I don't need the TV,
so I'll select that, I don't need the
| | 03:11 | stereo system so I'll select those. I
don't need this vertical divider, so I'm
| | 03:16 | going to select that using a crossing
window, I'm going to click right here
| | 03:19 | like a crossing window and click to
select those. And I also don't need the
| | 03:23 | drawer pulls or this line
that separates the drawers.
| | 03:27 | So once again I'm going to do another
crossing window, I will click here, I
| | 03:29 | will make a crossing window and
come down and click here. When I'm done
| | 03:34 | selecting objects I will right-click.
| | 03:36 | Okay, let's finish the bookshelf. I'm
going to come up and launch the Stretch
| | 03:40 | command, I'll click the icon, AutoCAD
says, Select Objects, I'm going to click
| | 03:45 | right here because remember I have to
make a crossing window, I'm going to come
| | 03:49 | all the way down to here, take a look
at all the endpoints that fall within the
| | 03:52 | selection. Let me lick to finish the
window and then I will right-click. I'd
| | 03:57 | like to stretch this stuff from the
endpoint right here and I'll stretch it to
| | 04:02 | the endpoint right here.
| | 04:03 | Let's take care of shelves. Once again
I'm going to launch the Stretch command,
| | 04:07 | let's right-click and select Repeat
Stretch. Select objects, I'm going to make
| | 04:12 | a crossing window across the ends of
my shelves. Let me click to finish the
| | 04:17 | window and then I'll right-click. I'd
like to stretch them from the endpoint
| | 04:21 | here, and I'd like to stretch
them to a point perpendicular.
| | 04:25 | Now I don't have a running object
snap set for Perpendicular, so let's come
| | 04:29 | over and grab it from the toolbar. Now
that I have grabbed Perpendicular I'll
| | 04:34 | place my cursor on the line and
click and AutoCAD uses that object snap.
| | 04:39 | If we look at Stretch command as an
endpoint mover it makes much more sense
| | 04:43 | while selecting our entities
and modifying our geometry.
| | 04:46 | As you can see if you can successfully
use the Stretch command, you can make
| | 04:49 | significant changes to your
drawings in absolutely no time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling elements| 00:00 | If you have ever used a copy machine
to make enlargements or reductions of
| | 00:03 | images, you are already familiar with
the concept of scale. Just like we can
| | 00:07 | make our images larger or smaller
using a copy machine, we can make our
| | 00:11 | entities larger of smaller
by using the Scale command.
| | 00:14 | Let's take a look at the Scale command.
I'm going to open a couple of drawings.
| | 00:17 | I'm going to come up and click the
Open icon. We are going to look inside the
| | 00:21 | Exercise Files directory. We are going
to go inside the Chapter_09 folder. I'd
| | 00:26 | like you to open up these three drawings.
All of them start with the number 07.
| | 00:31 | So I'm going go to click this one to
highlight it. I will hold my Shift key and
| | 00:36 | I will grab this bottom on. AutoCAD
will select the drawing between them. Now
| | 00:40 | that they are all highlighted, I
will come over and select Open.
| | 00:45 | Now I have three drawings open in this
version of AutoCAD. Unfortunately, the
| | 00:49 | drawing that we see on screen
currently is not the one I want to talk about
| | 00:52 | just yet. So I want to flip to one of
the other drawings. Let me show you one
| | 00:56 | way we can do that.
| | 00:58 | I'm going to come up to my Menu Browser
and click. We can come down to the Open
| | 01:02 | Documents section. Then I can come over
and I can select which drawing I'd like
| | 01:07 | to work on. In fact, if I hover over
these guys, I can see a nice preview image
| | 01:11 | of the drawings. I'd like to start by
talking about the MP3 player drawing. So
| | 01:15 | I'm going to come up and click this one.
| | 01:17 | Now I have got an MP3 player on my
screen. Let's say there has been a design
| | 01:22 | change that requires me to make the
thumbwheel a little bit smaller. I'm going
| | 01:26 | to do that by using Scale command. Now
Scale is located inside the Modify panel
| | 01:31 | of our ribbon.
| | 01:32 | Let me come up and click the Scale
icon to launch the command. AutoCAD then
| | 01:37 | asks me to select objects. I'm going to
use a window. I'm going to click right
| | 01:41 | here. Let me come down into the right.
I will click to finish the window and
| | 01:45 | then will right click.
| | 01:46 | Now AutoCAD is asking me to specify
base point. The base point is the point in
| | 01:52 | which our objects are going to get
larger or smaller. Now I'd like to scale
| | 01:56 | this guy around the center point and I
happen to have a running objects snap
| | 01:59 | set for center. So I'm going to
place the cursor on the arc and click.
| | 02:04 | Notice as I move my cursor now I'm
getting the rubber band effect. I'm now able
| | 02:08 | to change the size of this thumbwheel.
Now I could free pick a point on screen,
| | 02:13 | but that won't be accurate. Instead,
I'm going to enter a scale factor.
| | 02:17 | Now notice the default value is 1. 1
essentially means no change; it's a 1:1
| | 02:23 | scale. Let's make this guy half as big.
I'm going to do that by typing 0.5 and
| | 02:28 | hit Enter. I have just changed the
size of the thumbwheel. Let's scale it
| | 02:33 | again. This time I'm going to right
click and select the Repeat SCALE from the menu.
| | 02:39 | When AutoCAD says select objects,
I'm going to type the letter p on my
| | 02:42 | keyboard; p stands for previous and
I will hit Enter. This reselects the
| | 02:47 | thumbwheel. Now I have to right click
one more time to let AutoCAD know I'm
| | 02:51 | done selecting objects. AutoCAD asks me
for a base point. Let's scale it around
| | 02:56 | the center again.
| | 02:57 | Let me move then and click on the arc.
This time I'm going to type in a scale
| | 03:02 | factor of 1.5. I want to make it 1.5
times bigger than it is right now. Let me
| | 03:09 | hit Enter, and I have just rEscapealed my
thumbwheel again. Now this is an example
| | 03:14 | of using a Scale command for a design
change. The Scale command also comes in
| | 03:19 | handy when we have trouble
with our units. Let's take a look.
| | 03:22 | I'm going to close this drawing. Now I
still have two drawings open. Let's look
| | 03:30 | at the remaining two drawings in a side
-by-side comparison. I can do that by
| | 03:34 | coming up to the View tab in my ribbon
and clicking. We will come over to the
| | 03:39 | Window panel. I'm going to select the
Tile Vertically icon. This gives me a
| | 03:43 | nice side-by-side view.
| | 03:46 | Now I have a side-by-side comparison.
Let's adjust our views. I'm going to
| | 03:50 | place my cursor in the basketball
drawing since this is one is current. I'm
| | 03:53 | going to hold down my mouse wheel
and will pan this guy and center him on
| | 03:57 | screen. Now in the drawing in the left,
this drawing was created such that one
| | 04:03 | unit equals one inch. If we look at the
drawing on the right, this drawing was
| | 04:08 | created such that one unit equals one foot.
| | 04:12 | Let's drag the basketball geometry
from this drawing into this one. I can do
| | 04:17 | that by clicking on the basketball to
highlight it. I will then click and hold
| | 04:21 | on my highlighted edge and I will
drag this guy into the court drawing and
| | 04:26 | release. Now that I'm done, I'm going
to maximize the basketball court drawing.
| | 04:30 | I will come and click the
Maximize button. Let's zoom in.
| | 04:35 | Here is my problem, the basketball
drawing was created in inches and the
| | 04:41 | basketball court drawing was created
in feet. When I drag the basketball into
| | 04:46 | this drawing, AutoCAD only saw 9.39.
So it made it 9.39 feet, which is
| | 04:52 | obviously too big. Let's use the
Scale command to correct the basketball.
| | 04:57 | I want to go back to my Home tab. I
want to go into the Modify panel and select
| | 05:02 | Scale. AutoCAD says select objects,
I will click the Basketball and right
| | 05:06 | click. Base point, I'm going to scale
him around the center of the ball, so I
| | 05:10 | will place my cursor on the arc and click.
| | 05:14 | For my scale factor I'm going to type 1/12;
the difference between an inch and
| | 05:19 | a foot is 1/12. I need this guy to be
1/12 his current size. Let me hit Enter
| | 05:25 | to rEscapeale the basketball. Now if I was
to use the Move command, we can select
| | 05:30 | the basketball and we can see that
this guy will now fit through the hoop.
| | 05:36 | Whether we need to resize our
entities as part of the design change or to
| | 05:39 | correct the difference in drawing units,
we can accurately make our entities
| | 05:43 | larger or smaller by using the Scale command.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Leveraging grips| 00:00 | Grips are probably the most versatile
tool in AutoCAD. We can use them to make
| | 00:03 | quick revisions to our geometry. In fact,
we can use Grips to access several of
| | 00:08 | AutoCAD's modification commands.
Let's take a look at how they work.
| | 00:12 | Now I have got a drawing open on
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:15 | drawing, this guy is located inside
the Chapter_09 folder inside the Exercise
| | 00:19 | Files directory. This is the
number 08 MP3 player drawing.
| | 00:24 | Now if we look at the left side of the
screen, we can see that I have got an
| | 00:27 | MP3 player. On the right side I have
got some scrap geometry. We are going to
| | 00:33 | use this line work to learn
how the Grips feature works.
| | 00:36 | Let me start by coming up and clicking
this line. When I do, I can see these
| | 00:41 | little blue squares. These squares are
called Grips and these grips act like
| | 00:46 | little handles and they allow me
to make changes to my geometry.
| | 00:50 | Now the Grips feature can be turned off.
If you are not seeing grips on your
| | 00:53 | screen, let me show you where we can
turn them on. First thing I'm going to do
| | 00:58 | is hit my Escape key to deselect my line
and clear the grips, and let's go to the
| | 01:03 | Options dialog box.
| | 01:05 | To get there I'm going to right click
and at the bottom of the menu I'm going
| | 01:08 | to select Options. When the Options
dialog comes up, we are going to go to the
| | 01:12 | Selection tab and the setting for the
grips feature is located right here. I
| | 01:18 | have a check in the box,
so I'm able to see my grips.
| | 01:22 | I'm going to come up and click the X to
close the dialog box. As long as we are
| | 01:26 | talking about turning things on and
off, I'd like you to come down and make
| | 01:29 | sure that your Dynamic Input mode is
turned on. Make sure he is blue. The
| | 01:34 | Dynamic Input will give us additional
functionality with our grips. Let's come
| | 01:39 | back up and click our line again.
| | 01:40 | I'm going to click the line to select it.
I'm going to place my cursor over the
| | 01:45 | end grip. When I do, because my
Dynamic Input is turned on, AutoCAD is giving
| | 01:50 | me information about that line. I can
see both the length and the angle at
| | 01:55 | which it was drawn.
| | 01:56 | Let me move away, and I will click this
arc. Let's hover over this grip. When I
| | 02:02 | do, I can see the radius and the angle
of the arc. Finally, I'm going to come
| | 02:06 | down and click on the circle and then
I will hover over this grip; AutoCAD
| | 02:11 | gives me the radius.
| | 02:13 | So I can use the Grip feature to query
my geometry and check my dimensions. Let
| | 02:18 | me hit Escape to clear the grips. Let's
try and make it change using the Grips
| | 02:23 | feature. Once again I'm going go to
come up and click my line segment. This
| | 02:27 | time I'm going to hover
over the end grip and click.
| | 02:31 | When I do, that grips becomes red.
It's now waiting to be moved. Notice that
| | 02:35 | AutoCAD has also popped up some fields
and it has given me the opportunity to
| | 02:39 | type in values. Now there are actually
four fields available. I can use my Tab
| | 02:44 | key to cycle through the fields. The
first field represents how much I'd like
| | 02:49 | to add or remove from this line. If I
hit my Tab key, this field represents the
| | 02:55 | total length of the line. I will hit
Tab again, this field represents the
| | 02:59 | amount of change I want to make to my angle.
| | 03:01 | Let me hit Tab again. This field
represents the total angle of my line. I'm
| | 03:06 | going to hit my Tab key until I get to
the total length, and let's type in 1
| | 03:11 | and hit Enter. I just made this line 1
unit long. Let's try that with an arc.
| | 03:17 | I'm going to come down and click the arc.
| | 03:19 | Now if we want to have access to the
fields with an arc, we need to click the
| | 03:23 | triangular grips. Let's change the
radius. I'd like this to be 1.25. So I will
| | 03:29 | type that in and I will hit Enter. I
just changed the radius of the arc. Let me
| | 03:34 | come down and click the circle. Let me
come over and click this grip. In this
| | 03:37 | case, I have two fields. The
highlighted one represents the radius of the
| | 03:41 | circle. If I hit Tab, this guy
represents the amount I'd like to make the
| | 03:45 | circle larger or smaller.
| | 03:47 | Let me hit Tab to go back to the
total radius and we will set the radius to
| | 03:50 | 0.75 and hit Enter. Once again I'm
going to hit my Escape key to clear the grips.
| | 03:57 | Now we can use the grips to access
several of AutoCAD's modification commands.
| | 04:01 | Let's take a look.
| | 04:02 | I'm going to come up and click this arc.
This time I'm going to come down and
| | 04:06 | click this end grip. When I do, I'm
going to move my cursor. Notice this grip
| | 04:11 | is now moving. Also notice the cursor
says, specify stretch point, because by
| | 04:16 | default, if I highlight a grip
AutoCAD reverts to the stretch modification command.
| | 04:22 | If I right click, I have additional
modification options. Let me right click
| | 04:27 | and in the menu I can see the other
choices that I have. If I select Move, I'm
| | 04:32 | now moving this arc by this grip. If I
right click and select Mirror, I'm now
| | 04:38 | mirroring this arc from this grip.
I can also rotate, scale or stretch.
| | 04:44 | I'm going to move away from the menu
and hit Escape and then hit Escape again to
| | 04:48 | clear the grips.
| | 04:49 | Let's try and use the grips feature in
a practical example. Let's say I'd like
| | 04:54 | to make a design change. I'd like to
change the size of the screen on my MP3
| | 04:59 | player. If I click the screen and
hover over this grip, I can see the
| | 05:03 | dimensions of the screen are 2 x 1.6.
Now this drawing was created using
| | 05:08 | decimal inches, so let's say I'd like
to make my screen 2 inches x 2 inches.
| | 05:14 | What I will do is click this grip to
make it "hot", I will hit my Tab key to
| | 05:18 | cycle through the various fields
until I get to the one that represents the
| | 05:22 | total length of the right side.
| | 05:25 | From here I will type 2 and hit Enter
and notice the right side changed. Let's
| | 05:30 | come over and click the left side. By
default, AutoCAD has already highlighted
| | 05:34 | the appropriate field. Let me set this
for 2 and hit Enter. I have just changed
| | 05:40 | my screen size to 2 inches x 2 inches.
Let me hit Escape to clear the grips.
| | 05:46 | Now unfortunately, my thumbwheel is
tripping over the edge of my screen. Let's
| | 05:51 | move the thumbwheel using grips. I
want to select the thumbwheel using a
| | 05:55 | Window. I'm going to click right here
and I will come down and I will click
| | 05:59 | right here to finish my Window.
| | 06:01 | Now I'm going to move in and click
the center grip to make it "hot". I will
| | 06:04 | right click and select Move from the
menu. I'd like to move this guy down.
| | 06:11 | Let's come down and click our Ortho
button, such that we can lock our movements
| | 06:15 | to 90 degree angles.
| | 06:18 | Now I'm locked in a 90 degree angle
going straight down I will pull in the
| | 06:21 | downward direction. We are going to
type in 0.25. I'd like to move this a
| | 06:26 | quarter of an inch down. Let me hit
Enter to finish the move. Now I will hit
| | 06:30 | Escape to clear my grips.
| | 06:33 | Using grips can be one of the fastest
ways to make changes to your geometry. In
| | 06:37 | fact, grips can do much more than what
we have seen here. If you know how to
| | 06:41 | use these little blue handles, you are
well on your way to understanding future
| | 06:45 | concepts like Dynamic Blocks and 3D Modeling.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploding elements| 00:00 | I must admit the Explode command isn't
as exciting to use as it sounds. With a
| | 00:05 | name like Explode you might expect to
see something spectacular when you use it.
| | 00:08 | I'm afraid this isn't the case.
| | 00:11 | What the Explode command does is, it
converts our joined entities back into
| | 00:14 | their individual components. Now I have
got a drawing open on screen. If you'd
| | 00:18 | like to open the same drawing, this guy
is located inside the Chapter_09 folder
| | 00:23 | inside the Exercise Files directory.
This is the number 09 Explode Drawing.
| | 00:27 | Now I have got some abstract geometry
to start with. We are going to use this
| | 00:31 | to learn how the Explode command works.
Let's take a look at this hexagon on
| | 00:35 | the left. If I click this guy, I can
see AutoCAD treats him as one piece.
| | 00:40 | That's because he was created using the
Polygon command. Technically speaking,
| | 00:44 | this guy is called a polyline.
Polyline stands for multi-segmented line.
| | 00:50 | Let me hit Escape to clear my grips, and
let's explode this guy. Now my Explode
| | 00:55 | command is located in the Modify panel.
Let me come up and click the Explode
| | 00:59 | icon. It looks like a little box
that's exploding. AutoCAD then asks me to
| | 01:04 | select objects. I will click this
one, and then I will right click.
| | 01:07 | It didn't look like much happened, but
if I click these entities now, I can see
| | 01:11 | their individual line segments. Let me
hit Escape to clear the grips. Let's take a
| | 01:17 | look at the geometry on the right. In
this case, I have got a rectangle. This
| | 01:21 | guy was generated using the Rectangle
command. AutoCAD also treats him as a
| | 01:26 | single entity.
| | 01:28 | Technically speaking, this guy is also
a polyline. Inside my rectangle I have
| | 01:33 | got a Hatch pattern. If I click this,
AutoCAD also treats this as one piece.
| | 01:37 | Once again I'm going to
hit Escape to clear the grips.
| | 01:40 | Let's explode these entities. I'm
going to move up once again and click my
| | 01:43 | Explode icon. When AutoCAD says select
objects, I will click the rectangle and
| | 01:49 | I will click the Hatch. When I'm
finished I will right click. Let's check it out.
| | 01:54 | If I click the outer edges, I can see
these are individuals line segments now,
| | 01:58 | and if I click the Hatch I can see
these are also individual segments. Be very
| | 02:03 | careful when using your Explode command
around Hatch. You almost never want to
| | 02:07 | explode your Hatch entities. It's a
great way to end up with thousands of
| | 02:11 | entities in your drawing. Let
me hit Escape to clear the grips.
| | 02:14 | Now you maybe wondering when would you
be want to explode entities. Let me give
| | 02:18 | you a practical example. I'm going to
zoom out. I'm going to pan over. On my
| | 02:26 | screen I have got a rectangle. I'd
like to use this rectangle to construct a
| | 02:30 | 5-panel door.
| | 02:31 | To create my panels I'm going to have
to offset the sides. Well, here is the
| | 02:35 | problem. If I try and offset this edge,
this whole guy is being treated as a
| | 02:39 | single object. He was
generated using the Rectangle command.
| | 02:44 | Let me hit Escape.
| | 02:44 | I'd like to be able to offset these
lines individually. The only way I'm going
| | 02:50 | to be able to do that is to explode
this rectangle. Let's do that. I'm going to
| | 02:54 | come up and click my Explode button.
AutoCAD says select objects, we will grab
| | 02:58 | the rectangle and then right click.
| | 03:00 | Now these guys are individual pieces.
Let me hit Escape and I'm going to pan over.
| | 03:06 | To show you, now that those guys are
individual pieces I can offset the left
| | 03:09 | and right side to create the edge of
my panels. I can then offset the top and
| | 03:15 | bottom to further define my panels.
| | 03:19 | Then I can use the Trim command to
clean up my geometry. So if you need to
| | 03:24 | convert an object back into its
individual parts, use the Explode command.
| | 03:28 | Well, it may not be spectacular
to watch, it does get the job done.
| | 03:32 | Now that we have looked at how to
explode entities, in our next lesson we will
| | 03:37 | look at how we can join entities together.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Joining elements | 00:00 | Sometimes, joining line work together
can make it easier to work on a drawing.
| | 00:03 | AutoCAD's PEDIT command allows us to
join entities into a single polyline.
| | 00:08 | Now I have got a drawing opened on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:12 | drawing, it's located inside the
Chapter_09 folder of the Exercise Files
| | 00:16 | directory. This is the number 10 drawing.
It's called Pedit. Now I have got an
| | 00:22 | abstract example on my screen. It is
just a simple drawing of some stairs.
| | 00:26 | I'd like to offset this geometry 3
inches. Here is my problem. If I click my
| | 00:32 | line work, I can see that each of
these lines is an individual entity. That
| | 00:36 | means if I was to use the Offset command,
I'd have to use it several times. Not
| | 00:41 | to mention, that I'd have to
clean up all of my corners.
| | 00:44 | So this would be a very tedious way
to create my offset. Let me hit Escape to
| | 00:48 | clear my grips. What I'd like to do is
I'd like to join this line work together
| | 00:52 | into one single polyline and then
offset the polyline in one command. Let's
| | 00:58 | launch the PEDIT command.
PEDIT stands for Polyline Edit.
| | 01:02 | I can find it inside the Modify panel
of my ribbon. Let me click the flyout.
| | 01:08 | The icon is located right down here.
Let me click the icon to launch the
| | 01:12 | command. When I do, AutoCAD asks me to
select polyline. I'm going to click this
| | 01:17 | line segment and AutoCAD says, hey!
That's not a polyline. Do you want to turn
| | 01:21 | it into one? Yes, I do.
| | 01:23 | So I'm going to right click and
accept Yes. Then in the Menu I'm going to
| | 01:27 | select Join. I'd like to create a
polyline by joining my line segments
| | 01:31 | together. Let me click, and then
AutoCAD asks me to select objects. I'm going
| | 01:36 | to make a Window and select all of
these guys and then I will right click.
| | 01:41 | Now take a look at the command line.
Notice AutoCAD said, 9 segments added to
| | 01:46 | polyline. That's good. That means that
the command worked. You see you can only
| | 01:50 | join segments together if they touch end
-to-end. If by chance we saw 0 segments
| | 01:56 | added to polyline. That means I need to
clean up my geometry. For some reasons,
| | 02:00 | my geometry is not touching at the
corners. At this point I'm going to hit Escape
| | 02:04 | to cancel out the PEDIT command.
| | 02:07 | Let's click the stairs now. Notice
they are being treated as one single
| | 02:11 | polyline. I'm going to hit Escape again
to clear the grips, and let's offset the
| | 02:15 | stairs. I'm going to come up to the
Modify panel and click my Offset command.
| | 02:20 | Offset distance, I'm going to type 3
inches. This is an architectural example.
| | 02:25 | Let me hit Enter. Select object to
offset, I will click this one. Then I will
| | 02:30 | click this side. When I'm finished
I will right click and select Exit.
| | 02:34 | Let's try and use the PEDIT Join
option in a practical example. I'm going to
| | 02:39 | roll my wheel back to zoom out. We
will pan over. Let's take a look at the
| | 02:44 | progress that I have made on a 5-panel
door. I started first with a rectangle.
| | 02:49 | I exploded it. Then I offset my left
and right edges to create the edges of my
| | 02:55 | panels. I then offset the top and
bottom edges to further define my panels.
| | 03:01 | Then I used the Trim
command to clean up my geometry.
| | 03:04 | Let me zoom in on this guy. Now here
is my problem. I'd like to offset these
| | 03:09 | rectangular shapes to create the
appearance of a raised panel, but
| | 03:13 | unfortunately since this line work was
created using the Trim command, these
| | 03:17 | guys are individual objects.
Let me hit Escape to clear the grips.
| | 03:22 | I'm going to use the PEDIT command to
join these guys together into a single
| | 03:26 | polyline. To access to PEDIT command,
once again I'm going to come over to
| | 03:29 | Modify panel, and we'll click the
flyout. I'm going to using the command a
| | 03:33 | couple of times, so I'm going to click
this pushpin, so that the panel stays open.
| | 03:37 | Let me click PEDIT. I will click my
line segment. Let's right click, because we
| | 03:43 | do want to turn it into a polyline.
Once again I'm going to select Join. Then
| | 03:47 | I'm going to make a Window around my
entities. When I'm finished I will right
| | 03:51 | click and then I will hit
Escape to exit the command.
| | 03:55 | Let's click our shape. Notice it's all
joined together. Let me hit Escape to clear
| | 03:59 | the grips and let's offset the shape
to create our raised panel. I'm going to
| | 04:03 | come up and click Offset. My distance
is going to be 2 inches. I will select
| | 04:09 | this object and I will offset it to the inside.
| | 04:13 | When I'm finished I will right click
and select Exit. Now one of the drawbacks
| | 04:17 | to PEDIT is that by default it wants to
create one polyline at a time. I still
| | 04:23 | have four more panels. What if I'd
like to join all of these guys together to
| | 04:27 | create four closed polylines?
Let me show you how we can do that.
| | 04:32 | Once again I'm going to come up and
launch the PEDIT command. If we take a look
| | 04:35 | down at the command line, I can see
that I have a sub-option of Multiple. This
| | 04:39 | will allow me to create multiple
polylines. Let me right click, I will select
| | 04:44 | Multiple from the Menu. AutoCAD says,
select objects. I'm just going to Window
| | 04:49 | all of these guys.
| | 04:51 | I can't hurt an existing polyline. Let
me right click to finish my selection.
| | 04:57 | AutoCAD says, convert lines and arcs
to polylines. Yes, that's what I want to
| | 05:01 | do. So I will right click and select Yes.
Now I will come down and select Join.
| | 05:07 | AutoCAD is asking me for a fuzz
distance. Since I'm creating multiple
| | 05:11 | polylines, AutoCAD is saying, you know
what, how far part can these entities be
| | 05:15 | at the corners before we don't join them?
I'm going to leave that set to zero.
| | 05:19 | This way things will only
join if they touch end-to-end.
| | 05:22 | Let me hit Enter to accept zero. If I
look down at the command line, I can see
| | 05:26 | 12 segments added to four polylines. So
I can see that the command has worked.
| | 05:32 | Let me hit Escape to exit the command.
All right. Let's offset the rest of our panels.
| | 05:36 | I'm going to come up and click Offset.
Notice Offset remembers the previous
| | 05:40 | value. So I'm going to hit Enter to
accept that. Then we will offset this guy
| | 05:45 | in, this guy in. We will grab this guy
and offset him to the inside and then
| | 05:51 | finally we will grab this guy and
offset him in to finish it up. When I'm done,
| | 05:55 | I'm going to right click and select
the Exit. We can come over and click the
| | 05:59 | pushpin to collapse our panel.
| | 06:02 | The next time you have to modify
several individual components, see if it's
| | 06:07 | possible to join them together first.
If the components meet end-to-end, it
| | 06:11 | might be faster to turn them into a
polyline before making your changes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Organizing DrawingsUnderstanding layers| 00:00 | Layers are used in AutoCAD to organize
our drawings. By placing our entities on
| | 00:04 | different layers we have the ability
to turn line work on and off as well as
| | 00:08 | control colors, linetypes and lineweights.
| | 00:11 | Now I have got a drawing on my screen.
If you'd like to open the same drawing
| | 00:15 | and work along with me, this drawing
is located inside the Chapter_10 folder
| | 00:19 | inside the Exercise Files directory.
This is the number 1 drawing, the Retro Controller.
| | 00:24 | Now the drawing I have on screen is a
mechanical example. This is a drawing of
| | 00:29 | a 1980s video game Controller. Just
for a second let's pretend that I created
| | 00:33 | this drawing using a traditional
pencil and paper. Maybe I took that drawing
| | 00:37 | and I gave it to you and you looked at
it and said, "You know, this drawing is
| | 00:40 | kind of busy. Can you give me
a copy without the dimensions?"
| | 00:43 | Well, unless I get an eraser or a
bottle of a White-Out, there is no easy way
| | 00:47 | for me to provide you a copy
without the dimensions. Let's look at it a
| | 00:51 | different way. What if I drew the
controller on a piece of paper and then I
| | 00:55 | laid a clear sheet of plastic over my
drawing and I created the dimensions on
| | 00:59 | the plastic? That way, if I give you
the drawing, and you don't like the
| | 01:02 | dimensions, we can just peel back the
plastic and the dimensions are gone.
| | 01:06 | That's exactly how layers work. Each
layer represents a virtual sheet of plastic.
| | 01:12 | Now in AutoCAD we use layers to
organize our drawing. We may put dimensions on
| | 01:16 | a layer. We may put centerlines, or
notes, or various components on individual
| | 01:21 | layers. Placing our geometry on
logical layers gives us more control when
| | 01:25 | plotting, because I'm able to turn
off the things that I don't want to see.
| | 01:29 | Now the drawing that we see on screen
contains several layers. Let's make some
| | 01:32 | changes. Let's say I'd like to turn
off my dimensions. I'm going to move up
| | 01:36 | into the Layers panel of my ribbon,
I'm going to click this flyout. This guy
| | 01:39 | represents my Layer Control.
| | 01:42 | When this guy opens up, it shows me
a listing of all of the layers in my
| | 01:44 | drawing. I'm going to go to the
dimensions layer. I'm going to come over and
| | 01:48 | click the light bulb to turn it off
and then I will click in model space to
| | 01:52 | close the menu.
| | 01:53 | Notice my dimensions are now turned
off. Let's turn off another layer. Once
| | 01:58 | again I'm going to go back up to the
flyout. This time I'd like to turn off the
| | 02:02 | centerlines. I'd like to remove them
from my screen. So we will come down to
| | 02:06 | the centerlines layer. I will
come over and click the light bulb.
| | 02:09 | Then I will click in model space to
close the menu. Not only do layers give us
| | 02:14 | more control when we plot, they also
give us more control when we are working.
| | 02:18 | I'm sure you will agree that it is
much easy to work on a drawing when it's
| | 02:21 | uncluttered with extra information.
| | 02:23 | Let's turn our layers back on. Once
again I want to go up to the Layer Control
| | 02:26 | and click the flyout. Let me click
these light bulbs to turn the layers back
| | 02:31 | on. Then I will click again in
model space to close the menu.
| | 02:36 | When it comes right down to it, layers
give us more control over our drawing.
| | 02:40 | If we use a system of logically named
layers to organize our line work, we give
| | 02:44 | ourselves more options when
plotting or viewing our geometry on screen.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organizing with the Layer Properties Manager| 00:00 | Once we decide we need to create some
layers, the place we want to visit is the
| | 00:04 | Layer Properties Manager. This is our
one-stop shop for creating, managing and
| | 00:08 | manipulating the layers in our
drawing. Now I have recently launched my
| | 00:12 | AutoCAD. I'm currently
sitting in the default Drawing1.dwg.
| | 00:16 | Now in this session I'd like to
create a simple drawing and I'd like to
| | 00:19 | organize my geometry on the different
layers. To create a layer I need to go at
| | 00:23 | the Layer Properties Manager. I can
find the icon right up here in the Layers
| | 00:27 | panel of my ribbon.
| | 00:28 | Let me come up and click the icon to
bring up the Property Manager. Now the
| | 00:33 | Layer Properties Manager is a palette.
That means if I move off the palette, I
| | 00:37 | run the risk of it collapsing on my
screen. To prevent that I'm going to come
| | 00:40 | up and click the Auto-hide button such
that I see the two triangles and now I
| | 00:44 | know this guy will stay open.
| | 00:46 | Now there are several settings inside
the panel. We are not going to go get a
| | 00:49 | chance to talk about all of them. We
are going to talk about the ones that are
| | 00:52 | important for us right now as a beginner.
One change I'd like you to make, I'd
| | 00:56 | like you to click this chevron to
close up the filters area. If at any point
| | 01:01 | you wan him to open that guy back up,
you could simply click the chevron again.
| | 01:05 | Let's keep him closed, that will we
have more room inside the palette. Now if
| | 01:09 | look at the top of the palette, I can
see the current layer. My current layer
| | 01:12 | happens to be zero. That means that
anything that I draft will be drawn on
| | 01:16 | layer zero. If I move down into this
area, I can see a listing of all of the
| | 01:20 | layers in my drawing as well as their settings.
| | 01:23 | Now I currently only have one layer,
that's layer zero. Layer zero is kind of
| | 01:27 | like the magic layer. Every AutoCAD
drawing starts with layer zero. We cannot
| | 01:31 | delete or rename layer zero. To the
left of the layer name I can see a green
| | 01:36 | check. This also represents that layer
zero is current. To the right I can see
| | 01:40 | the various settings. My settings are
organized in the columns very similar to
| | 01:44 | my Microsoft Excel.
| | 01:45 | Now unfortunately, we always can't
read the column heading. If you'd like to
| | 01:49 | change the width of your column, you
can place your cursor between the columns
| | 01:53 | and click and hold and you can drag
the column to whatever width you like.
| | 01:57 | Let me release to set my column width.
Now we can change any of the layer
| | 02:01 | settings by simply clicking on it.
Let's talk about this setting first. This is
| | 02:06 | our on/off setting. If I click the
light bulb, I will turn this layer off. Now
| | 02:10 | since it's the only layer in my
drawing, if I click the light bulb, AutoCAD
| | 02:14 | says, hey! You are turning off the
current layer. Do you want to do this? No, I
| | 02:18 | want to keep the current layer on.
| | 02:21 | Let's take a look at the color setting.
If I click the color setting, AutoCAD
| | 02:24 | bring up the color picker, allowing me
to choose from any one of the 255 colors
| | 02:30 | available in AutoCAD. In this case, I'm
going to leave it set to white. So I'm
| | 02:33 | going to come down and click Cancel.
| | 02:36 | This setting represents our line type.
This controls how our lines look on
| | 02:39 | screen. We will talk about this guy in
a little bit. This setting controls our
| | 02:44 | lineweight. The Lineweight dialog box
gives me the opportunity to select a
| | 02:48 | plottable line thickness for my layer.
We will talk more about these settings
| | 02:53 | in the plotting chapter.
| | 02:54 | I'm going to come up and click the X
to close the dialog box. Let's create a
| | 03:00 | new layer. To create a layer I'm going
to come over and click this icon, looks
| | 03:05 | like a piece of paper with a star. When
I click the icon, AutoCAD creates a new
| | 03:09 | layer for me and as a courtesy it
gives it a name. Now this name is not very
| | 03:13 | dEscaperiptive, so I'm going to call
this layer Object and hit Enter.
| | 03:19 | Let's change the color of our layer.
I'm going to come over and click the color
| | 03:23 | swatch. This puts me in the color
picker. I'm going to set the color of this
| | 03:27 | layer to yellow. Let me click the
yellow color swatch and we will click OK.
| | 03:33 | Finally, I'm going to set this layer
current. To make the layer current, I will
| | 03:37 | click on it and make sure it's
highlighted and then I will select the green check.
| | 03:41 | When I'm finished using the Layer
Properties palette, I will come up and click
| | 03:44 | the X to close it. In my Layer Control
I can see that the object layer is now
| | 03:49 | the current layer. Now I'd like to
create a 5 x 5 square on my screen. I want
| | 03:54 | to do that by using the Rectangle command.
| | 03:56 | Let me come and click the Rectangle tool.
I will click my first corner. Let me
| | 04:01 | right click. I'm going to use the
Dimensions sub-option. My length is going to
| | 04:06 | be 5, Enter, and my width will be 5,
Enter. Lastly, I need to click to specify
| | 04:13 | the other corner points, so I will
click right here to identify that location.
| | 04:17 | Let's center that guy on screen.
| | 04:21 | Notice that my geometry is yellow.
That's because I drafted it on a yellow
| | 04:24 | layer. Let's make a change. Once again
I'm going to go to the Layer Properties
| | 04:29 | palette. Let me click to bring this
guy open. I'd like to change the layer
| | 04:33 | name. I don't want this to be object. I
want it to be a different name. So I'm
| | 04:36 | going to click once to highlight the
layer and then I'm going to click again to
| | 04:40 | have access to the name.
| | 04:41 | Let's call this the Part layer, I will
type part and hit Enter. I'm going to
| | 04:45 | change the color as well. Let me come
over to the color area and click. I want
| | 04:49 | to set the color to magenta. So I will
click that color swatch and will select
| | 04:54 | OK. Once again I'm going to close the
layer palette. Let me come up and click X.
| | 05:00 | Notice the geometry now looks magenta.
Also notice that the current layer name
| | 05:04 | has changed. Now let's pretend that
this square represents a block of wood and
| | 05:09 | we are looking at that block from the
front view. Let's also assume that the
| | 05:12 | block of wood has a hole
drilled through it from top to bottom.
| | 05:16 | Now in the front view, that hole will
be represented by some hidden lines.
| | 05:20 | Let's create a layer for the hidden
lines. Once again I'm going to come and
| | 05:24 | open my Layer Properties Manager. Now
since this guy is a palette, and I'm
| | 05:28 | going to be going back and forth to
him on a regular basis, I'm going to dock
| | 05:32 | him on the left side of my screen.
Let me move over and right click in this
| | 05:36 | mast area and I'm going to select Anchor Left.
| | 05:40 | Now whenever I need the layer palette,
I can simply place my cursor over the
| | 05:43 | icon and that will open up allowing me
to make changes. When I'm finished, I
| | 05:47 | can move away and it will close. That
will certainly be more convenient. Let me
| | 05:51 | move into the palette and
we will create a new layer.
| | 05:54 | I'm going to click my new layer icon
and I'm going to call this hidden lines.
| | 05:59 | Notice that the layer properties of
the new layer, match the layer that was
| | 06:03 | current when I created my new layer.
This can be very helpful if I'm creating
| | 06:08 | multiple layers that require the same settings.
| | 06:10 | Let's change the color. I'm going to
click in the color area and will change
| | 06:14 | the color to cyan. Now don't worry that
layer palette closed. That's what it's
| | 06:18 | supposed to do when we move off of the
palette. Let me select my color. I will
| | 06:22 | click OK. We will return to the palette.
| | 06:24 | Let me come down to Linetype and click.
This is how I'm going to control how my
| | 06:29 | Linetype looks on the screen. From this
dialog box I can select from the loaded
| | 06:33 | linetypes in this drawing.
Currently, I only have continuous.
| | 06:36 | Let me come down and click the Load
button, so that I can load another
| | 06:40 | linetype. In this list I can see all
of the linetypes that come stock with my
| | 06:45 | instillation of AutoCAD. Fortunately,
they are alphabetical, so I'm going to
| | 06:49 | come down to the H section and I have
three choices for hidden lines. The only
| | 06:54 | difference being the size and the dash.
| | 06:56 | I'm going to select HIDDEN and click
OK to load it into my drawing. Now that
| | 07:00 | it's in my drawing, I'm going to
select it such that it's associated with my
| | 07:04 | layer. Let me come down and click OK. I
have just created a new layer, set its
| | 07:08 | color, and its linetype.
| | 07:11 | Let's set this layer current. To set a
layer current I will highlight it and
| | 07:15 | then I will come up and click the
green check. Let's move off the palette and
| | 07:18 | allow it to collapse. Let's assume
that the hole that is drilled through my
| | 07:22 | wooden block has a diameter of 3.
| | 07:24 | I'm going to construct my hole by
first launching the line command. Then I'm
| | 07:28 | going to draw a line from the
midpoint of the top to the midpoint of the
| | 07:31 | bottom. Now I don't have a running
object snap set for midpoint, so I'm going
| | 07:35 | to get that from the toolbar.
| | 07:36 | Let me select a midpoint, and I will
grab the midpoint of the top. I will come
| | 07:42 | over and I will select midpoint and I
will grab the midpoint of the bottom.
| | 07:45 | When I'm finished I will hit Escape. This
line would represent the center of the
| | 07:49 | hole. Let's offset this
line to either side 1.5 units.
| | 07:53 | I'm going to come up and launch my
Offset command. Specify offset distance, we
| | 07:58 | will type in 1.5 and hit Enter. I want
to offset this object to this side and
| | 08:04 | the same object to this side. When I'm
finished I will hit my Escape key to cancel
| | 08:10 | out of the command. Now I don't need
my centerline anymore, so we will launch
| | 08:14 | the Erase command. Select
the line and then right click.
| | 08:19 | Whenever you are adding geometry to
your drawing, ask yourself, is this
| | 08:23 | something that needs to be a
different linetype or a lineweight? Is this
| | 08:26 | something I may want to turn off when
I print my drawing? If your answer is
| | 08:29 | yes, you want to visit your Layer
Properties Manager and create a new layer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using layer control| 00:00 | You may be wondering if there are
any shortcuts for making changes to our
| | 00:03 | layers. In fact, there are. In this
session, we are going to look at how to
| | 00:06 | make layer changes using the Layer
Control drop-down in the Layers panel.
| | 00:11 | Now I have got a drawing open up on
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:14 | drawing, this is located inside the
Chapter_10 folder, inside your Exercise
| | 00:18 | Files directory. This is the
number 03 Stereo Viewer drawing.
| | 00:22 | Now this drawing is a mechanical
example, this happens to be a drawing of a
| | 00:26 | 1970s Stereo Viewer. Now I'd like to
make some revisions to this drawing. None
| | 00:31 | of my revisions involve the dimensions,
so I'm going to turn off the Dimensions
| | 00:35 | layer. I can do that by coming up
to the Layers panel in my ribbon and
| | 00:39 | selecting the Layer Control flyout.
| | 00:42 | This gives me a listing of all of the
layers in my drawing, as well as various
| | 00:46 | icons representing the settings. Now
to turn off the Dimensions layer, I'm
| | 00:50 | going to come down to Dimensions,
then I'm going to come over and click the
| | 00:53 | light bulb to turn it off. Then we'll
click in model space to close the menu.
| | 00:57 | So I can use my Layer Control to turn
my layers, on and off. Let's zoom in on
| | 01:01 | the front view. I'm going to place my
cursor in the front view and I'm going to
| | 01:04 | roll the wheel on my mouse forward to
zoom in. Let me hold the wheel down and
| | 01:09 | we'll pan over and center this guy on
screen. Now I've already created the
| | 01:13 | first eyehole in this drawing, I need
to create another one. Let's find out
| | 01:17 | what dimension I should use.
| | 01:18 | I'm going to click this circle, hover
over the grip and I can see that it has a
| | 01:22 | radius of 0.3. Let me hit Escape to
deselect the entity. Let's come up and launch
| | 01:27 | our Circle command and we'll create a
new circle. Specify center point, well,
| | 01:31 | I'd like to place that at the
intersection. Now I don't have a running object
| | 01:34 | snap set for intersection, so let's
come over and grab it from the toolbar. Let
| | 01:38 | me click Intersection and I'll
select the intersection here.
| | 01:42 | Now this guy has got a radius of 0.3,
so I'll type in 0.3 and hit Enter. Here
| | 01:48 | is my problem, I drafted that circle
on the wrong layer. It doesn't matter, I
| | 01:52 | don't have to redraft it. I can use
the Layer Control to put this on the
| | 01:56 | appropriate layer. To do that, I will
click the circle, to select it, then I
| | 02:00 | move up and click the flyout in the
Layer Control and I'll come down and select
| | 02:04 | the correct layer. I want this to go
on the housing front layer. As soon as I
| | 02:08 | click the layer name, the entity gets
placed on the appropriate layer. Let me
| | 02:12 | hit Escape to clear the grips.
| | 02:13 | I'm going to zoom out. Let's take a
look at the top view, because I believe I
| | 02:18 | hit an incorrect entity on that view as
well. Let me zoom in. Yes, this line is
| | 02:23 | incorrect, this should be on the center
line layer. Now before I click this to
| | 02:27 | make the change, take a look at the
Layer Control, right now it's rating the
| | 02:30 | current layer.
| | 02:31 | If I click on this entity, AutoCAD
will tell me what layer that is on. Let's
| | 02:36 | change him to the appropriate layer.
I'm going to click the flyout and I'm
| | 02:40 | going to come down and select
centerlines. When I'm finished I'll hit Escape to
| | 02:44 | clear the grips. Let me back up, so
we can see the entire drawing and I'll
| | 02:48 | center that on screen.
| | 02:49 | I can also use the Layer Control to
set the current layer. For instance, the
| | 02:53 | current layer is now zero. I'm going to
click the flyout and I'm going to come
| | 02:57 | down and select the handle layer.
Notice that layer is now current. In fact,
| | 03:02 | any layer that I click in the list,
will become the current layer. This is much
| | 03:06 | faster than going over and selecting
the layer in the Properties Manager.
| | 03:09 | Now there is one interesting anomaly
in the Layer Control. Let me click the
| | 03:13 | flyout. Although these icons do
represent settings, I can't change the color
| | 03:18 | setting from here. Notice I can click
this guy all day long and AutoCAD is not
| | 03:23 | going to give me the opportunity to change it.
| | 03:25 | The color icon that we see in this
list is for display purposes only. If we
| | 03:30 | want to change the color of the layer,
we have to do that through the Layer
| | 03:33 | Properties Manager. Let me turn my
Dimensions layer on, as I'm finished working
| | 03:37 | on this drawing. We'll click in
model space to close the menu.
| | 03:41 | Using the Layer Control gives you fast
access to some of your layer functions
| | 03:45 | and it could be the quickest way to
move an entity from one layer to another.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the ByLayer property| 00:00 | As we have seen, when we place our
geometry on a layer, it looks like that
| | 00:04 | layer. For instance, if I draw a
circle on a green layer, that circle looks
| | 00:08 | green. If I draw a circle on a layer
that has a hidden linetype, this circle
| | 00:12 | will have a hidden linetype. This is
because my geometry has a ByLayer property
| | 00:16 | applied to it. The ByLayer property
means that your layer settings dictate how
| | 00:21 | your entities look.
| | 00:22 | Now I have got a drawing open on screen.
If you'd also like to open the same
| | 00:26 | drawing such as you can work along with
me, it is located inside the Chapter_10
| | 00:30 | folder inside the Exercises Files
directory and this is the number 04 BYLAYER
| | 00:35 | Property drawing.
| | 00:36 | Now this drawing has no geometry in it,
but it does have some defined layers. I
| | 00:41 | can see the layers by coming over to my
Layer Properties Manager, which happens
| | 00:44 | to be anchored to the left side of my
screen. So if I hover over this guy and a
| | 00:48 | palette opens up. I can see my layer
names. I can also see that they have
| | 00:52 | different linetype and color settings.
| | 00:54 | Let me move outside the palette and
let it close. Now I'm going to start by
| | 00:58 | creating a circle and I can see the
current layer is part, so I will be
| | 01:02 | creating that circle on that layer.
Let me come up and launch the Circle
| | 01:05 | command, we will click to specify a
center point, and then I'm going to click
| | 01:10 | again to define my radius. Just pan
this guy over a little bit, just so he is a
| | 01:15 | little more centered on screen.
| | 01:18 | Now this circle is yellow, because it's
sitting on a yellow layer. Let's put it
| | 01:22 | on a different layer. I'm going to
click on it to highlight it. We will come up
| | 01:25 | to our Layer Control and select the
flyout and I will grab the hidden lines
| | 01:29 | layer. Let just hit Escape to clear the
grips and if I zoom in I can see this
| | 01:33 | circle is now the color of the hidden
lines layer and it is the same linetype.
| | 01:37 | It is mimicking the layer that it's
sitting on. This is because my circle has a
| | 01:42 | ByLayer property. ByLayer means the
layer dictates how my entities look.
| | 01:47 | Now we can also force properties on our
objects. Let me show you how we can do
| | 01:51 | that. We can do that through the
Properties panel in our ribbon. Now my
| | 01:55 | Properties panel is a little bit
scrunched in my ribbon. I'm going to click and
| | 01:59 | hold on the panel name and I'm going
to drag this guy down in the model space
| | 02:03 | and release. Then it will open up and
it will be a little bit easier for me to
| | 02:07 | see the settings.
| | 02:08 | Now unfortunately, it's off the screen
a little bit. Let me place my cursor on
| | 02:11 | top of the panel. This will give me
access to the handle. Let me move up and
| | 02:15 | click and hold on the handle, and
let's drag this panel over a little bit.
| | 02:18 | There we go. This Properties panel
allows me to force properties on my
| | 02:24 | entities. I can force colors, I can
force linetypes and I can force line
| | 02:29 | thicknesses. Notice that
right now they all say ByLayer.
| | 02:33 | Once again, this means the layer
controls the properties of our objects. Let's
| | 02:37 | force a color. I'm going to come up
and click the flyout and I'm going to
| | 02:41 | select the color magenta. That means
regardless of my current layer settings
| | 02:46 | any object I create now is going to be
magenta. Let me make another circle. I
| | 02:51 | will click. I will come over and click
the center points and then will click to
| | 02:55 | set the radius.
| | 02:56 | Now if I click this circle, I can see
in the Layer Control, it is on layer
| | 03:00 | part, but unfortunately this is forced
to be a color. Let me hit Escape to clear
| | 03:04 | the grips. Let's force some more
properties. Let's try Linetype. I'm going to
| | 03:08 | click the drop-down, and I'm going to
select the CENTER Linetype. Let's click
| | 03:13 | the color drop-down and we will set
this to cyan. Any entity that I create now,
| | 03:18 | regardless of layer, is going to
be cyan with a center linetype.
| | 03:21 | Let me launch the Line command. I'm
going to come over and click Line and then
| | 03:26 | I'm going to pick some points on
screen and notice the properties of my line.
| | 03:30 | When I'm finished, I'm going to hit
Escape to cancel the command. Now this is a
| | 03:34 | terrible way to work. If you force
properties on your entities, it's very hard
| | 03:39 | to make changes to the layer.
| | 03:40 | Imagine if I copy this line 700
times in my drawing. If I decided later I
| | 03:45 | wanted to change the color of those
lines, I'd have to somehow select all of
| | 03:49 | those entities and then force a
different color on them. Instead, if all of my
| | 03:53 | entities have ByLayer properties, if
I'd like to change the colors or linetypes
| | 03:57 | or line thicknesses of my entities,
all I have to do is make changes to the
| | 04:01 | layers and all the entities update
automatically. So best practice is to always
| | 04:05 | keep these guys set to ByLayer.
| | 04:10 | Since I'm finished with the panel, I'm
going to place my cursor over the panel,
| | 04:14 | this will open up the buttons on the
right side and I'm going to click the
| | 04:17 | second button down. This is my Send
to ribbon button. If I click this, the
| | 04:21 | panel will return to my ribbon.
| | 04:23 | Let me show you how we can clean up a
drawing by clearing the forced properties
| | 04:27 | off of our entities. I'm going to show
you how we can set everything back to
| | 04:31 | ByLayer. We've got a special tool
for that. I'm going to come over to the
| | 04:35 | Modify panel and click the flyout and
I'm going to grab this tool right here.
| | 04:39 | This is my Set to ByLayer tool. Let me
click. AutoCAD says select objects. I'm
| | 04:45 | just going to type all.
| | 04:47 | This will grab all the entities, let
me hit Enter. Let me hit Enter again to
| | 04:50 | let AutoCAD know that I'm done
selecting objects. I'm going to hit Enter again
| | 04:55 | to select Yes, because I want to
convert these things to ByLayer and I'm going
| | 04:59 | to hit Yes, because I want to include
all of the entities in my drawing. These
| | 05:04 | entities on the right are now
conforming to the current layer.
| | 05:08 | The best advice I can give regarding
the ByLayer Property is, don't touch it.
| | 05:13 | You should never force properties on
your objects. If all of your entities are
| | 05:16 | set to ByLayer, making color, linetype
or lineweight changes, is as simple as
| | 05:21 | changing your layer settings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Layer Previous command| 00:00 | Sometimes, it can be easier to work
on a drawing, if we change some of our
| | 00:03 | layer settings. For instance, turning
off unnecessary geometry or changing our
| | 00:09 | layer colors, can simplify what we
see on screen and make them visually
| | 00:12 | complicated drawings easier to understand.
| | 00:15 | The nice thing is, when we finish our
work, we can use AutoCAD's Layer Previous
| | 00:19 | command to restore our layer states to
their original settings. Now I've got a
| | 00:23 | drawing open on my screen, if you'd
like to open this drawing as well and
| | 00:26 | follow along, this guy is located
inside the Chapter_10 folder, inside the
| | 00:30 | Exercise Files directory. This is
the number 05 Retro Controller drawing.
| | 00:35 | Now the drawing I have on screen is
fairly busy. It has got several layers and
| | 00:40 | I'd like to do some work on this file.
Now the work I'm going to be doing
| | 00:43 | doesn't involve some of the layers,
so I'm going to simplify what I see on
| | 00:46 | screen by turning off the unnecessary layers.
| | 00:49 | I'm going to come up to my Layer
Control and click the flyout and you know
| | 00:53 | what, I'm not going to work on the
centerlines layers, so I'll turn that guy
| | 00:56 | off. I'm not going to be working on
the button layer or the dimensions or the
| | 01:01 | orange-markings. So I'll turn all of
those guys off. Let me move my cursor in
| | 01:05 | the model space and I'll click to
close the menu. Now this greatly simplifies
| | 01:10 | what we see on screen. Now I'd like to
make one additional change, you see my
| | 01:14 | controller is made of three different
components and all three components are
| | 01:18 | on a different layer and each layer is
the same color. So I've got three layers
| | 01:22 | in this drawing and they all are blue.
| | 01:24 | Anytime you have multiple layers
with the same color, you run the risk of
| | 01:27 | accidentally drafting on the wrong
layer. So as long as I'm going to work on
| | 01:30 | this file, let's change the colors of
those layers. That way I can tell easily
| | 01:35 | which layer is which, on my screen.
Since I'm going to make a color change, I
| | 01:39 | need to go to my Layer Properties Manager.
| | 01:41 | Now my Layer Properties Manager is
currently docked on the left side of my
| | 01:45 | screen. So I'm going to move the
cursor over and place it on the icon to open
| | 01:48 | up the palette, and let's change some
colors. I'm going to come down to the
| | 01:51 | controller-base layer, we'll click
the color swatch and we'll set this to magenta.
| | 01:57 | Now don't worry about the Layer
Properties Manager closing, that's what it's
| | 02:01 | supposed to do. Let me click OK, we'll
come back to the Manager and I'm going
| | 02:06 | to change the joystick layer to yellow.
Let me click the Color Selector and
| | 02:12 | we'll come down and select yellow and click OK.
| | 02:14 | I've perfect example. Notice this
right here, if I zoom in, I can see that
| | 02:20 | these two fillets where created on an
incorrect layer. Let's fix that. To make
| | 02:25 | the change, I'm going to zoom in by
rolling the wheel on my mouse forward.
| | 02:29 | We'll click this fillet and we'll
click this one. In the Layer Control, I'll
| | 02:33 | select the flyout and I'll click the
appropriate layer. When I'm finished I'll
| | 02:38 | hit my Escape key and will zoom out.
| | 02:43 | Now don't worry about making layer
changes while you work, because we can
| | 02:46 | always set the layers back the way they
were. I can do that by using the Layer
| | 02:50 | Previous command. Now the icon for
Layer Previous is located right up here in
| | 02:54 | the Layers panel. Let me click this
icon, and notice AutoCAD puts the layers
| | 02:58 | back, once step at a time. Let me move
up again and I'll click, AutoCAD makes
| | 03:03 | another change. We'll click again, and
again, and we'll keep clicking until all
| | 03:07 | of our layers come back.
| | 03:09 | Don't be afraid of changing your layer
settings, if it will make it easier for
| | 03:13 | you to work on your drawing. Even if
you make several layer adjustments, you
| | 03:16 | could always restore your layer state,
by using AutoCAD's Layer Previous command.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. General AnnotationAnnotating with single-line text| 00:00 | No matter what you are drafting, at
some point you are going to need to add
| | 00:03 | some text. Fortunately, AutoCAD have
several annotation tools that help you get
| | 00:07 | the job done. In this session we're
going to look at single line text. Now I
| | 00:11 | have got a drawing open on my screen.
If you like to open the same drawing,
| | 00:15 | this guy is located inside the
Chapter 11 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:19 | Directory and this is the number
one drawing, the Combination Line.
| | 00:23 | Now, on my screen, I've got a drawing
of the combination lock and we can see
| | 00:27 | that I have both a front and the right
side view. Now, what I'd like to do is
| | 00:30 | I'd like to label my views, so I need
to insert some text. Now the text that
| | 00:35 | I'm creating doesn't require a high
degree of formatting, I don't require word
| | 00:39 | wrap or tab stops or any paragraph
concerns. I pretty much just want to insert
| | 00:43 | some single lines of text.
| | 00:45 | If we are going to add text to a
drawing, we want to create a layer for that
| | 00:48 | text. If we look right up here in the
Layer Control, we can see that I've done
| | 00:52 | that. Now, the layer name is truncated
a little bit. If I click the fly out, we
| | 00:56 | can see the layer name right here. Till
the text that I'll be creating we'll be
| | 01:00 | going in on its own layer.
| | 01:02 | Text is considered annotation, so I'm
going to go up and click on my Annotate
| | 01:06 | tab, such that I can see all of my
annotation tools and I'm going to come right
| | 01:10 | over here to the Text panel and I'm
going to click the Single Line Text tool.
| | 01:16 | When this guy comes up AutoCAD asks me
to specify a start point on the screen,
| | 01:20 | where would I like to start my
text. I'm going to click right here.
| | 01:24 | Now AutoCAD is asking me to specify a
Height. Now the Height is very important
| | 01:28 | because I want to make sure that the
text that we put in our drawing will be
| | 01:31 | legible when the drawing is plotted.
We'll talk about text type more in the
| | 01:35 | plotting chapter. So right now, let's
use a Text Height of 0.2. I'm going to
| | 01:39 | type in 0.2 on my keyboard and hit Enter.
| | 01:43 | Lastly, AutoCAD wants a rotation angle,
as I move my cursor I get the rubber
| | 01:47 | band effect. I couldn't click a point
on screen to define the rotation of my
| | 01:51 | text. Instead I'm going to hit Enter
and except the Rotation Angle of zero.
| | 01:56 | The zero angle represents a line that
moves horizontal across my screen. As
| | 02:02 | soon as I hit Enter, AutoCAD then gives
me flashing cursor and I can insert my
| | 02:06 | text. I'm going to type 'Front View'.
Notice that the text I'm putting in this
| | 02:13 | drawing isn't in a special editor. I'm
placing the text in the drawing and I
| | 02:17 | can see it in the same context as
my other line work. When I'm finished
| | 02:21 | entering my text, I'm going to hit my
Enter key twice to let AutoCAD know that
| | 02:25 | I'm through.
| | 02:25 | Let's create another text label. Once
again, I'm going to come up and click my
| | 02:30 | single line text tool. Now where would
I like to start my text, I'm going to
| | 02:34 | click right over here. Let's change the
height. I'd like to make the height of
| | 02:39 | this guy 0.15, I'm going to hit my
Enter key, and then I'm going to hit Enter
| | 02:44 | to accept the Rotation Angle of zero.
In this case we're going to type Right
| | 02:49 | Side View. Enter, Enter to get out of a command.
| | 02:55 | Now, text objects are like other
entities on AutoCAD, we can move them around
| | 02:59 | if we wish, let's try that, I'm going
to come up to my Home tab and click.
| | 03:03 | Let's launch the Move command. AutoCAD
says Select Objects. Let me grab this
| | 03:07 | text object and I'll right click.
AutoCAD wants a base point, I'm just going to
| | 03:11 | pick a point right over here and notice
as I move my cursor I'm now moving that
| | 03:16 | text. Let me center him beneath the
combination lock and click and then we'll
| | 03:22 | adjust the other guy too.
| | 03:23 | I'm going to right click, select Move
from the menu. I'll select this object
| | 03:30 | and right click then we'll pick a point
on screen. Since I'm moving text but I
| | 03:34 | really don't need a high degree of
accuracy right now, so the point that I've
| | 03:38 | chosen is just fine and we'll
move this guy right here and click.
| | 03:43 | Single line text is the perfect choice
for view labels, aerial labels, title
| | 03:47 | block info, street names or any other
annotation that doesn't require paragraph
| | 03:52 | style formatting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Justifying text| 00:00 | With the most software, your choices
for text justification are limited to Left
| | 00:04 | justified, Center justified or Right
justified. AutoCAD however, gives us
| | 00:08 | complete control over our justification,
allowing us to position and justify
| | 00:12 | our text at nearly every conceivable location.
| | 00:15 | Now, I have got a drawing open on the
screen, if you'd like to open the same
| | 00:18 | drawing, it's located inside the
Chapter 11 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:23 | directory and this the 02_titleblock drawing.
| | 00:26 | Now In this drawing I'm currently
working on a title block and this happens to
| | 00:30 | be the title block, we'll be using a
little bit later in our Plotting chapter.
| | 00:33 | For right now, I'd like to zoom
in on this lower right hand corner.
| | 00:39 | What I have done is I have entered my
first text entities down the lower right
| | 00:43 | hand corner of my title block and then
I have created a copy of the title block
| | 00:47 | over here. What I'd like to do in
this session is Id like to show you how I
| | 00:50 | placed this text by recreating
my work in the example over here.
| | 00:55 | Let's talk for a second about
justification points. Now on my screen I have got
| | 01:00 | an example of some text. Let's assume
this text is sitting on an imaginary base
| | 01:04 | line. Now most software packages
that allow us to create text, give us a
| | 01:08 | limited amount of justification. Usually,
we have the choice of Left justified,
| | 01:13 | Center justified or Right justified
text, so these are the main three.
| | 01:19 | In AutoCAD we have several more
choices. We can see that we have a Top
| | 01:22 | baseline, a Middle baseline and a
Bottom baseline that we can use for
| | 01:26 | justification. So we have an insane
amount of control when it comes to placing
| | 01:30 | our text in our drawing. Let's return
to model space. When placing my text in
| | 01:36 | the example on the left; what I first I
did is I created some offsets to define
| | 01:40 | my margins, I can see those offsets here.
| | 01:44 | Once I create my offsets, the
intersection of my offset lines gave me the
| | 01:48 | perfect location to place my text.
Let's put in our first text object. I'm
| | 01:52 | going to come up to my Annotate tab
and click and in my Text panel, I'm going
| | 01:57 | to click Single Line Text. Now,
AutoCAD is asking me for a start point. I'd
| | 02:02 | like to start my text at the
intersection of these two lines.
| | 02:06 | Unfortunately, I don't have any
running object snap set for intersection, so
| | 02:09 | I'm going to grab it from the toolbar.
Let me come over and click and then I'll
| | 02:14 | click my start point. Now for a text
type we're going to use 0.05, I'll hit
| | 02:21 | Enter and then I'm going to hit Enter
to except the 0 rotation angle. When I'm
| | 02:31 | finished with my text, I'll hit enter
twice to let AutoCAD know that I'm done.
| | 02:36 | All text that we enter into AutoCAD
by default goes in Left justified.
| | 02:41 | If I click this text, AutoCAD will
show me a grip at the justification point.
| | 02:46 | Now, AutoCAD uses a special term for
the justification point. It calls it an
| | 02:50 | insertion point. Let me Escape to clear
the grip and this time let's Copy this
| | 02:55 | text from its insertion point to my
example. To do that I'm going to launch the
| | 03:00 | copy command, so I'm going to go up to
my Home tab, we'll come over and select
| | 03:04 | Copy. AutoCAD is asking me to Select
Object, so I'll select this guy and right-click.
| | 03:10 | Now the base point I'd like to use is
going to be the insertion point of the
| | 03:13 | text. If I come over to my toolbar, I
can see that I have got an object snap
| | 03:17 | right here for insertion point. Let me
click and then when I come back over to
| | 03:22 | my text as soon as I put my cursor on
the text, notice AutoCAD is finding the
| | 03:25 | insertion point. Let me click, now I'm
holding the text from that location and
| | 03:30 | I'm going to place it to the
intersection of my offsets, click Intersection,
| | 03:36 | right here, when I'm
done I'll hit my Escape key.
| | 03:40 | Let's copy this text over as well. I'm
going to right click and select Repeat
| | 03:44 | Copy. We'll select this object and
right click. Base point, I want to pick it
| | 03:50 | up from the insertion of the text, so
I'll click. And then we'll place it to
| | 03:57 | the intersection of my offsets. When
I'm done, I'll hit Escape. Let's recreate
| | 04:05 | this text. This text is special because
it's centered within this area. This is
| | 04:10 | going to be the Center Justified Text.
| | 04:12 | I'm going to launch my Single Line Text
tool again, but this time I'm not going
| | 04:16 | to go to the Annotate tab. Take a look
on my home tab, I have got a miniature
| | 04:21 | annotation panel. This guy contains
the most widely used or the most popular
| | 04:26 | annotation commands. The Single Line
Text tools right here, so I'll click to
| | 04:31 | launch the command. AutoCAD says
Specify start point. Well, in this case I'd
| | 04:35 | like to change the justification. If
we look at the command line, I can see I
| | 04:39 | have got these sub-option of justify.
| | 04:42 | So, I'm going to right click and select
Justify and AutoCAD gives me all of my
| | 04:48 | justification options, this is why I
showed you the slides; Top Left, Top
| | 04:52 | Center, Top Right, that's what all
these guys stand for. I'm going to select
| | 04:56 | Center because I'd like just to be
Center justified and the center point of my
| | 05:01 | text will be the mid point of this line,
let me use the mid point object snap,
| | 05:06 | I'll click and then I'll click my line
except the text height 2.1, Enter and
| | 05:13 | I'll except the rotation angle of 0.
| | 05:15 | Notice, if I type, everything that I
type is automatically centered inside that
| | 05:20 | space. Let me Backspace this down to
two axis and we'll hit Enter, entered to
| | 05:25 | cancel the command. Since we are
talking about justification points, let's take
| | 05:28 | a look at this circle for just a second.
I'm going to pane this guy over. I'm
| | 05:33 | holding the wheel down on my mouse to
pane, let me roll my view forward to zoom in.
| | 05:38 | Occasionally, we use circles like this
in our call outs. Sometimes we place in
| | 05:42 | numbers or text at the center of these
circles. Let's create some text that is
| | 05:46 | perfectly centered inside the shape.
Once again I'm going to come up and launch
| | 05:50 | my Single Line Text tool, let's change
the justification, so I'm going to right
| | 05:55 | click and select Justify. In the menu
at this time, I'm going to select MC
| | 06:00 | Middle Center, I want my text to be
Middle Center Justified. I want my text to
| | 06:04 | be middle center justified.
| | 06:05 | AutoCAD is asking me to specify the
middle point of my text, well, I have got a
| | 06:08 | running object snap set for center,
so if I place my cursor on the arc and
| | 06:12 | click, AutoCAD finds the center of that
circle. They'll keep our height at 0.1,
| | 06:17 | so I'll hit Enter and I'll hit Enter
again to except these 0 rotation. Notice
| | 06:22 | that whatever I type, is always
perfectly centered inside the circle. Once
| | 06:28 | again when I'm finished, I'll hit enter twice.
| | 06:31 | AutoCAD certainly gives us a lot of
choices when it comes to justifying our
| | 06:34 | text. Using these justification
options along with our insertion object snap,
| | 06:38 | we can insert and reposition any
text object with complete control.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating text styles| 00:00 | When we want to control the
appearance of text, normally we think about
| | 00:03 | changing our font. Well, AutoCAD will
certainly allow us to change fonts. We
| | 00:07 | can actually go one step further and
create a Text Style. A Text Style is a
| | 00:13 | name that's given to a collection of
text settings. Those settings can include
| | 00:16 | Font, Height, Width and other special
effects. Each style can have its own
| | 00:22 | purpose, for example, we can create
one for Dimensions, or General Notes, or Titles.
| | 00:27 | Now, I'm currently working in a saved
drawing, if you'd like to open this same
| | 00:31 | drawing, it's located in the Chapter
11 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:35 | directory and this is the number 03_
Textstyle Intro drawing. Now, AutoCAD uses
| | 00:41 | text styles to control the
appearance of the text in our drawings.
| | 00:45 | Since we are talking about text; I'm
going to go to the Annotate tab and click.
| | 00:49 | This gives us access to the text tools,
I'm going to go over to the Text panel
| | 00:53 | and notice this guy right here. This
guy is showing me the name of the current
| | 00:57 | text style. All AutoCAD drawings will
start with a Standard text style. Let's
| | 01:03 | take a look at the settings
associated with the style.
| | 01:05 | I'm going to come over and click the
Text Style icon and this will bring up the
| | 01:09 | Text Style dialog box. We can use this
dialog box to create and modify our text
| | 01:15 | styles. Up at the top I can see the
current text styles name Standard. If I
| | 01:19 | come down a little bit lower in the
Styles area, I can see it listing of all of
| | 01:23 | the styles that are defined in my
drawing. Currently I just have one.
| | 01:26 | If I move a little bit lower, I can
see a preview of what the Text Style is
| | 01:30 | going to look like. Moving to the
right, I can see a series of setting that
| | 01:34 | control how this text is going to
appear in my drawing. If I move even further
| | 01:38 | to the right I can see some buttons.
This one will allow me to Set a Text Style
| | 01:42 | Current. This one will allow me to
create a New Text Style and this one will
| | 01:46 | allow me to Delete Text Styles.
| | 01:49 | Notice this guy is grayed out, that's
because I only have one Text Style on
| | 01:53 | this drawing and we have to have at
least one in order to create text. Let's
| | 01:57 | take a look at these Settings
associated with this Text Style. If I come over
| | 02:01 | to the Font area, I can see the font
that is assigned to this Text Style. Now I
| | 02:05 | can choose any font that I wish. If I
click this fly out, I can select from any
| | 02:09 | font that is installed on my computer.
Fonts that have a TT next to them are
| | 02:14 | TrueType fonts. These are Standard
Windows Fonts and if a font has a caliper
| | 02:19 | with a little letter a, this is an
AutoCAD font that gets installed with your AutoCAD.
| | 02:24 | For this example, I'm going to leave
my text set to Arial, let's come over to
| | 02:28 | the Font Style. If I'm using a TrueType
font then I can click this fly out and
| | 02:33 | I can see the typical settings that we
have in most Windows applications. We'll
| | 02:37 | leave this guy set to Regular. If I
come down a little bit, I can see a Size
| | 02:41 | setting. Currently this guy is set to
0. If I was to enter a Height setting
| | 02:45 | here, it is just like I'm hard-coding
a height on this Text Style. That means
| | 02:50 | that every time I insert text when
the style is current, AutoCAD will
| | 02:53 | automatically assume my height.
| | 02:56 | Good practice says to leave this
Height set to 0; that way every time I enter
| | 03:00 | text, AutoCAD will ask me for a height.
If I go down a little bit further, I
| | 03:04 | have several special effects that I can
apply to my Text Style. If you have any
| | 03:08 | questions about any of these
settings, simply place your cursor over to
| | 03:11 | settings and AutoCAD will
give you more information.
| | 03:14 | Since I haven't made any changes, I'm
going to come down and click Cancel to
| | 03:17 | close the dialog box. Let's create some
text using the Standard Text Style. I'm
| | 03:22 | going to come up and click this Single
Line Text icon, then I will click on my
| | 03:26 | screen and for a Height, I'm going to
use a height of 1. So I will type 1 and
| | 03:31 | hit Enter and I'm going to hit
Enter to except the rotation angle of 0.
| | 03:44 | When I'm finished, I'll hit Enter twice
to exit the command. Let's create a new
| | 03:49 | Text Style. To do that I'm going to
come up and click my Text Style icon and
| | 03:52 | I'm going to come over and click the
New button. Now when naming your Text
| | 03:58 | Style, you want to make your name
dEscaperiptive of what the text is used for. In
| | 04:03 | this case I'm going to create a Text
Style for my General Notes. So I'm going
| | 04:07 | to use General Notes for my
style name, let me click OK.
| | 04:13 | Notice that the new style inherits the
settings of the previous style. Let's
| | 04:18 | make a change, I'm going to change
the font associated with my General Note
| | 04:21 | style. I'm going to click the fly
out and I'd like to change the font.
| | 04:26 | Fortunately, these guys are all
alphabetical in the list. If I'd like to jump
| | 04:30 | to a specific location in the list quickly,
I can type the first letter of the font name.
| | 04:35 | I'm going to hit G for Garamond, it
takes me right to the G area of the list
| | 04:40 | and I'll select my font. I'm going to
leave the other settings as it is. I'm
| | 04:44 | going to come down and click Apply and
we'll click Close. If we look up at the
| | 04:49 | top of the screen, I can see that the
current Text Style now is General Notes.
| | 04:53 | Let me place some more text. I'm going
to click my Single Line Text tool, I'll
| | 04:58 | click on screen and I'll hit Enter to
except my Height and I'll hit Enter to
| | 05:02 | except my Rotation.
| | 05:12 | Now, why are Text Styles important?
You see, Text Styles give us a lot of
| | 05:16 | flexibility when we draft. I'm going
to open a drawing as an example. Let me
| | 05:21 | come up and click my Open icon, we're
going to go inside the Exercise Files
| | 05:24 | directory inside the Chapter 11 folder
and I'd like to open up the number 03
| | 05:29 | drawing, the titleblock. I'll
select this guy and we'll click Open.
| | 05:34 | Now this is a finished version of the
titleblock that we'll be using later in
| | 05:38 | our Plotting chapter. Let me pan over
and zoom in on this lower right hand
| | 05:42 | corner. Notice that I have got a
couple of different types of text in this
| | 05:48 | drawing. I have got some size
differences but I also have some font
| | 05:51 | differences. Each of these pieces of
text is controlled by a style, now since I
| | 05:56 | had my Annotate tab set current, watch
this if I click this text, I can see the
| | 06:02 | style name that was used to create that
entity. Let me hit Escape, let me click this text.
| | 06:08 | This guy was created using the small
text style. Once again I'm going to hit
| | 06:13 | Escape to clear the grip. Now the
reason text styles are flexible is because if
| | 06:17 | I modify a style, it will automatically
update all text that was created using
| | 06:22 | that style. Let's try that. I'm going
to come up and click my Text Style icon
| | 06:28 | and let's make a change to the Titles
text. If I click this and look at the
| | 06:32 | preview, this is the text that was
to used to create these guys.
| | 06:37 | Let's change the Font that associated with the style.
| | 06:39 | I'm going to click the drop down. Once
again I'm going to hit G for Garamond.
| | 06:44 | We'll select that guy from the list.
Notice he looks significantly different.
| | 06:49 | When I'm finished, I'm going to click
Apply and Close. Now we don't see the
| | 06:54 | change immediately, we need to Regen or
Refresh our screen to see the changes.
| | 07:00 | To do that I'm going to come up to my
Menu Browser and click. Let's come down
| | 07:03 | to the View menu, we'll
come over and select Regen.
| | 07:07 | Notice that all text that was created
using that style is now updated. Text
| | 07:12 | styles control the appearance of all
the text in our drawing. As you can see,
| | 07:16 | by making a simple modification to a
style, we can automatically update all
| | 07:20 | text that is associated with that style
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Annotating with multi-line text| 00:00 | Sometimes we have to go beyond Single
Line Notes and create paragraphs of text.
| | 00:05 | At times like these, it's nice to know
that AutoCAD has a fully featured Word
| | 00:08 | Processor capable of giving us
professional looking results. Now, I have got a
| | 00:12 | drawing open on my screen, if you'd
like to open the same drawing and work
| | 00:16 | along with me, this drawing is located
inside the Chapter 11 folder inside the
| | 00:19 | Exercise Files directory and this is
the number 04_Road Closure Detail drawing.
| | 00:25 | Now, I'm currently working on a
detail for a Road Closure and I'd like to
| | 00:29 | create a paragraph of text. My Single
Line Text tool has served me well for my
| | 00:34 | labels, but in this case I want to
create some additional text and I'm going to
| | 00:38 | require some formatting, so I'm going
to launch the Multiline text tool. Before
| | 00:43 | I click that guy, I want to show you
that I'm using good form. I have created a
| | 00:46 | layer for my text and if I go the Annotate tab,
I have also created a style for this text.
| | 00:53 | Let's click the Multiline text tool
right here in the text panel to launch the
| | 00:57 | command. When I move my cursor on screen,
AutoCAD is asking me to specify first
| | 01:03 | corner, I'm going to click a point to
identify the corner and as I move my
| | 01:07 | cursor notice I'm creating a rectangle.
Since I'm creating a paragraph of text,
| | 01:11 | essentially what I'm doing is
defining the Width of my column. Don't worry
| | 01:15 | about the Height right now. The height
will take care of itself when we enter our text.
| | 01:19 | Let me click to finish my rectangle
and notice that AutoCAD takes me into the
| | 01:23 | Multiline Text Editor. Also notice that
my ribbon now has a new tab as well as
| | 01:28 | some panels that are associated with
Multiline text. Now since my cursor is
| | 01:32 | flashing in the editor, I'm
going to start typing some text.
| | 01:48 | As I type my text, notice that I now
have word wrap. If we look at the top of
| | 01:52 | the editor, I can see that I have a
ruler. This ruler is very similar to what
| | 01:55 | we can see in program like Microsoft
Word. In fact if you are familiar with
| | 01:59 | Microsoft Word, you will already
recognize several of these settings. It's
| | 02:03 | almost the exact same thing. Now,
this ruler can be turned off. The icon is
| | 02:08 | located right here so if you can't
see your ruler, we can click this guy to
| | 02:11 | turn him Off and On.
| | 02:12 | If I place my cursor over these double
arrows, I can click and hold and I can
| | 02:16 | adjust the Width of my column. Let
me release the mouse button when I'm
| | 02:20 | finished changing my width. Let's do a
little formatting. I'm going to click
| | 02:25 | right at the beginning of this line of
text and I'm going to hit my Tab key.
| | 02:29 | Notice that the Multiline text
supports tabs and I can jump to the various
| | 02:33 | preset tab settings. Let me backspace
to take these away and then I'm going to
| | 02:38 | make a change to the
appearance of some of my text.
| | 02:41 | Let me click right at the beginning at
the word example. I'm going to hold and
| | 02:44 | I'm going to drag across this guy and
release to select that word, then I'm
| | 02:48 | going to come up to my formatting
panel and we'll click Bold. I can also set
| | 02:52 | this guy to Italic, I can
also Underline him if I wish.
| | 02:56 | So, the Multiline Text Editor gives a
several more formatting possibilities
| | 02:59 | than we have available with the Single
Line Text. When I'm finished creating my
| | 03:03 | text, I'd come up and click the X to
close the Text Editor. Now, I'm going to
| | 03:08 | click my Undo button to remove this
text and I'd like to create a paragraph
| | 03:13 | that would be associated with a
Road Closure Detail, let's do that.
| | 03:17 | Once again I'm going to come up and
click my Multiline Text icon and as I move
| | 03:21 | on to my screen, look at the little abc
that we can see at the cursor. AutoCAD
| | 03:26 | is giving me a representation of the
current text type. I'd like to change the
| | 03:30 | Height of my text. Let me click the
first corner point to start my M text. Take
| | 03:36 | a look at my command line, notice that
I have several options, what I have done
| | 03:40 | being Height and before I finish my
rectangle I'm going to right click and
| | 03:46 | select Height and I can enter in
different value. I'm going to change my Height
| | 03:50 | to 1 and hit Enter. Notice the abc
changes to reflect the new Height and I can
| | 03:57 | finish my rectangle.
| | 04:14 | Now, that I have finished my
paragraph, take a look at it for a second. I
| | 04:17 | accidentally, well or I did do it on
purpose, I typed it all in lowercase
| | 04:22 | characters. Now typically, in a civil
engineering example, all of the text that
| | 04:26 | we will see is going to be UPPERCASE.
Let me show you how we change this from
| | 04:31 | lower case to UPPERCASE. I'm going to
click at the end of my paragraph and I'm
| | 04:36 | going to hold and I'm going to drag
and I'm going to highlight the entire
| | 04:39 | paragraph of text, I'm going to move
up and I'm going to click this little
| | 04:42 | button, this guy represents our options.
| | 04:44 | When I click guy, brings up a menu. I
can come down and select Change Case and
| | 04:49 | I can set this for UPPERCASE. So if
you were to type your paragraph using
| | 04:54 | lowercase characters, it's very easy to
change it after you are finished. Once
| | 04:58 | again I can adjust my paragraph Width
by clicking and holding on these arrows.
| | 05:04 | I can also come up to my paragraph
panel and we can change his Justification.
| | 05:08 | Right now, we set the Left Justified, I
can set him to Center or I can set him
| | 05:12 | to Right. Let me set him back to Left.
| | 05:15 | When I'm finished creating my text,
once again I can click the X to close the
| | 05:18 | Text Editor. You know what? We really
don't have to click the X, if we just
| | 05:23 | click outside the Editor, it will
close on itself. M text or Multiline text
| | 05:28 | will definitely be your first choice
for all of the Notes and call outs you
| | 05:32 | create in your drawing. Using M text
is close to a professional quality Word
| | 05:36 | Processors you can get well
still being inside a CAD program.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing text| 00:00 | Computerized drafting is all about
having the ability to make changes.
| | 00:04 | Sometimes the changes we make require
us to edit our text. Fortunately, AutoCAD
| | 00:09 | makes the job of text revisions fast
and simple. Let's make a couple of text
| | 00:12 | changes to our Road Closure Detail. Now
I've got a drawing opened on my screen,
| | 00:17 | if you'd like to open the same
drawing and work along with me, this guy is
| | 00:20 | located inside the Chapter_11 folder
inside our Exercise Files directory and
| | 00:25 | this is the number 5
Road Closure Detail drawing.
| | 00:28 | Now, if we look at the screen, we can
see I'm still working on my Road Closure
| | 00:32 | Detail and I'd like to make some text
changes. I've got some things that are
| | 00:37 | incorrect. Let's start with this title,
I'm going to zoom in right down here,
| | 00:41 | rolling my wheel forward on my Mouse,
we'll hold the wheel down, we'll hand
| | 00:45 | this guy up, center him on
screen. I'd like to edit this text.
| | 00:49 | Now to edit text in AutoCAD, I can
place my cursor on the text and I'll
| | 00:53 | double-click. Now technically speaking,
this isn't a Road Closure Detail, this
| | 00:59 | is a TYPE III BARRICADE DETAIL. Notice
I'm editing this text and I'm not going
| | 01:07 | into a special editor. This is
considered in place text editing. AutoCAD is
| | 01:11 | allowing me to change my text while
still seeing it in the same context as my
| | 01:16 | line work. In fact while I'm editing
my text, I can still zoom in and out by
| | 01:20 | rolling my wheel.
| | 01:22 | When I'm finished making my changes, I
will hit Enter. Notice that AutoCAD is
| | 01:26 | still in the command. That means that
I can edit another piece of text if I
| | 01:29 | wish. I'm going to hold the wheel down
on my Mouse and we'll pan this drawing
| | 01:34 | down because you know what? I want to
change this text tool. This isn't an
| | 01:37 | elevation view up here, this is
technically a plan view. So since I'm still in
| | 01:42 | the Text Editor, I will click once on
this text and then I can make my change.
| | 01:46 | When I click after the word ELEVATION,
I'll click-and-hold to drag across this
| | 01:51 | word and I want to change this to PLAN.
When I'm finished, once again, I'll hit
| | 01:56 | Enter. Let's hit Escape to cancel out
of the Text Editing command. Now we've
| | 02:01 | just made some changes to some Single
Line Text objects. Let's make it changed
| | 02:05 | to our multi-line text, let me pan
this over, it's the exact same work-flow.
| | 02:11 | All I have to do is double-click on it.
We move in, I'll double-click on the
| | 02:15 | text and AutoCAD takes me right
back into the Multiline Text Editor.
| | 02:19 | Let's add a tab stop to the beginning
of our paragraph, I'm just going to click
| | 02:22 | right at the beginning of this text,
hit my Tab key. You know what? I'd like to
| | 02:26 | change the widths too. Let me click my
double arrow, hold, I'll drag my Mouse
| | 02:31 | to the right, we'll change
the Width of this column.
| | 02:33 | As long as I'm here, let's do a
couple of formatting changes. I'm going to
| | 02:37 | highlight my N.C.H.R.P. 350 text and
let's make that Bold and we'll Underline
| | 02:43 | it. Since I've got a second one,
we'll do the same thing. I'll click
| | 02:46 | hold-and-drag, I'll release, I'll set
that to Bold and Underline. When I'm
| | 02:52 | finished making my changes, once again
I can come up and click the X to close
| | 02:56 | the Text Editor or I can
just click and model space.
| | 03:00 | Now we can also edit our MTEXT with
grips. If I click this paragraph, notice I
| | 03:05 | get a grip at the four corners. If I
click this grip, I can move my Mouse back
| | 03:10 | and forth and I can adjust my width,
let me change my Column Width just a
| | 03:13 | little bit and when I'm finished, I'll
click and then I'll hit Escape to clear the grips.
| | 03:20 | So whether you have to edit a
Single Line Text Note or revise an entire
| | 03:25 | paragraph, AutoCAD allows you to make
all of your text changes quickly and easily.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating bulleted and numbered lists| 00:00 | It's very common to find numbered lists
on construction drawings. In the past,
| | 00:04 | it was always a headache to add or
remove items from a numbered list because of
| | 00:08 | lot of manual renumbering. Well,
that's not the case anymore as all of our
| | 00:12 | MTEXT lists are fully
automated and easy to change.
| | 00:16 | Now I have a saved drawing open on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:20 | drawing and work along with me, this
guy is located inside the Chapter_11
| | 00:23 | folder inside the Exercise Files
directory and this is the number 6 Combination
| | 00:28 | Lock drawing.
| | 00:29 | Now, in this drawing we are going to
play around with the numbered list feature
| | 00:33 | in AutoCAD. Before I create a numbered
list, I want to show you that I'm using
| | 00:36 | good form since I'm going to be
entering text into this drawing, I have created
| | 00:40 | a layer for that text and I have set it
Current, let me click the flyout so we
| | 00:44 | can read the entire name.
| | 00:45 | I have also created a Text Style for
this text. Now, instead of going to the
| | 00:51 | Annotate tab to see the Text Style,
don't forget that we have a limited amount
| | 00:56 | of annotation tools right here on our
Annotation panel. If I click the flyout,
| | 01:01 | I can see the Current Text Style right
here. So I'm practicing good form, let's
| | 01:06 | create a numbered list.
| | 01:09 | To do that I'm going to launch my
MTEXT command, I get that guy right here in
| | 01:13 | my Annotation panel, I'll pick a
point on screen and I'm going to define my
| | 01:18 | rectangle, I'll just come right about
here and click. I'm going to create a
| | 01:23 | list of features for this combination lock.
| | 01:28 | To create a numbered list, we'll create
our first number. In this case number 1
| | 01:32 | and then I'm going to hit my Tab key.
This will identify to AutoCAD that we
| | 01:36 | want to start in numbered list.
| | 01:41 | Notice when I hit Enter, AutoCAD has
realized it's a numbered list and I just
| | 01:44 | created my second number for me. I'm
going to add a couple of more items.
| | 02:01 | Notice that my word wrap is correct
for the numbered list. When I'm finished
| | 02:09 | with my text, I'm going to come up and
click the X to close the Text Editor. So
| | 02:13 | creating a numbered list in AutoCAD is
extremely easy, let's make a change to
| | 02:18 | this numbered list. In the old days,
that was when we had our biggest problems.
| | 02:22 | To do that I'm going to double-click
on the text. It takes me right back into
| | 02:25 | the Editor and let's add a fifth
feature. I'll click right at the end of my
| | 02:30 | last feature and I'll hit Enter and
notice that AutoCAD picks up right where we left off.
| | 02:40 | Let's try and remove a feature. I'm
going to remove feature number 2. I'll
| | 02:44 | click, hold-and-drag across this
feature to select it. When I select it, I'm
| | 02:48 | going to hit the Delete key on my
keyboard and then I'll hit Backspace and I'll
| | 02:54 | hit Backspace one more time. Notice
AutoCAD automatically renumbers the list.
| | 02:58 | Let's try and create a little
separation between our numbers. It will be nice
| | 03:03 | if I hit a blank space or a blank line
between each feature, let's try that.
| | 03:09 | If I click at the end of the word CROME
PLATED and hit Enter to create a blank
| | 03:13 | line, notice that's not exactly what I
wanted, AutoCAD thinks I want to create
| | 03:17 | another feature. If I hit my Backspace
key one time, I can take the number away
| | 03:22 | and AutoCAD renumbers the rest of the
list, that would be considered the hard
| | 03:26 | way to create some blank space,
let me show you another way.
| | 03:29 | I'm going to click at the end of
feature number 2 and I'm going to hold my
| | 03:33 | Shift key when I hit Enter. Notice
AutoCAD gives me some space without adding
| | 03:38 | another number. Let's put some space
after number 3, I'll click, I'm going to
| | 03:42 | hold my Shift key and I will hit Enter.
Maybe I'd like to change the way my
| | 03:46 | list looks, let's do that, I'm going
to click, hold-and-drag across my list.
| | 03:51 | I'm going to come up to my Paragraph
panel and I'm going to click my numbered
| | 03:55 | list button.
| | 03:57 | From here I can select Numbered, I can
select Lettered or Bulleted. Let's set
| | 04:01 | it to a Bulleted list. Notice it
automatically changes, maybe I'd like this to
| | 04:06 | be a Lettered list, once again I'm
going to click the icon, we'll select
| | 04:09 | Lettered and we'll make it Lowercase
Letters. Now these letters act just like
| | 04:14 | numbers. If I click at the end of the
list and hit Enter, AutoCAD will remember
| | 04:18 | right where it left off.
| | 04:24 | Finally, I'm going to click at the end
of feature number 4, I'll hold my Shift
| | 04:28 | key and hit Enter, then some space.
When I'm finished, I can click the X to
| | 04:33 | close the Text Editor or I
can just click in model space.
| | 04:38 | As you can see list creation is very
flexible within the MTEXT command. Making
| | 04:42 | and editing your lists is as intuitive
as using your favorite Word processing program.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Inserting symbols| 00:00 | Each discipline of drafting has its own
unique symbology and sometimes we need
| | 00:04 | to incorporate these special symbols
into our text. Let's look at where we can
| | 00:08 | go to find these extra characters that
we don't typically see on our keyboard.
| | 00:11 | Now, I have got a drawing on my screen,
if you'd like to open the same drawing
| | 00:15 | and work along with me, this drawing is
located in the Chapter_11 folder inside
| | 00:19 | the Exercise Files directory and this
is the 07_Road Closure Detail drawing.
| | 00:24 | Now, I'm working on a detail for a
road closure and I'm almost done. I just
| | 00:29 | need to add a couple of symbols. Let me
start by zooming in, we are at the end
| | 00:33 | of this line. At this point, I'd
like to add a Centerline symbol. The
| | 00:38 | Centerline symbol is a typical symbol
used in civil engineering drafting. Now,
| | 00:42 | we can access symbols through the
MTEXT command. I'm going to go up to my
| | 00:47 | Annotation panel and click the
Multiline Text tool. I'm going to click right
| | 00:52 | over here to set my first corner point
and I'm going to center this as best as
| | 00:56 | I can over the line and I'm going to
click right over here to specify the
| | 01:00 | opposite corner.
| | 01:01 | Now, I'd like my symbol to be centered
on that line. So I'm going to move up
| | 01:05 | and click my Center justification. Now,
before we add my symbol, I'd like to
| | 01:11 | show you how this symbol feature works
in AutoCAD. I'm going to start by typing
| | 01:15 | a number. I'm going to type 45. If
I'd like to insert a symbol I'm going to
| | 01:19 | come up and click the great big symbol
icon, this will bring up a list allowing
| | 01:23 | me to select from several symbols
available in AutoCAD. Let's try the Degree
| | 01:28 | symbol. If I click this, I can see that
AutoCAD has added a degree symbol. Let
| | 01:34 | me Backspace to take it away. Let me go
to the Symbol icon again and let's grab
| | 01:39 | Plus/Minus, that's another handy one.
Once again AutoCAD added a special symbol
| | 01:43 | for me, let me Backspace.
| | 01:45 | I'm going to go to the icon one more
time, notice this little divider line, if
| | 01:51 | we look beneath the divider I can see
many of the standard symbols used in
| | 01:55 | civil, mechanical and architectural
Drafting. I will select the Delta symbol.
| | 02:00 | All of you surveyors out there never
again do we have to create these little
| | 02:04 | triangles by hand. So this is how the
Symbol command works. Let me Backspace
| | 02:08 | and take away my text and let's add a
Centerline symbol. I'm going to come up
| | 02:13 | and click the Symbol icon, I want
to come down and select Center Line.
| | 02:17 | Now when I do the first thing I notice
is, that looks kind of ugly. I'd expect,
| | 02:23 | since my current text style is assigned
the Arial font that this CL would look
| | 02:28 | a little bit nicer than it does. Let
me show you what's causing the problem.
| | 02:32 | I'm going to click after the symbol
and I'm going to hold and drag to select
| | 02:37 | the symbol. Let me release my mouse
button and take a look right up here at my font.
| | 02:42 | Notice AutoCAD has changed my font
setting. If I click the flyout we can read
| | 02:46 | the name. AutoCAD has hijacked my font
and switched it to ISOCPEUR. Let me hit
| | 02:52 | Escape to clear this menu. Now AutoCAD
did that because the Center Line symbol
| | 02:57 | is not a native character in the Arial
font. I show you this because sometimes
| | 03:03 | the symbol that you choose may not
be available in the font that you have
| | 03:06 | selected. Now, I don't like the way the
ISOCPEUR looks, so I'm going to change
| | 03:10 | the font associated with the symbol.
| | 03:12 | Let me select the flyout and I'm going
to come down and grab the simplex font.
| | 03:18 | This is an AutoCAD font and I know
that the Center Line symbol is a native
| | 03:22 | character in that font. That looks a
little bit better. Now that I'm finished
| | 03:28 | I'm going to click in model space to
close my editor. Let me back up, I'd like
| | 03:32 | to add one more symbol. I'd like to
add a Copyright symbol right down here.
| | 03:37 | Once again we are going to do that
through MTEXT, I'm going to come up and
| | 03:40 | click my MTEXT Tool. I'm going to come
down and Specify my first corner and I'm
| | 03:46 | going to specify my offset corner
right over here. Let's zoom in on our Text
| | 03:51 | Editor. Now, I'd like to place a
Copyright symbol, so I'm going to come up and
| | 03:55 | click the Symbol icon. Now, if you
can't find the symbol that you like in the
| | 03:59 | list, we need to come down and select Other.
| | 04:04 | This brings up our Character Map and
AutoCAD will let us choose from the
| | 04:07 | characters available in our font or any
font on our machine. I'm going to leave
| | 04:15 | this set to Arial and I can see the
Copyright symbol right here. Now, these
| | 04:19 | previews are a little small. If I
click the symbol once it will magnify on my
| | 04:23 | screen. If I like this symbol, I can
double-click on it and AutoCAD will drop
| | 04:28 | it down into my Characters to Copy
area. At this point I can come over and
| | 04:32 | click Copy. Now there is no magic to
this. All I have done is I have copied
| | 04:35 | this character to my clipboard.
| | 04:38 | Let me close the Character Map. Now,
I'm going to move into my editor and I'm
| | 04:42 | going to right-click and select Paste
to insert my symbol. Now, there is a
| | 04:47 | little bug in AutoCAD, notice my
cursor has dropped down to the next line and
| | 04:51 | it's flashing. Also notice AutoCAD has
hijacked my font again, if I click the
| | 04:55 | flyout I'm now MS Shell Dlg 2, which is
incorrect. Let me move outside the menu
| | 05:01 | and I'm going to hit Escape.
| | 05:03 | To continue with my Copyright note,
what I'm going to do is I'm going to place
| | 05:06 | my cursor after the symbol, and click.
Now AutoCAD recognizes that I should be
| | 05:11 | using the Arial font and I will
continue and when I'm finished editing my text,
| | 05:19 | I can click the X to close the Text
Editor. While AutoCAD will probably never
| | 05:27 | have every symbol we could possibly need,
they have gone a long way to provide
| | 05:31 | us with many of the industry standard
symbols that we use on a regular basis.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting spelling errors| 00:00 | You may have the best design concept in
the world, but if your CAD drawing is
| | 00:04 | riddled with spelling errors, your
clients may have a hard time taking you
| | 00:07 | seriously. Fortunately, AutoCAD
provides a fully featured Spell Checker to help
| | 00:11 | protect us from misspelled words. Now
I have got a drawing open on my screen.
| | 00:15 | If you'd like to open this drawing
as well, this is located inside the
| | 00:18 | Chapter_11 folder inside our Exercise
Files directory and this is the 08_Spell
| | 00:23 | Check drawing.
| | 00:24 | Now, in this lesson let's make the
assumption that I'm working on a paving
| | 00:27 | plan. I need to repave this parking lot.
Now we certainly don't have all the
| | 00:32 | information that we would typically
see on a paving plan, but I do have a
| | 00:35 | parking lot and I do have a lot of text.
Let's use AutoCAD's Spell Check tool
| | 00:41 | to check our text for any errors. I
can find the tool on the Annotate tab of
| | 00:45 | our ribbon and it's located inside
the Text panel. I'm going to click the
| | 00:49 | flyout to open up the panel and the
Check Spelling tool is right here. Let me
| | 00:54 | click to bring this guy up on screen.
| | 00:56 | Now, the options we see in this dialog
box are very similar to the spell check
| | 01:00 | options that we see in other word
processing applications. Let's look at the
| | 01:04 | top of the dialog box first. It says,
Where to check, this is where I can tell
| | 01:08 | AutoCAD where to search for spelling
errors. In its current state, it's going
| | 01:12 | to check the entire drawing. If I
click the flyout I can also search the
| | 01:16 | current space or a layout, we will
talk about layouts when we get into our
| | 01:20 | plotting chapter or I can
spell check individual objects.
| | 01:23 | I'm going to leave this set to entire
drawing and I'm going to come over and
| | 01:26 | click Start. When I do AutoCAD will
pan and zoom around the drawing trying to
| | 01:31 | find spelling errors. I can see that
it's found one right here. Now just
| | 01:37 | because AutoCAD selects a word doesn't
necessarily means it's misspelled. It
| | 01:41 | just means AutoCAD doesn't recognize
it as being part of its dictionary. Now,
| | 01:45 | in this case the word is misspelled.
If I look down a little bit lower in the
| | 01:48 | Suggestions area, I can see the
suggestion AutoCAD has for this word. If this
| | 01:53 | isn't correct I can go to this
list below for additional suggestions.
| | 01:58 | Now, using these buttons on the right
I can tell AutoCAD how to handle this
| | 02:04 | potential misspelling. I can say,
change this instance of this word in the
| | 02:08 | drawing or change every instance of
this word in the drawing. I can also say
| | 02:12 | ignore this instance or ignore every
instance. I also have the ability to add
| | 02:17 | this word to my dictionary and then
AutoCAD will not find it as a spelling
| | 02:21 | error in the future. In this case, it
is a spelling error. So I'm going to
| | 02:24 | click Change All, replace all
instances of this word, and AutoCAD will move
| | 02:29 | around and find the next one. I can
see it's got one here, Necesary. This is
| | 02:33 | obviously spelled wrong. Let me check
the Suggestion, yes that is correct, once
| | 02:38 | again I'm going to click Change All.
| | 02:41 | Now AutoCAD stopped on a word called
the SUPERPAVE. Now, this is a brand name
| | 02:46 | so it is not misspelled, I have the
choice now of ignoring this word or we use
| | 02:51 | the SUPERPAVE brand frequently, I'm
going to click Add to Dictionary and now I
| | 02:56 | never have to worry about that word
coming up again. AutoCAD has found another
| | 03:00 | error, let me click and move my dialog
box, I can see that SIGHN is misspelled.
| | 03:06 | Now in this case the Suggestion is
wrong. I need to come down into the More
| | 03:09 | Suggestions and click this guy and then
I'm going to come over and click Change All.
| | 03:16 | Now in this instance AutoCAD is spell
checking the street name. Now, this is
| | 03:20 | spelled correctly, but I don't want to
add him to my dictionary. I'm just going
| | 03:24 | to say, AutoCAD just ignore this
instance of this word in the drawing. And then
| | 03:30 | AutoCAD will let me know that the spell
check is complete. Let me click OK and
| | 03:35 | then we will click Close
to dismiss the dialog box.
| | 03:37 | Now, we can use AutoCAD's Spell
Checker to check an existing drawing for
| | 03:42 | errors. To help protect us from future
errors, AutoCAD monitors all text that
| | 03:46 | we enter into our drawing. Let's take
a look. I want to pan this drawing up,
| | 03:51 | let's zoom in on our list. Let's say,
I'd like to add another note to our list.
| | 03:57 | To do that I'm going to double-click
on my text, I will click after this word
| | 04:01 | and I'm going to hit Enter. I have just
created another entry in my list. Now,
| | 04:05 | I'm going to type. Notice as I typed
AutoCAD instantly underlined a word that
| | 04:15 | it did not recognize, it's saying hey
we need to take a look at this because
| | 04:18 | this maybe misspelled, this is very
similar to the feature that we have in
| | 04:21 | Microsoft Word.
| | 04:23 | If I'd like to correct or check this
word what I'm going to do is place my
| | 04:26 | cursor on top of it and right-click
and then in the pop-up menu, if I come up
| | 04:30 | to the top of the list, I can see
AutoCAD's three main choices for what this
| | 04:34 | word could be, if these aren't correct
I can always come down and hover over
| | 04:38 | More Suggestions to see additional
choices. From here I can also Add to
| | 04:42 | Dictionary or I can say Ignore All.
| | 04:45 | In this case, NUMBER will be perfect,
so I will select that to correct the
| | 04:48 | word. Now to be tidy, I'm going to come
down and click, we will add our period
| | 04:53 | and then I will click after my 8 and we
will add the extra space, I'm going to
| | 04:57 | hold my Shift key and hit Enter. When
I'm finished, I'm going to come up and
| | 05:01 | click the X to close the Text Editor.
| | 05:06 | Using the Spell Checker within
AutoCAD eliminates the need for us to have a
| | 05:10 | dictionary on our desk and it gives us
the peace of mind of knowing that we are
| | 05:14 | creating the highest quality
construction document possible.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
12. DimensioningCreating dimensions| 00:00 | It's important to remember that
the drawings we create in AutoCAD are
| | 00:03 | construction drawings. This means that
someone somewhere will be referring to
| | 00:07 | our drawing in order to construct our
design. Knowing this we need to be sure
| | 00:10 | that our design is well dimensioned
such that it can be accurately reproduced
| | 00:14 | in the real world. Let's look at how
we can add dimensions to our drawings.
| | 00:17 | Now I have got a drawing up on screen,
if you'd also like to open this drawing,
| | 00:21 | it's located inside the Chapter_12
folder inside the Exercise Files directory
| | 00:26 | and this is the 01_Bird_House drawing.
Now on my screen I have got a very
| | 00:30 | simple drawing, I have got a front
view and a right side view of a bird house
| | 00:33 | and we are going to play around with
this geometry and learn how the Dimension
| | 00:36 | functions work in AutoCAD.
| | 00:38 | Before we get started I want to show
you that I'm using good form, since I'm
| | 00:41 | creating dimensions I have created a
layer for my dimensions and that layer
| | 00:45 | happens to be current. If I click the
flyout we can see the layer name right
| | 00:48 | here. Now, dimensions are considered
annotation objects, so I'm going to go to
| | 00:53 | my Annotate tab on my ribbon and this
will give me access to my Dimensioning tools.
| | 00:57 | Now, when we create dimensions it's
very important that we use object snaps. As
| | 01:02 | we can see in my status bar, I happened
to have some running object snaps set.
| | 01:06 | If I right-click on this guy, you can
see that I'm set for both an End Point
| | 01:10 | and a Center Point object snap. Let me
hit Escape to clear the menu. Now, in my
| | 01:14 | Dimensions panel I have got a flyout
right here, if I click this guy I can see
| | 01:18 | the several dimensions that I can
create in AutoCAD. Let's start by creating a
| | 01:22 | Linear dimension. I'm going to click
Linear to launch the tool. Now, when we
| | 01:27 | create a dimension in AutoCAD,
essentially we are going to click one point and
| | 01:30 | then another and AutoCAD will
create the dimension between them.
| | 01:33 | So I'm going to come over and click my
first end point. I will click my second
| | 01:36 | end point, I will move my cursor up to
position my dimension and then I will
| | 01:41 | click to place it on screen. Let's
create another Linear dimension. I'm going
| | 01:44 | to come up to my Dimensions panel, we
will click the Linear tool. This time I'm
| | 01:48 | going to click this end point and I
will come down and click this end point.
| | 01:52 | Now, Linear dimensions are special
because they will give us the horizontal or
| | 01:56 | the vertical distance between the two
points where we clicked. If I move up
| | 02:00 | with my cursor, I'm getting the
horizontal distance, if I move to the left I'm
| | 02:04 | getting the vertical distance between my points.
| | 02:06 | Once again, I'm going to click to
place my dimension. Let's create an Aligned
| | 02:10 | dimension. To do that I'm going to
come up and click the flyout and we will
| | 02:14 | select a line from the menu. Now, a
line works the same way, I'm going to pick
| | 02:18 | two points on my screen, we will grab
the end point here and we will grab the
| | 02:22 | end point here. Then I'm
going to pull away and click.
| | 02:26 | Now, the Aligned dimension is special
because it gives us the true distance
| | 02:30 | between the two points where we clicked.
Let's create a continuous dimension
| | 02:34 | strength. We will see these frequently
in architectural or mechanical drawings.
| | 02:38 | Let's say, I'd like to dimension the
elevations of my bird house. Since these
| | 02:43 | are going to be vertical dimensions I'm
going to use the Linear Dimension tool.
| | 02:46 | Let me come up and click the flyout and
I will select Linear, and I'm going to
| | 02:52 | the dimension from here to this end
point here. I will then move over and I
| | 02:58 | will click to place the dimension. Now
to create a string of dimensions from
| | 03:02 | this one I'm going to come up to the
Dimension panel and I'm going to look right here.
| | 03:06 | Now you may have to click the flyout
because there are two tools that use this
| | 03:11 | space, the tool that you use last is
the one that you will see here. I'm going
| | 03:15 | to select Continue. When I do, notice
AutoCAD is creating a dimension from my
| | 03:21 | last dimension. So let's dimension to
the end point here and here and here.
| | 03:27 | When I'm finished, I will right-click
and select Enter to finish the string.
| | 03:32 | Notice, AutoCAD is still in the command.
AutoCAD is asking me if I'd like to
| | 03:36 | create another dimension string. Notice,
it says Select continued dimension.
| | 03:41 | That means if I come over and click
this dimension, I can create a string from
| | 03:44 | this one. Let's dimension to the
end point here and here and here.
| | 03:50 | When I'm finished, once again I'm
going to right-click and select Enter to
| | 03:53 | finish the string and then I will
hit my Escape key to cancel out of the
| | 03:56 | command. Let's create a Baseline
dimension. Now a Baseline dimension is where
| | 04:01 | we have several dimensions measured
from a common location. In order to create
| | 04:05 | a Baseline dimension, I need to have a
dimension to start with. So I'm going to
| | 04:08 | create another Linear dimension. Let
me come up and click the tool and I'm
| | 04:12 | going to dimension from the end point
here to the end point here. Let me pull
| | 04:16 | away and click to set the dimension.
| | 04:19 | Let's create some Baseline dimensions
from this one. To do that, I'm going to
| | 04:23 | come up to the same icon where I was
before. I'm going to click the flyout and
| | 04:27 | I'm going to select Baseline. Notice,
AutoCAD is creating my new dimensions
| | 04:32 | from the starting location of my last
one. Let's dimension to the end point
| | 04:37 | here and here and here. When I'm
finished, I will right-click and select Enter
| | 04:44 | to finish the Baseline. Notice once
again, I'm still in the command, this means
| | 04:48 | I could create Baseline dimensions
from another existing dimension. I'm going
| | 04:51 | to hit my Escape key to cancel the command.
| | 04:55 | Now, take a look at these dimensions.
Well, they are spaced pretty good. The
| | 04:58 | text doesn't look the best, don't
worry about that just yet. We will address
| | 05:02 | how we can modify our dimensions in a
future session. Let's create an Angular
| | 05:07 | dimension. To do that I'm going to
pan my bird house over, zoom in on the
| | 05:11 | front view. To create the Angular
dimension, I'm going to come up and click the
| | 05:14 | flyout and select Angular from the list.
| | 05:17 | Now to create an Angular dimension,
all we have to do is click one line and
| | 05:21 | then another and AutoCAD creates the
dimension between them. Let me click my
| | 05:25 | first line, then my second line and
then I can click to place my dimension.
| | 05:30 | Let's create one more. I'm going to
come up and launch the Angular tool again.
| | 05:34 | This time I'm going to click this line
and this line and I will pull away from
| | 05:38 | my dimension. Now, watch this I
haven't placed the dimension yet, it is
| | 05:42 | important where you have your cursor
when you drop the dimension. If I move my
| | 05:46 | cursor over here, I can
dimension the supplementary angle.
| | 05:50 | If I come down here, I can dimension
the opposite angle and if I come over
| | 05:54 | here, I can dimension the opposite
supplementary angle. So the angle that we
| | 05:57 | are dimensioning is going to depend on
where we click to place our dimension.
| | 06:01 | I'm going to click right here. Let's
create a Radial dimension. I'd like to
| | 06:05 | dimension a radius.
| | 06:06 | Once again I'm going to come up and
click the flyout and select Radius from the
| | 06:10 | list, and now I can select an arch or a
circle. I'm going to click this circle.
| | 06:15 | Notice, as I pull away AutoCAD is
creating the dimension for my radius. Now, I
| | 06:20 | have to be careful where I put this
guy down, notice I have a running object
| | 06:23 | snap set. If I try to place this guy
right here, notice he snaps to the end of
| | 06:27 | the line. That's not what I wanted.
| | 06:29 | Let me come up and click Undo and
let's place them again. We will come up and
| | 06:33 | click Radius, we will select the
circle and I'm going to put him right down
| | 06:37 | here. Let me click to place the
dimension. Let's dimension the Diameter. I'm
| | 06:41 | going to come up to the tool and click
the flyout, we will come down and select
| | 06:45 | Diameter and once again, I
can select an arch and a circle.
| | 06:50 | I'm going to come down and select
this guy, I'm now creating a Diameter
| | 06:53 | dimension and we will pull this guy
down and we will place him right here.
| | 07:00 | Using AutoCAD's dimensioning tools
along with our object snaps, we can quickly
| | 07:04 | and easily document our design and
allow our contractor to accurately
| | 07:08 | reproduce our design out in the field.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating dimension styles| 00:00 | All of the dimensions we create in
our drawing will conform to a dimension
| | 00:03 | style. A dimension style is very
similar to a text style in that it controls
| | 00:08 | the appearance of our dimensions. In
fact, text styles and dimension styles
| | 00:12 | work the same way. Just like to a
change to your text style will modify your
| | 00:16 | existing text, a change to your
dimension style will modify your existing
| | 00:20 | dimensions. Now, I have got a drawing
open on my screen, if you'd like to open
| | 00:24 | the same drawing and work along
with me, this guy is located inside the
| | 00:27 | Chapter_12 folder inside the
Exercise Files directory and this is the
| | 00:31 | 02_Dimension Styles drawing.
| | 00:33 | Now, on my screen I have got a
mechanical example. This is a drawing of a 1990s
| | 00:38 | video game controller. This guy also
contains several dimensions. Now, I can
| | 00:42 | tell you that each dimension was
created using the default dimension style.
| | 00:47 | Let's take a look at the dimension
style that is controlling the appearance of
| | 00:50 | these dimensions. I can find my
dimension styles settings on the Annotate tab
| | 00:55 | of my ribbon inside the Dimensions
panel. If I look right here I can see the
| | 01:00 | current dimension style happens to be
Standard. If I move over to the right and
| | 01:04 | click this button. I can launch my
Dimension Style dialog box. This is the
| | 01:09 | dialog box that I will use to create
and make modifications to my dimension
| | 01:13 | styles. Now on the left side of the box
I can see the listing of the dimension
| | 01:16 | styles in my drawing.
| | 01:17 | Currently, I only have one, that's
the Standard style. All AutoCAD drawings
| | 01:22 | must have a dimension style. If I move
to the right I can see a preview of what
| | 01:26 | the style looks like, moving
further to the right I can see a series of
| | 01:30 | buttons, I can use this button to set a
dimension style Current. I can use this
| | 01:35 | button to create a new dimension
style and I can use this button to make
| | 01:38 | modifications to an existing style.
Let's make a modification to the Standard
| | 01:42 | dimension style. I'm going to click the
Modify button and this brings up all of
| | 01:47 | the settings associated with my dimension style.
| | 01:50 | Notice that I have seven tabs. To
jump from tab to tab, I can click the tab
| | 01:55 | name and we can see that there are
a lot of settings associated with a
| | 01:58 | dimension style. Now, we don't have
time to go through all of them. I'm going
| | 02:03 | to go through a few of them to give you
an idea of how they work. If you have a
| | 02:06 | question about any of these setting,
simply place your cursor over the setting
| | 02:10 | and AutoCAD will give you more
information. If you'd like even more information
| | 02:14 | press your F1 key on your keyboard to
go the Help feature. I'm going to jump to
| | 02:18 | the Lines tab for a second. Let me
show you another great way that you can
| | 02:22 | learn your dimension styles settings.
| | 02:24 | If you keep an eye on this preview,
a lot of times you can guess what the
| | 02:28 | settings do. For instance if I go into
the dimension lines area and I come down
| | 02:33 | and click the Suppress Dim line 1, I
can see in the preview oh, that's what
| | 02:38 | that does, it takes away that arrow.
Now what if I click this one, yep it takes
| | 02:41 | away the other arrow.
| | 02:42 | So we can use the preview feature to
learn what some of the settings do as
| | 02:46 | well. Let me remove these checks to
bring back my dimension lines. Now the
| | 02:50 | first change I'd like to make to my
dimension style is I'd like to change the
| | 02:54 | number of spaces I see to the right
of the decimal. Now fortunately the
| | 02:57 | settings are logically grouped in tabs,
so that's probably on the primary Units
| | 03:02 | tab, let me click this guy.
| | 03:03 | Here is the setting right here Precision.
I'm going to select the flyout, right
| | 03:08 | now these guys are all dimensioned to
four spaces to the right of the decimal.
| | 03:11 | I'm going to click right here to set
this to 2. Now, as long as we are looking
| | 03:17 | at our Precision and our Units, I can
see that I'm dimensioning using decimals.
| | 03:21 | If you are an architect you may want to
use the flyout and select Architectural
| | 03:26 | and then you will be dimensioning
using Fractions. Let me set this back to Decimal.
| | 03:30 | Now that we have made our Precision
change let's click OK, I want to move to
| | 03:37 | the dialog box over, we will click
Close to close the dialog box and notice my
| | 03:43 | dimensions automatically conform to
the new Dimension Styles settings. Let's
| | 03:47 | make another change. I'm going to move
up and click my Dimension Style button.
| | 03:50 | I'm going to come over and select Modify.
This time I'm going to make a change
| | 03:55 | to my text. I'd like to change the font,
that's probably on the Text tab. Let
| | 03:59 | me come up and click right here.
Notice in the Text Appearance area I can
| | 04:02 | select a Text Style or if a come down
and click the Ellipses button I can make
| | 04:07 | modifications to a Text Style.
| | 04:08 | Let me click the Ellipses. This takes
me into my Text Style Editor, notice here
| | 04:13 | is my Standard Text Style. Let's
change the font that's associated with that
| | 04:17 | style. I'm going to click the drop-
down and lets use the Garamond font. I'm
| | 04:22 | going to type the letter G on my
keyboard to take me to the point in the list
| | 04:25 | and I will select Garamond. Notice the
change. When I'm finished I'm going to
| | 04:30 | come down and select Apply and Close.
I'd also like to change the Height of my
| | 04:35 | dimensions. These guys look a little
bit big. I'm going to highlight this
| | 04:39 | number and I'm going to change this to
0.125. Now, anytime you adjust a Size
| | 04:45 | setting in your Dimension Style dialog
box, the size that you are putting in
| | 04:48 | should reflect the size you want
your dimensions to appear on paper.
| | 04:52 | Let me hit Enter and notice my
number is update. I'm going to do one more
| | 04:56 | thing, I'm going to come down right
now in my Text alignment area, I can see
| | 04:59 | that my text is set to Horizontal
that means the numbers will always read
| | 05:03 | horizontal on my screen. I'm going to
set this for Aligned with dimension line
| | 05:08 | and we will click OK. Once again we
have made a couple of changes, I'm going to
| | 05:12 | move the Dimension Style manager to
the side, when I click close watch the
| | 05:17 | dimensions. Notice all of them update.
My dimensions at this point don't look
| | 05:22 | too bad. I'd like to make the arrowheads
a little bit smaller. Let me make that change.
| | 05:26 | I'm going to come up and click the
Dimension Style button. We'll click Modify.
| | 05:30 | Now this is an arrows issues that's
probably on the Symbols and Arrows tab.
| | 05:34 | Let me click right over here. Here
is my Arrow size set to 0.18. I'm going
| | 05:39 | to set this to 0.12. Once again this is
the size that I'd like the arrows to be
| | 05:44 | on my paper. Let me come down and
click OK and once again I'm going to click
| | 05:49 | Close and all my dimensions update.
| | 05:52 | Dimension styles give us the same
flexibility of the text style. If we need to
| | 05:56 | make global changes to the appearance
of our dimensions, we can simply modify
| | 06:00 | our dimension style and all of our
dimensions will update automatically.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Inserting callouts| 00:00 | Callouts can be just as important as
dimensions when creating construction
| | 00:03 | document. A callout is a note with an
arrow that points to a specific area of
| | 00:07 | the drawing. Callouts might be used
to specify building materials, typical
| | 00:11 | conditions or give special instructions
to the contractor. Let's look at how we
| | 00:15 | can create callouts using AutoCAD. I
have got a drawing open on my screen. If
| | 00:19 | you'd like to open the same drawing and
work along with me, this guy is located
| | 00:22 | inside the Chapter_12 folder inside
the Exercise Files directory and this is
| | 00:27 | the 03_MLEADER drawing.
| | 00:29 | Now, I have got an example of a
callout on my screen, it's right over here.
| | 00:33 | Generally speaking, a callout is a
piece of text with an arrow. Now, we are
| | 00:36 | going to use the MLEADER command to
create callouts like this. Now I can find
| | 00:41 | the Mleader command on my Annotate tab
of my ribbon. If I come right over here
| | 00:45 | to the Multileaders panel, this is
where I can find all of the tools associated
| | 00:49 | with Multileaders.
| | 00:51 | Let's create a callout. I can do that
by coming up and clicking the great big
| | 00:54 | Multileader button. When I do AutoCAD
asks me to Specify the leader arrowhead
| | 00:59 | location. Now I'd like to point to
the edge of this combination lock but
| | 01:03 | unfortunately my running object snap
will want the snap to center. Let's look
| | 01:08 | at a new object snap. I'm going to
come over to my toolbar and I'm going to
| | 01:11 | click this guy, this guy represents nearest.
| | 01:13 | If I click this object snap, AutoCAD
will snap to a point nearest to my cursor
| | 01:18 | on top of the line. Let me click to
place my arrow and as I pull away AutoCAD
| | 01:23 | creates the arrowhead and now AutoCAD
wants me to specify my landing location.
| | 01:27 | I'm going to click right here. At
this point, I can enter the text for my
| | 01:31 | callout. Now, I could manually format
this text by hitting Carriage Returns
| | 01:41 | after each word. Instead, I'm going to
click and hold on these arrows, I can
| | 01:45 | drag back and forth and adjust the
width of my callout. When I'm done adjusting
| | 01:50 | my width, I will release my cursor and
then I'm going to click in model space
| | 01:54 | to close the editor.
| | 01:55 | I will zoom in on this guy a little
bit. Now, the callout is not bad, but I
| | 02:00 | have kind of constructed it on top
of my right side view. No matter.
| | 02:04 | Multileaders are easy to change. If I
move up and click on my callout, I can
| | 02:09 | see a series of grips. Each grip has a
different job. If I click this grip, I
| | 02:15 | can use it to position my text. I'm
going to place it right up here. I can use
| | 02:20 | this grip to position my arrowhead.
In this case, I don't want to move the
| | 02:25 | arrowhead, so I'm going to hit my
Escape key. I can use these arrows to adjust
| | 02:30 | the length of my landing. Once again,
I'm going to hit Escape and I can use
| | 02:35 | this grip to adjust my text
while holding on to the landing.
| | 02:39 | Once again I'm going to hit Escape. Let
me hit Escape again to clear the grips.
| | 02:45 | Let's back up, I'm going to pan over a
little bit, I want to create one more
| | 02:48 | callout. Once again I'm going to
come up and click the Multileader tool.
| | 02:51 | AutoCAD says Specify leader arrowhead.
Let me zoom in, I'd like to point to the
| | 02:56 | knob on the combination lock. So I'm
going to come over and grab my nearest
| | 02:59 | object snap again. Let me place my
arrowhead nearest to this point on the arch
| | 03:05 | and click, I will pull away to create
my leader. Let's click to set the landing
| | 03:09 | location and then I can
enter the text for my callout.
| | 03:16 | Once again I'm going to click and hold
to set my width. When I'm finished, I
| | 03:22 | will click in model space to close the
editor. Let's back up a little bit. Now,
| | 03:28 | you maybe wondering why these are
called Multileaders, we only see one leader
| | 03:32 | coming out of each callout. It's
called a Multileader because it will support
| | 03:35 | multiple leaders. That's what this
button does. If I come up and click this
| | 03:39 | button, AutoCAD says Select a
multileader. I will click this one, notice
| | 03:44 | AutoCAD is allowing me to place
another leader. I'm going to turn off my
| | 03:48 | running object snaps, and I'm just
going to place one right here, we will place
| | 03:54 | another one down here, we will place
another one over here. When I'm finished I
| | 03:58 | will hit Escape.
| | 04:00 | The nice thing about having the
Multiple Leaders is that if I reposition my
| | 04:04 | text, the leaders are smart enough to
go along for the ride. If I click my
| | 04:08 | text, I can grab the grip and no
matter where I place this guy, the leaders
| | 04:12 | will always follow. Let me hit
Escape to clear the grips. Now, we can add
| | 04:16 | leaders we can also take them away.
This button allows me to remove leaders.
| | 04:21 | Once again AutoCAD says select a
multileader, I will grab this one and now I
| | 04:25 | can select the leaders I'd like to
remove. I will take away this one and this
| | 04:29 | one and this one in a right click.
| | 04:31 | Multileaders can also be easily aligned.
Let's say I'd like to align both of
| | 04:36 | these leaders on the left side. I
can use this button, this is my Align
| | 04:40 | feature, let me click, AutoCAD asks me
to Select multileaders, we will make a
| | 04:44 | nice crossing window to select both of
these guys. Let me click to finish the
| | 04:48 | window and then we will right-click
to finish the selection. Now I need to
| | 04:51 | select the Multileader I'd like to
align to, I will select of this one and at
| | 04:57 | this point I'm going to lock my Ortho
to restrict my movements to 90% angles.
| | 05:02 | Let me come down and click my Ortho
mode and I'm going to pull straight up and
| | 05:07 | click and these guys are now
perfectly aligned. Now, Multileaders like
| | 05:12 | Dimensions and Text are
also controlled by styles.
| | 05:15 | Let's take a look at the style that's
associated with the current Multileaders.
| | 05:19 | If I come up to the Multileaders panel,
I can see the current Style its called
| | 05:23 | Standard, if I move to the right I
can click the button to adjust to my
| | 05:26 | Multileader style. This brings up the
Multileader Style Manager, this is very
| | 05:31 | similar to the Dimension Style Manager.
On the left, I have got a list of my
| | 05:35 | Multileader Styles, currently I only
have Standard. Moving to the right, I have
| | 05:40 | got a nice preview, what it will look
like. Moving further to the right, I can
| | 05:44 | use these buttons to set a
Multileader style Current. I can create a new
| | 05:47 | Multileader style. I can make changes
to an existing Multileader style and I
| | 05:52 | can delete the Multileader style.
| | 05:55 | Notice that Delete is grayed out
that's because I can't delete my only style.
| | 05:59 | Let me click Modify. Now, the
Multileader Style dialog
box is much smaller than
| | 06:05 | the Dimension Style dialog box. We have
only got three tabs. Now, we don't have
| | 06:09 | time to go through all of the settings.
If you do have any questions about how
| | 06:12 | these settings work, simply place your
cursor over the setting and AutoCAD will
| | 06:16 | give you more information. If you need
more information press your F1 key for
| | 06:20 | more help or there is even a hyperlink
right down here that we can click where
| | 06:23 | AutoCAD will tell us more
about Multileader styles.
| | 06:26 | Now, the only change I'm going to make
to my style is on the Leader Format tab.
| | 06:31 | In the General area, I can see that my
Type is set to Straight. I'm going to
| | 06:34 | click the flyout and I'm going to
select Spline. This will give me nice smooth
| | 06:38 | leaders. When I'm finished making my
changes I'm going to come down and click
| | 06:42 | OK. Let's slide the dialog box over.
And when I click close, I can see that all
| | 06:48 | of Multileaders now conform to
the new Multileader Style settings.
| | 06:53 | As you can see Multileaders allow us
to create dynamic callouts that we can
| | 06:57 | easily rearrange or modify by simply
editing grips and similar to text and
| | 07:02 | dimensions, we can globally change
their appearance by adjusting their style.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modifying dimensions| 00:00 | AutoCAD dimensions are very flexible.
We can position them wherever we want and
| | 00:04 | reposition them if necessary, if we
need to make room for new dimensions.
| | 00:08 | We can even break the rules a little bit
when it comes to our dimension style.
| | 00:11 | Let's look at how we can tweak
our dimensions to suit our needs.
| | 00:15 | Now I have got an existing drawing
on my screen, could like to open this
| | 00:18 | drawing as well, this guy is located
inside the Chapter 12 folder, inside the
| | 00:22 | Exercise Files directory and this is
drawing number four, the Stereo Viewer.
| | 00:26 | Now I have got the drawing on my screen,
this guy has a significant number of
| | 00:29 | dimensions. Let's jump
in and make a few changes.
| | 00:32 | I'm going to start by zooming in on a
front view and we will look at these
| | 00:36 | dimensions on the bottom. If I'd like
to reposition my existing dimensions, I
| | 00:40 | can do it with grips. For instance, if
I move up and click on this dimension,
| | 00:44 | notice I get a series of grips. If I
click the grip on the arrowhead and then
| | 00:48 | move my cursor, I can change
the location of this dimension.
| | 00:51 | Let me click to put him in his new
position. Let me click on the dimension next
| | 00:56 | to the text. If I click here, I can
also position the dimension, I can also
| | 01:00 | move my text, I can even drag my text
outside the extension lines and AutoCAD
| | 01:05 | will automatically create a leader. I
want to click right here to place my dimension.
| | 01:11 | When I'm finished, I'm going to hit
Escape to clear the grips. Let's zoom in on
| | 01:16 | these dimensions. Knowing what we now,
I can always my dimensions aligned. For
| | 01:21 | instance, let me click this dimension.
I'm going to grab the grip at the end of
| | 01:25 | arrowhead and pull him down and click,
my grips are still turned on. Let me
| | 01:30 | click this dimension, I can grab the
grip at the end of this arrowhead. I will
| | 01:34 | pull him down and held snap right to
the same location as the other one. Let me
| | 01:39 | click to place the dimension.
| | 01:41 | Once again, I'm going to hit Escape
to clear the grips. Let me pan over a
| | 01:47 | little bit, let's reposition our
radial dimension. To do that I'm going to
| | 01:52 | click, AutoCAD gives me grips. I'm
going to click the grip by text and I will
| | 01:56 | pull the text outside the arc.
AutoCAD automatically creates a leader, I'm
| | 02:01 | going to place it right over here.
Notice AutoCAD also adds a center point.
| | 02:06 | Once again I'm going to hit Escape to
clear the grips. Let's make an adjustment
| | 02:10 | to an angular dimension. I will click
the dimension to see the grips, I will
| | 02:15 | click the grip on top of the number and
I can reposition the number wherever I
| | 02:19 | like. If I pull up or down, I can also
create extension lines for my dimension.
| | 02:26 | Let's place him right up here, when
I'm finished, I'm going to hit Escape.
| | 02:30 | Let's back up a little bit, let's
take a look at the top view. I'm going to
| | 02:35 | zoom-in on these guys. Watch this, I
can use grips to move multiple dimensions.
| | 02:40 | What if I was to make a crossing window
across these two dimensions and click,
| | 02:45 | I get several grips, I can grab the
common grip between them and as I pull down
| | 02:50 | they will both move together.
| | 02:51 | Let me bring them down here and I click
to set the new location and I will hit
| | 02:56 | Escape to clear the grips. What if I'd
like to align this dimension, to both of
| | 03:02 | these. Let's try something a little
bit different. What if I'd like to align
| | 03:06 | this dimension with both of these.
Let's do it with object snaps.
| | 03:10 | Let me click this dimension, I'm
going to click the grip at the end of the
| | 03:14 | arrowhead and then I'm going to pull
him down to meet the end point, let me
| | 03:18 | come over and grab end point. I will
pull him down to meet the end point here.
| | 03:24 | As soon as I click they are now
perfectly in alignment and I will hit Escape.
| | 03:27 | Now remember I said we can also break
some rules as far as our dimension style
| | 03:32 | is concerned, let's try that. I'm
going to zoom-out a little bit, we will pan
| | 03:36 | up. Let's take a look at this
dimension right over here. I'm going to click
| | 03:40 | this guy once to bring up the grips
and then I'm going to right click, when I
| | 03:46 | do AutoCAD, brings up a Context Sensitive Menu.
| | 03:50 | Notice I have got some options right
here that are associated with dimensions.
| | 03:54 | Let's change the precision of this guy,
I'm going to hover over the Precision
| | 03:58 | option, I'm going to come over and I
will set this guy to four spaces to the
| | 04:01 | right of the decimal. Let me click and
now this guy is four spaces but the rest
| | 04:06 | of them are still two.
| | 04:07 | Using the right click menu. I can
customize individual dimensions without
| | 04:12 | having to modify my dimension style.
Let's put him back, let me click to get
| | 04:16 | the grips, I will right click to
bring up the menu and we will set the
| | 04:20 | precision back to two.
Let's make another change.
| | 04:24 | Once again, I will click to highlight
him, we will right click. Let's go to Dim
| | 04:28 | Text Position. I'm going to come over
and I'm going to set this to Move text
| | 04:32 | alone. Feel free to experiment with
these settings. Notice when I set it for
| | 04:38 | Move text alone, I can now place this
dimension text to whatever I like. If we
| | 04:42 | have a drawing that is densely
populated with dimensions, sometimes we can use
| | 04:46 | this option to tuck
dimension text away where we need it.
| | 04:50 | I'm going to place it over here, make
click to place the dimension. Now even if
| | 04:54 | I click the dimension again he is
still associated with that guy but from now
| | 04:58 | on if I click this grip, he acts
like a loner, he is all by himself.
| | 05:04 | If I'd like to re-associate this guy
with the dimension again, I'm going to
| | 05:08 | right click, I will go to Dim Text
Position and I will set this to Move with
| | 05:13 | dim line. When I do, he acts just like
he did when he was first created and he
| | 05:18 | is not in the right spot and we pull
him back over where he was and now let's
| | 05:22 | put him back into alignment with the other one.
| | 05:25 | To do that I'm going to highlight both
dimensions, I will click this arrowhead
| | 05:29 | grip and I will place it to this one,
when I'm finished I will hit my Escape key.
| | 05:37 | As you can see we are never stuck
with the original placement of our
| | 05:39 | dimensions, with a little grip editing
and a few right clicks, we can position
| | 05:44 | or customize our
dimensions to suit any situation.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. Helpful AutoCAD ToolsUsing the Distance command| 00:00 | Finding the distance between two
entities doesn't necessarily require us to
| | 00:03 | create a dimension. Sometimes just
knowing the numeric value is all we need.
| | 00:08 | At times like these we can use
AutoCAD's Distance command. Now I have got a
| | 00:11 | drawing open on my screen, if you'd
like to open the same drawing and work
| | 00:14 | along with me, this guy is located
inside the Chapter 13 folder, inside the
| | 00:19 | Exercise Files directory. This
drawing is called 01_Distance Command.
| | 00:23 | Now I have got a parking lot example
on my screen, this happens to be a civil
| | 00:27 | engineering example, so every unit
equals one foot. Now I'd like to verify some
| | 00:32 | measurements but I don't want
to create full blown dimensions.
| | 00:35 | So I'm going to do that by using the
Distance command. Now the Distance command
| | 00:38 | is located on the Tools tab of my ribbon.
I'm going to come over to the Inquiry
| | 00:42 | panel and the icon is located right here,
let me click to launch the tool. Now
| | 00:47 | finding a distance is just like
creating a dimension. Generally speaking we
| | 00:51 | will click our first point, we will
click our second point and AutoCAD will
| | 00:54 | tell us what the distance was between them.
| | 00:56 | Now when we find distances, it's
important to use object snaps, that's the only
| | 01:00 | way we are going to get accurate
distances. Now I happened to have a running
| | 01:04 | object snap set, if I right click on
the button, I can see that I have a
| | 01:07 | running object snap set for Endpoint
and Center. Let me hit Escape to close the
| | 01:11 | menu and I also want to mention that
I'm using the Dynamic heads-up display, so
| | 01:16 | that mode is also turned on.
| | 01:19 | Let's find the width of this parking
stall. AutoCAD says, specify first point,
| | 01:23 | I will click the endpoint here and then
I will click the endpoint here. AutoCAD
| | 01:27 | says, that's a distance of nine. Now
remember this is a civil engineering
| | 01:30 | example, so that represents nine feet.
| | 01:33 | Let's find another distance. I'd like
to find the width of this block. Once
| | 01:37 | again, I'm going to launch the
distance command, I'll right click, select
| | 01:41 | Repeat DIST, I will select the
endpoint here and I will select the endpoint
| | 01:45 | here, that block is six feet wide.
| | 01:47 | Now if you are someone who does not the
use the heads-up display, you can also
| | 01:51 | see your distance down here on the
command line. It is important however, if
| | 01:54 | you are going to use your command line
to get distances, you want to make sure
| | 01:57 | that you are seeing at least three rows
of text in the command line. If you are
| | 02:02 | not, you will need to make an adjustment.
| | 02:03 | If I'd like to change the height of my
command lines such that I can see more
| | 02:06 | rows, I can place my cursor on the
divider, click and hold and I can drag up or
| | 02:12 | down to change the height of my
command line. You want to make sure that you
| | 02:16 | can see at least three rows.
| | 02:18 | Now if you do use the heads-up display,
let me show you a trick we can use to
| | 02:21 | get multiple distances while only
launching the distance command one time. I'm
| | 02:25 | going to come up and click Distance,
once again I'm going to find the width of this stall.
| | 02:30 | Let me click the first endpoint, now
instead of clicking the second endpoint
| | 02:35 | I'm just going to move in and hover
and when I do, watch my cursor. Notice it
| | 02:40 | said nine feet, it wasn't up very long,
you do have to look fast, but we can
| | 02:45 | get multiple distances. What's the
distance to this guy, 18, what's the
| | 02:50 | distance to this one, 27,
what's the depth of this stall, 18.
| | 02:56 | So if you use the heads-up display,
you can get more out of the distance
| | 02:58 | command then if you choose to use
only the command line. Since I'm finished
| | 03:02 | with the command, I'm
going to hit Escape to cancel.
| | 03:05 | So if your desire is to simply verify
the geometry in your drawing you can use
| | 03:08 | AutoCAD's Distance command and avoid
the hassle of producing unnecessary dimensions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modifying elements with the property changer| 00:00 | The Property Changer is without a
doubt the most useful palette in our
| | 00:03 | interface. With it we have access to
nearly every changeable aspect about
| | 00:07 | geometry. One thing is certain, the
more you use the Property Changer, the more
| | 00:11 | you will love the power this palette gives you.
| | 00:13 | Now I have got a drawing open on my
screen, if you'd like to open the same
| | 00:16 | drawing and work along with me, this
guy is located inside the Chapter 13
| | 00:20 | folder, inside the Exercise Files directory
and this is the 02_Property Changer drawing.
| | 00:25 | Now the drawing that I have on screen
utilized the several AutoCAD elements, I
| | 00:28 | have got text, I have got hatch, I have
got some dimensions and I have got some
| | 00:32 | basic shapes. Let's make some changes
to these entities using our Property
| | 00:36 | Changer. Now my Property Changer is
currently docked upon the left side of the
| | 00:39 | screen. I place my cursor
over the icon, it will open up.
| | 00:42 | If your Property Changer is currently
turned off, you can turn around by using
| | 00:46 | this Control key sequence. If you hold
down Ctrl and hit 1 on your keyboard,
| | 00:51 | this will toggle the palette on and
off. Now I just turned mine off. Let me
| | 00:55 | turn it back on again, Ctrl+1. It's so
important it's number 1 on your keyboard.
| | 01:00 | Now the palette is collapsible, let me
place my cursor over the icon and I'm
| | 01:05 | going to click the Auto-hide button to
lock this guy open momentarily because
| | 01:09 | I'd like to keep him open on my screen
for just a little bit. Before you make
| | 01:12 | any changes let's take a quick
look at the Property Changer.
| | 01:15 | Notice that I have several setting and
these settings are grouped under major
| | 01:19 | headings. In some cases I have more
settings than what will fit on my monitor,
| | 01:23 | I can see these guys are creeping off
the bottom of my screen. If that's the
| | 01:26 | case I can place my cursor on top of
the slider bar, click and hold and I can
| | 01:30 | pull up and down to see all of my settings.
| | 01:33 | I can also click these flyouts to close
up my headings. Let's use the Property
| | 01:40 | Changer to modify some geometry. I'm
going to zoom-in on this circle. I want to
| | 01:45 | move over and I'm going to click the
edge of the circle, when I do I wants you
| | 01:48 | to watch this area right up
here in the Property Changer.
| | 01:51 | Let me click, notice AutoCAD
recognizes that we found a circle, now I can see
| | 01:56 | the settings that we are associated
with that circle. If I look at the settings
| | 02:01 | at the top, I can change my general
settings, my Color and my Layer and my
| | 02:05 | Linetype, if I come down a little bit
further to the Geometry heading, I can
| | 02:08 | actually change the geometry of this entity.
| | 02:11 | Let's change its radius. I'm going to
click in the Radius field then I'm going
| | 02:15 | to set this to 0.2 and hit Enter. That
circle now has a radius of 0.2. Let's
| | 02:20 | change the Diameter, I'm going to
change the diameter to 0.1 and hit Enter.
| | 02:25 | Once again, I'm changing the
geometry by using the Property Changer. If I
| | 02:28 | wanted to, I could change the
circumference or the area, I could change its
| | 02:32 | center point as well as several other things.
| | 02:34 | Let's hit Escape to clear the grips
and let's take a look at a piece
| | 02:37 | of text. I'm going to back up, I will
pan over a little bit and let's click
| | 02:42 | this text. Once again, AutoCAD
recognizes that we have selected MText. If I
| | 02:47 | come down to the Text heading, I can
see the Text Contents. I can see the Style
| | 02:51 | that was used when that text was entered.
| | 02:53 | I can change its height, let's come
down and click here, let's set it's height
| | 02:56 | to 0.125 and hit Enter. Let's change
the rotation, I'm going to change the
| | 03:01 | rotation to 15 degrees and hit Enter.
The Properties palette is a very powerful
| | 03:06 | tool. Once again I'm going to hit
Escape to clear the grips. Let's select the
| | 03:10 | dimension. I'm going to come
over and click this dimension.
| | 03:12 | Now this guy is obviously on the
wrong layer, let me zoom-in a little bit,
| | 03:15 | let's change the layer. I'm going to
come up to the General heading, under
| | 03:19 | Layer and I will click and I will
select the different layers. Let's put this
| | 03:23 | guy on the dimensions layer. This is
yet another way that I can move an entity
| | 03:28 | from one layer to another.
| | 03:29 | Notice the other headings that I have
available for dimensions. These seven
| | 03:33 | headings are the same as the seven tabs
in our Dimension Style dialog box. This
| | 03:38 | means that I can customize this
dimension using any of the settings in the
| | 03:41 | Dimension Style dialog box.
| | 03:43 | Let's go to the Primary Units heading,
I will click to open this guy up and
| | 03:47 | let's change the Precision from two
decimal spaces to four. Let's go to the
| | 03:52 | Text heading and click, I'm going to
click the slider and pull down so I can
| | 03:56 | see all of the settings. Let's change
the Text Height, right now this text is
| | 04:01 | set to 0.125, let's set
it to 0.25 and hit Enter.
| | 04:07 | Notice I'm making changes to this
specific dimension. Once again when I'm
| | 04:11 | finished, I'm going to hit Escape to
clear the grips. Let's pan over, I saw
| | 04:15 | some hatch over here. Let's select
this hatch. I'm going to click this guy,
| | 04:18 | when I do AutoCAD recognizes I found Hatch.
| | 04:21 | Let me come down to the Pattern
heading, right here is where I can see the
| | 04:25 | pattern that I'm using, if I click in
this area, I can click the ellipsis and I
| | 04:29 | can choose a different pattern. You
know what, I wanted this to be ANSI37. Let
| | 04:33 | me select that pattern and click OK.
You know what, I wanted this to have a
| | 04:36 | different scale, right now it's set to
0.25, let me click and we will set it to
| | 04:40 | 0.75 and hit Enter.
| | 04:42 | When I'm finished making my changes,
I will move outside and hit Escape to
| | 04:47 | clear the grips. Take some time and
experiment with the Property Changer. For
| | 04:50 | instance, what if I selected two objects,
what if I clicked this hatch pattern
| | 04:55 | and this one. Notice AutoCAD recognizes
I found two of them, if I come down to
| | 05:00 | the pattern area, it says that the
Pattern name VARIES that means they are both different.
| | 05:04 | What if I'd like them both to be the
same. Let me click in this field, click
| | 05:08 | the ellipsis and I'm going to set them
both to a solid field hatch and click
| | 05:12 | OK. When I'm finished I'm
going to Escape to clear the grips.
| | 05:19 | Now personally I'd like to leave my
Property palette docked on the side of my
| | 05:22 | screen, I don't like to have it open
all the time. So I'm going to move up and
| | 05:27 | select the minimize button to
collapse and back down to an icon. Now when I
| | 05:31 | need them in the future, I can simply
hover over the icon, make my changes and
| | 05:36 | then I can move away to close the palette.
| | 05:38 | When in doubt, if you need to make a
change to an existing entity in your
| | 05:41 | drawing, whether it be a text object
or a dimension or a hatch pattern, go to
| | 05:46 | your Property Changer first. The
Property Changer is literally your one stop
| | 05:50 | shop for nearly every
changeable property of your objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the quick calculator| 00:00 | Another helpful tool we have in AutoCAD
is the quick calculator. What makes the
| | 00:04 | quick calculator nice is that it can
be used transparently within our AutoCAD
| | 00:07 | commands. Let me show what I mean. Now
I have got a drawing open on screen, if
| | 00:11 | you'd like to open the same drawing and
work along with me, this guy is located
| | 00:14 | inside the Chapter 13 folder, inside
our Exercise Files directory and this is
| | 00:19 | the 03_Quick Calculator drawing.
| | 00:21 | Now I have got some sketched geometry
on my screen. Now we are going to use
| | 00:25 | these guys to learn how the quick
calculator works. Let's take a look at this
| | 00:29 | square first. I'm going to hold the
wheel down on my mouse and we will pan this
| | 00:32 | guy to the center of the screen,
then I will roll my wheel forward, let's
| | 00:36 | zoom-in just a little bit.
| | 00:38 | Now let's say I'd like to offset this
left edge such that I divide this square
| | 00:42 | into three equal parts. What I mean is
that I'm going up to take the overall
| | 00:46 | distance and divide it by three and
that's not going to be easy to work out in
| | 00:49 | my head. Fortunately I don't have to,
because AutoCAD provides us with a
| | 00:53 | build-in calculator.
| | 00:54 | Let's try it. I want to come up to the
Modify panel and click my Offset button.
| | 00:59 | When AutoCAD asks me to specify a
distance, I'm going to right click, come down
| | 01:03 | to the bottom of the menu and select
QuickCalc. Now the QuickCalc function is
| | 01:08 | very similar to a traditional calculator,
probably the nicest aspect is right here.
| | 01:13 | Active Command, notice whatever value I
come up with it's going to be applied,
| | 01:17 | to the current command. Let's figure
out our distance. I'm going to come down
| | 01:20 | and click 6.31 divided by 3 and I'm
going to click my equal button. There is my
| | 01:28 | value, now I'm going to come down
and click Apply and when I do watch my
| | 01:32 | command line. AutoCAD drops the value
right down here, at this point I'm going
| | 01:36 | to hit Enter to accept the value
and then I will complete my offset.
| | 01:40 | I will click this line and I will go
in this direction, I click this line and
| | 01:44 | will go in this direction. When I'm
finished, I will right click and select
| | 01:47 | Exit. I just used the quick calculator
to divide the square into three equal
| | 01:52 | parts. Let's look at another example,
let's pan our drawing to the left here,
| | 01:56 | we will take a look at this circle.
| | 01:59 | Let's say I'd like to create a
circle that is one half the radius of this
| | 02:02 | existing circle. Once again, it would
be very difficult to figure out in your
| | 02:06 | head and we don't have to because
AutoCAD gives us a calculator. I'm going to
| | 02:10 | come up to the Draw panel, click my
Circle icon to launch the Circle command.
| | 02:14 | AutoCAD asks me to specify the center
point for my circle, now I happened to be
| | 02:18 | using a running objects snap for center
point. So when I place my cursor on the
| | 02:22 | arc, AutoCAD finds the center and let
me click, now AutoCAD wants me to specify
| | 02:27 | the radius. Once again, I'm going to
right click and at the bottom of the menu,
| | 02:31 | I'm going to select QuickCalc.
| | 02:35 | Now whatever value I come up with, it
will be applied to the circle command.
| | 02:38 | Let's figure out the radius. Now I
don't always have to come down and click the
| | 02:42 | buttons with my mouse. I can also use
the numbers on my keyboard. For instance,
| | 02:47 | let me highlight this number, and then
I will replace it with 2.635 divided by
| | 02:53 | 2. Let me hit Enter and there is my
value. Once again, I'm going to come down
| | 02:57 | and click Apply, this dumps the value
to my command line, let me hit Enter to
| | 03:02 | accept the value and I just
created a circle at one half the radius.
| | 03:06 | Now AutoCAD is still in the circle
command, so I'm going to hit my Escape key
| | 03:10 | to cancel. I want to show you one more
example, let back up just a little bit
| | 03:14 | and I will pan over. Let's try and
recreate this polygon. Now it's important
| | 03:20 | for you to know at least two ways to
do everything in AutoCAD. I'm going to
| | 03:24 | show you a second way to bring up your
calculator because sometimes the right
| | 03:28 | click menu won't work for you. So it is
important to know another way to bring
| | 03:32 | up the calculator.
| | 03:33 | Let's recreate this polygon. I'm going
to come up to the Draw panel and click
| | 03:37 | the Polygon tool. AutoCAD asks me
number of sides, I want to type 8 and hit
| | 03:42 | Enter. Let me specify the center of my
polygon, I'm going to click right here.
| | 03:47 | Now AutoCAD is asking me if it's
inscribed or circumscribed. I know the
| | 03:51 | distance to the faces, so
this is a circumscribed polygon.
| | 03:56 | Now AutoCAD wants to know the radius,
well I know it's half of 6.9919, I will
| | 04:01 | be trying to right click. Notice
AutoCAD is telling me at the command line A
| | 04:05 | requires numeric distance. It's not
giving me the opportunity to use my
| | 04:09 | calculator. Let me show you another
way to bring it up. If we use the Control
| | 04:13 | key sequence, if I hold down Ctrl+8,
AutoCAD will bring up the calculator and I
| | 04:18 | can see that my Active Command is Polygon.
| | 04:20 | So let's figure out the radius, I'm
going to type 6.9919 divided by 2, I will
| | 04:28 | click my equal button and then I will
click Apply to dump the value down to my
| | 04:32 | command line. Once it's there I will
hit Enter to accept it and I have just
| | 04:36 | recreated that polygon. Let's check it.
| | 04:38 | I'm going to come up and click my
Linear dimension and we will create a
| | 04:41 | dimension from the endpoint here to
the endpoint here. While the quick
| | 04:49 | calculator may not completely replace
the hand-held calculator we keep at our
| | 04:53 | desk, it certainly makes quick
computations within AutoCAD much easier.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
14. Reusable ContentCreating and inserting blocks| 00:00 | Whenever we have duplicated geometry
in our drawing, it's a good idea to
| | 00:03 | convert that geometry into a block.
Blocks are a lot like symbols. Generally
| | 00:08 | speaking, a block is a group of
geometry that's been given a name.
| | 00:11 | Now I'm working in an existing drawing.
If you'd like to open the same drawing,
| | 00:15 | this guy is located inside the
Chapter 14 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:19 | directory, and this drawing is
called 01_Creating-Inserting Blocks.
| | 00:24 | Now in this lesson, I'm going to
assume that I'm a landscape architect and in
| | 00:27 | the drawing that we see on screen, I
have got a line that represents a single
| | 00:31 | family home. If I zoom-in a little bit
on the back, I can see that I have drawn
| | 00:35 | a deck as well as a gazebo. Now my
job is to insert several trees into the
| | 00:40 | backyard and one thing we know about
landscape architects they would like to
| | 00:43 | insert a lot of trees.
| | 00:45 | Now I have already created my first
tree right over here, zoom-in and take a
| | 00:49 | look. This guy represents a shade tree
and it's got a diameter of 25 feet. I'd
| | 00:54 | like to insert several shade trees
into the backyard. If I click on this
| | 00:59 | geometry, I can see it's all
individual pieces. Now I don't want to copy this
| | 01:03 | geometry at each shade tree location
and I certainly don't want to redraft a
| | 01:07 | new tree at each location. Instead, I'm
going to convert this line work into a
| | 01:11 | block, that way, every time I want to
insert a shade tree, I can insert this block.
| | 01:16 | Let me hit Escape to clear the grips
and we will turn this guy into a block. To
| | 01:20 | do that I'm going to go to the Blocks
and References tab on my ribbon. I'm
| | 01:23 | going to come over to the Block panel
and I'm going to click this icon right in
| | 01:26 | the middle. This guy
allows me to create a block.
| | 01:29 | Now when my Block Definition dialog
box comes up, we can see several settings
| | 01:33 | and we don't have to use all of these
settings to create a block, we are going
| | 01:36 | to use a couple of them. If you have
any questions about what these settings
| | 01:39 | do, simply place your cursor over the
setting and AutoCAD will give you more
| | 01:42 | information.
| | 01:44 | Let's name the block first. I'm going
to come up and click in this field, and
| | 01:47 | I'm going to type Shade Tree. Now,
I'm going to come down to the Base point
| | 01:53 | area. This is where I'm going to
select the point at which I will be holding
| | 01:57 | this block when I insert it into my drawing.
| | 01:59 | Let me click Pick Points and the point
I'd like to be holding this guy from is
| | 02:04 | the center point that would be the
most logical location. Now I happened to
| | 02:08 | have a running object snap set for
center. So let me place my cursor on the
| | 02:11 | arc, AutoCAD find this center, and
I'll click and AutoCAD returns me to the dialog box.
| | 02:17 | Now I'll move to the next section, the
Objects section and I will click this
| | 02:21 | button to select objects. What objects
would I like to be a part of my block.
| | 02:25 | Let me click this button, AutoCAD ask
me to select objects and I want to make a
| | 02:29 | window around this tree geometry. Now I
don't need to select the dimension that
| | 02:33 | was more for you. Now that I'm done
selecting my geometry, I'm going to right
| | 02:36 | click to return the dialog box.
| | 02:39 | Notice AutoCAD now gives me a nice
preview of my block. I push this up. I need
| | 02:45 | to tell AutoCAD what we are going to
do with this remaining geometry. Are we
| | 02:48 | going to keep it, do we want to convert
it into our first inserted block or do
| | 02:53 | we want to delete it? I'm going to
Delete it. I really don't need it anymore.
| | 02:57 | If I need the geometry back, I can
just insert block. When I'm finished
| | 03:00 | creating my shade tree, I'm
going to come down and click OK.
| | 03:03 | Now that guy disappears. He is now a
defined block in this drawing. Now I don't
| | 03:08 | need this dimension anymore. Let's get
rid of this guy. To do that, I'm going
| | 03:11 | to click the Dimension and hit my
Delete key. All right, I'm going to roll my
| | 03:16 | wheel back, we will zoom-out a
little bit and we will pan over.
| | 03:18 | Let's insert our first tree block. To
do that, I'm going to come up to the
| | 03:22 | Block panel, and I'm going to select
this icon, this is my Insert button. When
| | 03:26 | I do, AutoCAD brings up the Insert
dialog box. Now in the Name area, I have got
| | 03:31 | a Fly-out, I can click this and I can
select from any of the existing block in
| | 03:35 | my drawing. Currently, I
just have my Shade Tree.
| | 03:38 | If a block is highlighted in the list,
I can see a nice preview of it right
| | 03:42 | over here to the right. Now beneath the
name I have got three check boxes. Each
| | 03:47 | one of these guys represents a
question that AutoCAD can ask me when I insert
| | 03:51 | my block. Question one, where do I
want to put it, question two, do I want to
| | 03:55 | change its size, and question three,
do I want to change its rotation.
| | 03:59 | If I place a Check in the box, AutoCAD
will ask me this question. If there is
| | 04:03 | no Check in the box, AutoCAD will
use these settings below. So when I'm
| | 04:07 | inserting my shade tree, I do want
AutoCAD to ask me where to put it. As far as
| | 04:11 | scale, don't ask me. Just put it into
the scale of one to one. So it's going to
| | 04:15 | go in with 25 foot diameter and then
lastly, I don't want to worry about the
| | 04:19 | rotation. It's just going to go the
same rotation in which it was created.
| | 04:23 | Probably the most important button in
this dialog box is the Explode button.
| | 04:27 | Make sure there is no Check in this
box. If there is a Check in this box,
| | 04:32 | AutoCAD will automatically explode
your entities when it inserts them and you
| | 04:35 | won't have a block. Now that I'm
finished with my settings, I'm going to come
| | 04:38 | over and click OK to insert my block.
| | 04:41 | Notice I'm holding that tree symbol
from my cursor and I can place him wherever
| | 04:45 | I wish in the drawing. I'm going to
click to place him here. Let's insert
| | 04:49 | another one, I'm going to come up and
click my Insert icon, we will leave the
| | 04:53 | settings the way they are. I will
click OK and I will drop another shade tree right here.
| | 04:59 | Using blocks for our repeated geometry
can be a very efficient and flexible way
| | 05:03 | to draft. Watch this, if I click this
shape, notice AutoCAD treats it as one
| | 05:07 | piece, that's because it's a block.
Also notice I have a grip at the center
| | 05:11 | point, that is called the insertion
point and that happens to be the point that
| | 05:15 | I selected when I created the block.
| | 05:17 | If I'd like to move this tree, I can
click this grip, move the tree someplace
| | 05:21 | else and I can click again to put it
down. Once again, this is much faster than
| | 05:25 | if this was a bunch of individual
line segments. I'm going to hit Escape to
| | 05:29 | clear the grip.
| | 05:30 | Now this block works great for a shade
tree. Now what if I'd like to create a
| | 05:33 | block that represents a different
type of tree? May be I'd like to create a
| | 05:36 | block that's a little bit more
flexible, one that would represent trees of
| | 05:39 | different sizes. Let me
show you how we can do that.
| | 05:42 | I'm going to go back to my Home tab
and I'm going to go to the Layer control
| | 05:47 | and click the drop-down because I have
got a layer that I have been hiding from
| | 05:50 | you. I'm going to turn on the all
tree layer. Let me to zoom-in on this
| | 05:55 | geometry, right down here, I'm going
to roll my wheel forward on my mouse.
| | 06:01 | Now this geometry represents a typical
symbol that a landscape architect would
| | 06:04 | use for a tree. Now this symbol is
based on a circle with a diameter of one
| | 06:08 | foot. That will be very
helpful in just a little bit.
| | 06:11 | Let's turn this geometry into a block.
Now, I don't always have to go to the
| | 06:15 | Blocks and References tab to create
blocks. Notice on my Home tab, I have got a
| | 06:19 | small Blocks panel that does include
the tools that I need to create blocks.
| | 06:24 | So to create my block, I'm going to go
to the Blocks panel, and click my Create
| | 06:28 | button. In the name field, I'm going to
call this block Ornamental Tree. Let's
| | 06:38 | come down to Base point, at what point
would I like to be holding this block
| | 06:41 | when I insert it into my drawing. Let
me click Pick Point, and I'd like to be
| | 06:45 | holding it from the center point right
here. The center would probably be the
| | 06:49 | most logical location. Let me click,
we will go back to the dialog box.
| | 06:53 | Now, I'm going to come over to the
Objects area and I'm going to click the
| | 06:57 | Select objects button. What objects
would I like to be a part of my block. Let
| | 07:02 | me back up just a little bit, pan it
down and I'm going to make a window that
| | 07:06 | surrounds my tree geometry. Let me
right click to finish my selection.
| | 07:12 | Once again, what do I want to do with
this existing geometry? Do I want to keep
| | 07:15 | it, do I want to convert it into my
first inserted block or do I want to delete
| | 07:19 | it? In this case, I'm going to delete it.
Let's look at one more setting. This
| | 07:23 | time when we create the block, we're
going to come over and we are going to put
| | 07:26 | a check in the Scale Uniformly box.
This means that, after my block has been
| | 07:30 | inserted into my drawing, I will be
able to scale it proportionately. When I'm
| | 07:34 | finished, I'm going to come down and click OK.
| | 07:36 | All right, let's get rid of this
unnecessary dimension. I will click on it and
| | 07:41 | press the Delete key on my keyboard,
back up, we will pan over and we will try
| | 07:47 | to insert an ornamental tree. I'm going
to come up to my Block panel and click
| | 07:51 | the Insert button. Now I have got a
choice. Let me click the Fly-out and I will
| | 07:56 | select ornamental tree. Once again I
see a nice preview right over here.
| | 08:00 | Now what questions do I want AutoCAD to
ask me? I do want AutoCAD to ask me the
| | 08:04 | insertion point. I do want AutoCAD to
ask me the scale this time, and I don't
| | 08:11 | want AutoCAD to ask me a rotation.
Let's come down and click OK and insert our
| | 08:14 | block. Now notice I'm holding my
block from my cursor. It's very small.
| | 08:19 | Remember it was based on a
circle with a diameter of one foot.
| | 08:22 | Let's say I'd like to insert an
ornamental tree and I'd like it to have a 15
| | 08:26 | foot diameter. Let me pick a point on
screen for its insertion. Now for the
| | 08:31 | scale factor, I'm going to type in 15.
This will be a 15 foot diameter tree and
| | 08:37 | I will hit enter. Let's insert another one.
| | 08:40 | I'm going to come up and click my
Insert button. This time, ask me where to put
| | 08:44 | it. You know what, don't ask me the
scale. This time put it in with 7 foot
| | 08:48 | diameter. I will hardcore the diameter
right here. And once again I'm going to
| | 08:52 | click OK. Now I'm holding a 7 foot tree.
Let me click and I will place him here.
| | 08:57 | Blocks give us a tremendous amount of
flexibility, especially if we need to
| | 09:01 | make changes. You know what, this is a
15 foot ornamental tree. What if it is
| | 09:05 | supposed it to be a 20 foot ornamental
tree? If I want to change this, I can
| | 09:09 | simply click on it, I can go over to my
Property Changer. Notice AutoCAD knows
| | 09:13 | I have selected a block. Let's come
down to the scale and I'm going to change
| | 09:18 | this to 20 and hit Enter. That is now a
20 foot ornamental tree. Once again I'm
| | 09:23 | going to hit Escape to clear the grips.
| | 09:25 | Anytime you have geometry that's
repeated throughout your drawing, it's wise to
| | 09:29 | consider converting that geometry into
a block. Blocks are faster to insert,
| | 09:33 | easier to manage and that will
keep your file size as much smaller.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Leveraging blocks| 00:00 | Once we understand the concept of blocks,
it's easy to find ways to incorporate
| | 00:04 | them into our work. In this lesson, we
are going to use blocks to efficiently
| | 00:07 | place furniture into an office floor plan.
| | 00:10 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:13 | drawing, this guy is located inside
the Chapter 14 folder inside our Exercise
| | 00:18 | Files directory and this is the 02_
Office drawing. Now in this lesson let's say
| | 00:23 | I'm designing the floor plan and
furniture layout for a civil engineering firm.
| | 00:27 | Let's also say that my client has
chosen specific furniture for this office.
| | 00:31 | Now what I'm started doing is I have
started drafting each piece of furniture
| | 00:35 | based on the real world dimensions and
then I have turned that furniture into a
| | 00:39 | block. This way if I want to insert a
main line desk into someone's office, I
| | 00:43 | can insert the block rather than
copying individual pieces of geometry around
| | 00:47 | the drawing.
| | 00:47 | Now, I have already created several
furniture blocks. I have got one off to
| | 00:51 | this side that I'm currently working
on. Let's finish this guy up. Let me
| | 00:55 | zoom-in on this guy, we will make
him a little bigger on screen. Now this
| | 00:58 | geometry represents an executive
desk and this guy was drawn using actual dimensions.
| | 01:04 | Now if I click on this geometry, I can
see this guy was created using several
| | 01:07 | individual objects. More importantly
take a look at the Layer control. Notice
| | 01:11 | all of this geometry is on layer zero.
That's going to be very important in
| | 01:15 | just a little bit. Let me hit Escape to
clear the grips and let's turn this guy
| | 01:19 | into a block.
| | 01:20 | To do that, I'm going to come up and
click my Create button. In the Block
| | 01:24 | Definition dialog box, first thing I'm
going to do is, give this guy a name.
| | 01:27 | Let me click in the name field and I'm
going to type Executive Desk. Let's come
| | 01:33 | down to the Base point area. Here is
where I'm going to pick the point at which
| | 01:37 | I will be holding this desk
when I insert it into my office.
| | 01:40 | Let me click Pick Point. Now it's
furniture. So I really don't need a really
| | 01:45 | specific location because it's going to
be different in each office. I'm going
| | 01:48 | to select the endpoint right here,
and return to the dialog box.
| | 01:53 | Now, we will go to the Objects area.
What objects would I like to be a part of
| | 01:58 | my block. Let me click the Select
Objects button, and I will make a nice window
| | 02:01 | selection around these guys. Let me
click to finish the window and then we will
| | 02:05 | right click to finish the selection.
| | 02:07 | The last thing I want to do is tell
AutoCAD what to do with my geometry. I'm
| | 02:10 | going to select Delete because I really
don't need this individual geometry. If
| | 02:14 | I want this desk, I can just insert my
block. Now that I'm finished, I'm going
| | 02:18 | to come down and click OK. That
geometry disappears because it is now defined
| | 02:23 | as a block in my drawing. Let me zoom-
out a little bit and we will center this
| | 02:27 | guy on screen.
| | 02:28 | Now, a good form says that we should
insert blocks on a layer of their own. Now
| | 02:32 | you can do this several ways. For
instance I couldn't create a layer called
| | 02:36 | furniture and I could insert all of my
furniture under that one layer. Instead,
| | 02:41 | I have taken it an extra step. If I
click the Layer Control, you can see that I
| | 02:45 | have created a layer for each type of furniture.
| | 02:48 | Now, I happened to have a layer called
Desks Executive. Let me set that layer
| | 02:52 | current by clicking on it, and this
will be the layer that I will use when I
| | 02:55 | insert my executive desks.
Let's zoom in in this office.
| | 03:00 | To insert my first desk, I'm going to
come up and click my Insert icon. In the
| | 03:07 | Insert dialog box, I'm going to click
the flyout and I'm going to select from
| | 03:10 | an existing block. Remember I have
created several blocks already. Let me
| | 03:14 | select executive desk from the list,
AutoCAD is going to ask me the Insertion
| | 03:18 | point. It's going to go in at the same
scale, one to one and I'm not going to
| | 03:22 | concern myself with the rotation right
now. It's furniture, I can always rotate
| | 03:26 | it if I have to. Let me click OK.
| | 03:29 | I'm now holding the desk and let's
place it at the endpoint right here. Notice
| | 03:34 | the desk is red. You see blocks that
are created from entities on Layer 0, will
| | 03:40 | assume the properties of the layer they
are inserted on. So if you're going to
| | 03:44 | create a block, it would be a good idea
to draw your geometry on Layer 0. That
| | 03:48 | way if you turn that geometry into a
block, any layer that you insert that
| | 03:52 | block on to, the block will mimic the
properties of that layer. This desk is
| | 03:56 | now red because this layer happens
to be red. Let me zoom out and we will
| | 04:01 | center this guy on screen.
| | 04:02 | Imagine if I use the same block
procedure that I used for that desk for all of
| | 04:07 | the furniture in this office? Take
a look at my CAD Room. Each piece of
| | 04:12 | furniture in this room is a block. If
I click these desks, I can see they are
| | 04:17 | all the same desk block. Let me hit
Escape to clear the grips. I also created a
| | 04:22 | block for the file cabinets. This means
after I inserted my first file cabinet,
| | 04:26 | I could then copy it to each room.
| | 04:28 | Remember, that we don't always have
to insert a new block in each location.
| | 04:32 | Once we insert our first one, we can
copy it to each other location. Once again
| | 04:36 | I'm going to hit Escape to clear the
grips, let me zoom in a little bit. I even
| | 04:40 | make blocks out of the cube panels.
This way every time I wanted to insert a
| | 04:44 | cube panel, I can easily place it into
the drawing. Since all of this geometry
| | 04:48 | was created from real world dimensions,
I'm certain that all of this furniture
| | 04:52 | will fit within this space. And if I
need to arrange it or rearrange it, I can
| | 04:58 | simply click on a piece of furniture
and move it around or rotate it using grips.
| | 05:03 | At some point, this drawing begins
to act more like an assembly than a
| | 05:07 | traditional line drawing. As you can
see this file is almost completely created
| | 05:10 | from blocks. Since we use blocks for
our repeated geometry as opposed to
| | 05:15 | copying individual lines and arcs, we
have much more control over the furniture
| | 05:19 | and can make fast revisions with the
assurance that our geometry is consistent
| | 05:23 | across the entire drawing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Redefining blocks| 00:00 | The best part about using blocks is
that they can be redefined if necessary.
| | 00:04 | By simply changing the geometry of one
of your blocks, every other instance of
| | 00:08 | that block will automatically update.
| | 00:10 | Now I have got a drawing on my screen.
If you'd like to open the same drawing
| | 00:14 | and work along with me, this guy is
located inside the Chapter 14 folder inside
| | 00:18 | our Exercise Files directory
and this is 03_Office drawing.
| | 00:23 | Now, if we look at the screen we can
see the floor plan of an office. Each one
| | 00:26 | of these guys that I click on we can
see is block. In this lesson we are going
| | 00:32 | to look at how we can redefine a block.
Let me hit Escape to clear my grips and
| | 00:36 | I'd like you to take a look at these
chairs. I have several chairs inside my
| | 00:40 | office. Now, I did practice to get form,
each chair happens to be a block and
| | 00:44 | if I click the chair and we look at
the Layer control, I can see that I have
| | 00:47 | placed all of my chairs on their own layer.
| | 00:50 | Once again I'm going to hit Escape
to clear my grip. Now let's say I have
| | 00:53 | inserted all of these chairs and then
I had a meeting with the client and the
| | 00:56 | client said, you know what, we are
not going with that particular model
| | 00:59 | anymore, we are going to go with a
different type of chair. Instead of
| | 01:02 | inserting brand new chairs at each
location, what I'm going to do is I'm going
| | 01:06 | to redefine an existing chair
and then all of them will update.
| | 01:10 | Let's try that. I'm going to zoom-in on
this chair right here in my conference
| | 01:13 | room, and let's redefine this chair.
I'm going to go to my Blocks and
| | 01:17 | References tab on my ribbon. I'm going
to move into the Reference panel and I'm
| | 01:22 | going to select the icon right here.
This guy represents the REFEDIT command,
| | 01:26 | stands for Edit Reference in Place. Let
me click the launch to command. AutoCAD
| | 01:30 | now says select reference,
I will click this chair.
| | 01:34 | When I do, AutoCAD brings up the
Reference Edit dialog box showing me the block
| | 01:38 | name, as well as a preview. At this
point I'm going to come down and click OK.
| | 01:41 | AutoCAD then screens back everything
in my drawing. If I back up, I can see
| | 01:46 | everything is kind of grayed out and
in fact all of the other chairs have
| | 01:49 | disappeared, because now I'm
controlling what those chairs are going to look
| | 01:52 | like. If I click this geometry, it's
all individual pieces, it's just like I'm
| | 01:57 | creating this block for the first time.
Let me hit Escape to clear the grips
| | 02:02 | and let's make some changes.
| | 02:03 | I'm going to zoom back in and I'm
going to delete some of these lines. I'm
| | 02:07 | going to do it by using a crossing
window. I'm going to click right here, we
| | 02:10 | will move across these objects and I
will click to finish my window. Those guys
| | 02:15 | are selected, I'm going to hit the
Delete key on my keyboard. Instead of going
| | 02:19 | with the square seat on the chair,
we are going to go with the round seat instead.
| | 02:24 | Let's launch the Circle command. I'm
going to go to the Home tab and click, let
| | 02:27 | me click my Circle icon. AutoCAD says,
specify center point. Now I happened to
| | 02:33 | have a running object snap set for
center, so I'm going to click right here to
| | 02:38 | grab the center of this circle. Now
what's my radius, you know what it really
| | 02:43 | doesn't matter I could use an object snap.
| | 02:45 | I want my radius to be drawn to the
endpoint right there. Now that I have made
| | 02:49 | a change to my block, let's take a
look at the ribbon. Notice, ever since I
| | 02:53 | started editing this guy, I have got a
new tab up here called Edit Reference
| | 02:56 | and this guy is bringing
along a new set of tools.
| | 02:59 | The two most important tools I have are
Discard Changes or Save Changes, which
| | 03:04 | would I like to do. In this case, I'm
going to save changes, so I will click
| | 03:08 | this icon. When I do, AutoCAD says, hey
! You have got the existing blocks in
| | 03:13 | the drawing, do you want all these
guys to be updated? Yes, I do. Let me go
| | 03:16 | ahead and click OK and when I back up,
I can see all of the chairs have been updated.
| | 03:22 | Redefining a block is probably one of
the biggest time savers in AutoCAD. If
| | 03:26 | you have the foresight to use blocks
for repeated geometry in your drawing,
| | 03:30 | making global changes later can be
done in minutes instead of hours.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building your block library| 00:00 | Once you start using blocks, it won't
be long before you will want to create a
| | 00:03 | library of your common symbols such
that you can use them in other drawings.
| | 00:07 | Let's look at how we can start a block library.
| | 00:09 | Now I have got a drawing opened on the
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:13 | drawing, this guy is located inside
the Chapter 14 folder inside the Exercise
| | 00:17 | Files directory. Now this
drawing is called 04_Office.
| | 00:21 | Now as we can see I have got a floor
plan of an office building drawn on my
| | 00:25 | screen. This guy contains several
furniture blocks. We can prove that by going
| | 00:29 | up to the Blocks panel and
clicking the Insert icon.
| | 00:33 | In the Insert dialog box, I will click
the flyout and notice all of the blocks
| | 00:37 | that have been created in this file.
Now in this case I don't want to insert a
| | 00:42 | block, so I'm going to come down and
click Cancel to close this dialog box.
| | 00:48 | Now one of the drawbacks to blocks is
that when you define one in your drawing,
| | 00:52 | it only exists in the current drawing.
That means if I was to start a new file,
| | 00:56 | I'd not have access to any of these blocks.
| | 00:59 | In this lesson I'm going to show you
how we can move blocks from one drawing to
| | 01:02 | another, and this will be the basis
for creating a block library. So we have
| | 01:06 | already established that this
drawing contains several blocks.
| | 01:09 | Let me close it. Before I do, remember
the name, 04_Office. Now I'm going to
| | 01:18 | come up and create a new drawing.
I'm going to come up and click
| | 01:20 | my new icon and I'm going to start with
the acad template. This is the default
| | 01:25 | AutoCAD drawing. Let me select
that guy and we will click Open.
| | 01:28 | Now what I'd like to do is I'd like to
insert some of the furniture blocks from
| | 01:31 | the office drawing into this one. Now
the office drawing is an architectural
| | 01:36 | example. So if I'm going to insert
blocks from that drawing into this one, I
| | 01:40 | should set this drawing to
architectural units. That way I don't have to worry
| | 01:44 | about my symbols being resized when I
move them from one drawing to the other.
| | 01:48 | To change the unit setting, I'm going
to come up and click my Tools tab and
| | 01:51 | then I'm going to come over to the
Drawing Utilities panel and I'm going to
| | 01:54 | select Units. In the Units dialog box,
I'm going to come over to the Type area,
| | 01:59 | I will click the flyout and I'm going
to set this guy to Architectural. Now
| | 02:02 | that I have finished my changes,
I'm going to come down and click OK.
| | 02:04 | This drawing has now set to be
architectural units. Now to extract the blocks
| | 02:09 | from the other drawing, I'm going to
use a tool called the DesignCenter. Now
| | 02:12 | there is a couple of ways to bring the
DesignCenter up on screen. One way is by
| | 02:16 | going to your View tab and clicking.
We can come over to the palettes panel,
| | 02:20 | the DesignCenter is technically a
palette and I can click the DesignCenter icon.
| | 02:24 | Now if you don't like switching tabs
to turn on that tool, we can also turn
| | 02:29 | them on and off using a control key
sequence. It's Ctrl+2. If I hold down Ctrl
| | 02:35 | on my keyboard and hit the number 2,
AutoCAD will toggle through the various
| | 02:39 | settings. Once again I'm going to hold
down Ctrl and hit 2 to bring him back up on screen.
| | 02:43 | Now, we are going to use the
DesignCenter to steal components from existing
| | 02:47 | AutoCAD drawings. Now the DesignCenter
is divided up into two panes. The left
| | 02:52 | pane acts just like Windows Explorer
and the right pane is where we will go to
| | 02:56 | steal our content. There is a divider
between the two panes. If I place my
| | 03:00 | cursor right on this line, I can click
and hold and I can change the width in
| | 03:04 | either direction. Let me release
and I'm going to leave it right here.
| | 03:07 | Now what we are going to do in the left
pane is we are going to navigate to our
| | 03:10 | existing AutoCAD drawing. Mine happens
to be in the Exercise Files directory,
| | 03:14 | so I'm going to click the plus(+) to
open that guy up. Let's come down and we
| | 03:17 | will click the plus(+) to open up
Chapter 14, and here is where DesignCenter
| | 03:21 | surpasses Windows Explorer. Notice I
have got a plus(+) next to my drawing name.
| | 03:26 | With the DesignCenter, I can navigate
into an existing AutoCAD drawing. Let me
| | 03:30 | click the plus(+) and AutoCAD shows me
a list of everything that I can steal
| | 03:34 | from this file. One of the things that
I can steal are blocks. Let me click on
| | 03:38 | the Blocks heading and AutoCAD will
show me a listing of all of the blocks that
| | 03:42 | exist in that file.
| | 03:44 | If I'd like to bring a block into the
current drawing, what I'm going to do is
| | 03:47 | click and hold on it and I'm going to
drag it right in the model space. Now
| | 03:52 | notice it's quite a bit larger than
my current view. No matter I'm going to
| | 03:57 | release, I'm going to set it right here.
| | 03:59 | Now instead of closing my DesignCenter,
I'm going to anchor him to the left
| | 04:02 | side of my screen. Then we will
correct our view, and then we will come back.
| | 04:08 | To anchor him I'm going to right
click and I'm going to select Anchor Left.
| | 04:12 | Now let's do a zoom extents on our
screen. I'm going to double-click my wheel.
| | 04:17 | AutoCAD gives me a zoom extents
of everything in this file. Currently,
| | 04:20 | it's just this one block. Let me hit
Escape to clear the grips and I'd like to
| | 04:24 | back up a little bit more. Let me roll
my wheel back. Now as I'm zooming out,
| | 04:28 | AutoCAD is telling me, I have zoomed
out as far as possible. This is a regen
| | 04:32 | issue. I need to regen my drawing
before I can do anymore dynamic panning or
| | 04:36 | zooming. Let's take care of that too.
| | 04:38 | To do that I'm going to come up to my
Menu Browser and click. I will come down
| | 04:42 | to my View option and I will come
over and select Regen. This will work for
| | 04:46 | right now. Let me just pan this chair
over to this side just a little bit.
| | 04:50 | Don't worry about the UCS icon, that
guy doesn't plot. What he is doing is he
| | 04:54 | is showing us where the
origin is of our coordinate system.
| | 04:57 | Let's bring in another block. Once
again I'm going to go to my DesignCenter, I
| | 05:00 | will hover over the icon, AutoCAD
remembers where I was. This time I'm going to
| | 05:05 | click and hold and I will drag in a
file cabinet. We will place it right here
| | 05:10 | and the DesignCenter is doing its job,
it's collapsing once I move off of the
| | 05:15 | palette. Now the only thing
different about bringing in blocks from the
| | 05:18 | DesignCenter, is AutoCAD isn't asking
me the questions insertion point, scale
| | 05:22 | or rotation.
| | 05:23 | If I'd like to bring in blocks from
the DesignCenter using the traditional
| | 05:26 | method, I will do it this way. Let me
hover over the DesignCenter to open it
| | 05:31 | up. Let me move over the block that I'd
like to extract and I will double click
| | 05:37 | on it. Now AutoCAD gives me the
traditional Insert dialog box. Let me click OK.
| | 05:42 | I'm now holding that
bookshelf from the insertion point.
| | 05:47 | Now that I have brought in three blocks,
let's go to the Home tab for a second.
| | 05:50 | We will go to the Blocks panel and we
will click Insert. Notice when I click
| | 05:55 | the flyout, those three blocks now
exist in this drawing. Once again I'm going
| | 05:59 | to come down and click Cancel.
| | 06:00 | Now imagine if we use the DesignCenter,
and we navigate it to other drawings on
| | 06:07 | our network that contain blocks. I can
drag all of my blocks into one common
| | 06:12 | drawing. I could then save this
drawing, I could give it a name called My
| | 06:15 | Custom Blocks, and I could save this
one on the network as my block library.
| | 06:20 | Then the next time I need a block, I
can go to my DesignCenter, navigate to
| | 06:24 | this drawing and I could extract my
blocks out into other files. Using the
| | 06:28 | DesignCenter we can easily organize a
custom block library that holds all of
| | 06:33 | the symbols we use most, and later on
as we create more symbols, we can return
| | 06:37 | to the DesignCenter to add them to our library.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
15. PlottingCreating quick plots| 00:00 | At some point in our design process,
we'll need to produce a hard copy of our
| | 00:03 | work. Let's look at how we can create
a quick print of our drawing for review
| | 00:07 | purposes. Now, I've got a drawing open
on my screen, if you'd like to open the
| | 00:11 | same drawling, this guy is located
inside the Chapter_15 folder inside our
| | 00:15 | Exercise Files directory and this drawing
is called, 01_Creating a Quick Check Plot.
| | 00:21 | Now, as you can see we're starting with
a relatively small drawing. Now I need
| | 00:26 | to produce a hard copy of this guy, and
the print that I want to create doesn't
| | 00:29 | require a title block, nothing formal
like that. I pretty much just want to
| | 00:33 | print this guy on a piece of paper,
so I can put it in someone's hands for
| | 00:36 | their review. Now since we're going
to be talking about plotting, I want to
| | 00:39 | start by going to the Layer Properties Manger.
| | 00:42 | To get there, I'm going to come up
to my Layers panel and click the Layer
| | 00:45 | Properties Manager icon. Now, look this
guy is on screen. Let's take a look at
| | 00:49 | the Lineweight column. Since we're
going to be plotting these settings are now
| | 00:53 | important. The Lineweight column
controls the plottable line thickness of our
| | 00:57 | layer. I'm going to come up and click
the Lineweight setting for layer 0. This
| | 01:02 | brings up my Lineweight selector. From
here I can click and hold on the slider
| | 01:06 | and I can go up and down and I can
see all of the available Lineweights in AutoCAD.
| | 01:10 | Here in an interesting anomaly.
Notice, by default, AutoCAD sets these to
| | 01:14 | Millimeters. Now, we can't change this.
Let me show you where we can go to make
| | 01:18 | that setting. I want to come down and
click Cancel. Then I want to come up and
| | 01:22 | click the X to close the palette.
Let's go to the Options dialog box. To do
| | 01:27 | that, I'm going to right-click and at
the bottom of the menu, I'm going to
| | 01:30 | select Options. When that guy comes up
on screen, we're going to go to the User
| | 01:34 | Preferences tab. Once we get there,
we'll come down and select the Lineweight
| | 01:39 | Settings button.
| | 01:39 | Here's what I can see, yes in fact
AutoCAD does default to Millimeters. If I
| | 01:45 | come over to the left, I can see the
same list of Lineweights. If I'd like to
| | 01:49 | use the Inches equivalent, I can click
this button. Now I don't have a problem
| | 01:54 | with the Millimeter setting. So I'm
going to set that back the way it was.
| | 01:57 | We'll click Apply & Close and I'll
click OK to close the dialog box.
| | 02:02 | To print this drawing, I'm going to go
up to the Quick Access toolbar and I'm
| | 02:05 | going to click my Plot button. This
brings up the Plot dialog box. Now, mine
| | 02:10 | has semi-collapsed at this point. To
open this guy up fully so that we can see
| | 02:14 | all of the settings, I'm going to
come down and click this more than (>)
| | 02:17 | button. Now, we certainly don't need to
adjust all of these settings to create
| | 02:21 | a plot, we only have to do a couple of them.
| | 02:24 | If you have any questions about what
these settings do, simply place your
| | 02:27 | cursor over the setting and AutoCAD
will give you more information. Likewise,
| | 02:31 | at this point I can always hit my
F1 key to go to the Help feature. In
| | 02:35 | addition, if we go to the upper right
-hand corner of the box, I can see a
| | 02:37 | hyperlink where I can go and AutoCAD
will give me even more information about Plotting.
| | 02:41 | Now, the first thing we're going to do
to print this drawing is we're going to
| | 02:45 | go to the Printer/plotter area. This is
where we select our printer. I'm going
| | 02:48 | to click the flyout. In this list we're
going to come over to the left side and
| | 02:53 | take a look at these icons. These
icons represent printers that are connected
| | 02:57 | to my machine. You see AutoCAD prints
using Windows system printer drivers. So
| | 03:02 | the list we see here is going to be
the same list that we see when we try and
| | 03:05 | print from Microsoft Word or Excel or
any other application. Now, if you do not
| | 03:10 | see your printer in this list, check
with your IT person or your Autodesk
| | 03:13 | reseller and they can help you.
| | 03:16 | Now, I'm sure that my list looks
different than yours, what I'd like you to do
| | 03:19 | is, I'd like to select a printer that
will accommodate in 8.50x11 sheet of
| | 03:23 | paper. In my case, I'm going to select
Adobe PDF, I'm going to print this guy
| | 03:27 | as a PDF file. The next thing we'll
do is we'll come down to the Paper size
| | 03:32 | area. This is where we can select our
paper. If I click the flyout, I will see
| | 03:36 | a list of all of the paper sizes
that will fit through the printer that I
| | 03:40 | selected. So if you picked your
Inkjet printer that sits on your desktop,
| | 03:44 | you'll probably see some envelope
sizes here as well. Now, in my case, I just
| | 03:48 | want to use the Letter size paper. So
I'm going to leave this set to Letter.
| | 03:52 | The next thing we'll do is come down
to the Plot area setting. There is where
| | 03:55 | we identify in AutoCAD what we want to
apply. I'm going to click the flyout and
| | 03:59 | I'm going to select Window. AutoCAD
drops me in the model space and notice that
| | 04:04 | my cursor, it says Specify first corner.
I want to move up to the upper left,
| | 04:08 | I'm going to click right here and as
I move down to the right, notice I'm
| | 04:12 | creating a window. What I'm doing is
I'm telling AutoCAD to print everything
| | 04:16 | that falls within this rectangle. I'm
going to click to specify my opposite
| | 04:20 | corner and AutoCAD will
take me back to the dialog box.
| | 04:23 | Now, let's move down to the Plot
offset area. In this area I'm going to click
| | 04:28 | Center of the plot. This will guarantee
that my geometry ends up in the middle
| | 04:31 | of the paper. The last place where
we're going to go, it's probably the most
| | 04:35 | important, is the Plot scale area.
Notice this guy is set to Fit to paper.
| | 04:40 | That's probably the worst setting. This
setting means that my geometry will be
| | 04:44 | scaled up or down just so
that it fits on the paper.
| | 04:47 | Whenever we plot something from AutoCAD,
we want to make sure and plot it to a
| | 04:50 | measurable scale. So I'm going to
remove this check and let's go to the scale
| | 04:55 | area. I'm going to click the flyout
and I'm going to choose from one of the
| | 04:58 | standard scales available in the list.
Now if you're an architect or you're
| | 05:02 | drawing your setup to architectural
units, you'll be using the scales down
| | 05:05 | here. Since this drawing is decimal
inches, I'm going to be using the scales up
| | 05:10 | at the top. Let's try and plot this at 1:1.
| | 05:14 | Now that I've made my setting, take a
look at the preview area. This outer
| | 05:17 | rectangle represents my sheet of
paper and the hatched area represents my
| | 05:21 | drawing. Just for fun, I'm going to
change my Scale. Let me click the flyout
| | 05:25 | again. I'm going to go up to the top
and let's print this at half-scale, 1:2.
| | 05:28 | As soon as I make my selection,
notice the way the preview changes.
| | 05:34 | Now, if you don't find the scale which
you like in the list, you can create a
| | 05:37 | custom scale right down here. Here's
how it works. Right now this is saying
| | 05:42 | that one printable inch is equal to
two model space units. So if I wanted to
| | 05:48 | print this at 1:1, I'll just highlight
this number and I'll select 1. Let me
| | 05:54 | click in the other field so that
AutoCAD recognizes the number and notice the
| | 05:57 | preview changes again.
| | 06:00 | Finally, we'll come down and click our
Preview button. Let's take a look at a
| | 06:03 | plot preview. Now, when my plot
preview comes up on screen, this guy works
| | 06:07 | exactly like model space. If I roll my
wheel forward and back, I can zoom in
| | 06:11 | and out. If I hold my wheel down, I can
pan. Now, this doesn't look too bad, I
| | 06:16 | can see the representation of the
piece of paper, I can see my drawing. The
| | 06:20 | only drawback is it seems to be wanting
to plot in color. Looks like AutoCAD is
| | 06:24 | using the layer color for the plot. Now,
most people don't want this. So let's
| | 06:29 | correct that.
| | 06:30 | I'm going to come up and click the X
to close the preview. This takes me back
| | 06:33 | to the dialog box and I'm going to
come right up here to the Plot style table
| | 06:38 | area. Now we'll be talking about Plot
style tables in the next session. For
| | 06:41 | right now, I'd like you click the
flyout and I'd like you to set this to
| | 06:44 | monochrome, and click Yes. monochrome
will guarantee that all of our layers
| | 06:51 | will plot black. Once again, I'm going
to click the Preview. Let me zoom in,
| | 06:57 | notice the change, and from here we'll
finish our plot. I'm going to come up
| | 07:01 | and click the X to close the preview,
and then when a dialog box comes back up,
| | 07:05 | I'll click OK.
| | 07:08 | Now since I'm plotting my drawing to
PDF, I have to give it a filename. Your
| | 07:12 | plot is probably already coming out of
your printer. On my screen, we can see
| | 07:16 | an example of the finished plot.
Now that this guy has come out of your
| | 07:19 | printer, grab a ruler or a scale and
take some measurements on this guy and
| | 07:23 | you'll see, in fact, that
he did plot at a 1:1 scale.
| | 07:27 | If your plot doesn't require the
formality of a title block, plotting a window
| | 07:31 | for model space is a great way to
produce hard copies of your design.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting a pen table| 00:00 | You maybe wondering why it's
necessary to select a plot style table, when
| | 00:03 | printing your AutoCAD drawings. We
certainly don't need a plot style table
| | 00:07 | when we print from Microsoft Word or
Adobe Photoshop. Remember, that AutoCAD is
| | 00:11 | a vector-based program, which means
the information we see on screen is
| | 00:15 | mathematically baselines and curves
and not pixels. Each color choice we have
| | 00:20 | available in AutoCAD represents a
virtual pen that can be configured to plot,
| | 00:24 | however we like.
| | 00:25 | Now, I have got a drawing open on my
screen, if you'd like to open the same
| | 00:29 | drawing. This guy is located inside the
Chapter_15 folder, inside our Exercise
| | 00:33 | Files directory and this slide is
called 02_90s-game-controller. Let's talk a
| | 00:40 | little bit about plot style tables. To
start out, I'm going to go to my Layer
| | 00:43 | Properties Manager. To bring up the
Properties Manager, I'm going to go to my
| | 00:47 | Layers panel, I'm going to come up and
click this icon. Now, that the palette
| | 00:49 | is up on screen, I'd like you to take a
look at the Color column, this is where
| | 00:54 | we select a color for each layer.
| | 00:56 | I'm going to come up and click the
color selector for layer 0. This brings up
| | 01:01 | AutoCAD's color picker on screen.
This is where I can move around and I can
| | 01:05 | choose from an available color swatch.
Now, as I move through these colors, I
| | 01:09 | want you to watch right down here. As
I pass over the colors notice it says,
| | 01:13 | Index Color and it gives me a number.
| | 01:16 | Now, that number is actually a pen
number. You see AutoCAD's color picker is
| | 01:21 | actually a pen picker. There are 255
pens available on AutoCAD and each one of
| | 01:27 | those pens can be configured to print,
however we like. This is the way to look
| | 01:31 | at it. Let me move over, and I'm going
to place my cursor over the red color
| | 01:35 | swatch. What that essentially means,
is that pen one will appear red in model
| | 01:39 | space. Pen number two will appear
yellow in model space. Pen number three will
| | 01:45 | appear green and so on.
| | 01:48 | So I'm not picking colors, I'm actually
selecting pens. Let me click Cancel to
| | 01:52 | close the dialog box. Take a look at
the colors that have been chosen so far.
| | 01:57 | Notice, I've got a layer that's set to
color 252, really that means pen number
| | 02:02 | 252. Remember this number. I'm going
to close my Layer Properties Manager.
| | 02:07 | Now, let's bring up the Plot dialog box
and I'm going to come up and click Plot
| | 02:12 | and I'm going to go over to the Plot
style table area, right now it's said to
| | 02:16 | the monochrome pens and I'm going to
come over and click the Edit button. This
| | 02:21 | brings up my Plot Style Table Editor.
| | 02:23 | Now, on the left side of the screen,
I see a series of colors. Actually, we
| | 02:28 | should say, pen number one, pen
number two, pen number three. If grab the
| | 02:32 | slider and I go up and down on the list,
I can see there are 255 pens available
| | 02:37 | on AutoCAD, let me push this back up.
| | 02:40 | Now, each pen can be selected, one it
is I can come over to the right side and
| | 02:45 | I can control, how that pen is going to
plot. Now, there are several settings,
| | 02:49 | the only one that we are going to
concern ourselves with for right now, is the
| | 02:52 | Color setting. Right now, I can see
that pen number one will plot as Black.
| | 02:57 | Since, this is the monochrome pen
table, every one of these pens plots as
| | 03:02 | Black. Let's make a change, I'm going
to grab this slider, I'm going to come
| | 03:07 | down to the bottom, let's find pen
number 252. I'm going to select this pen,
| | 03:14 | I'm going to come over to the
Properties area, I'm going to click the flyout
| | 03:18 | and I'm going to say, everything
that's using pen number 252 should plot Red.
| | 03:23 | When I'm finished, I'm going to save my pens.
| | 03:26 | Now, I'm not going to come down and
overwrite my monochrome pens, instead, I'm
| | 03:30 | going to click Save As, and I'm going
to save this as my own custom pen table.
| | 03:35 | We'll just call this custom pens and
I'll click Save. Now, that I'm done, I'll
| | 03:42 | close the Plot Style Table Editor.
Let's select our new pen table and click
| | 03:49 | Yes. All right, let's plot this drawing.
I'm going to go to my Printer area and
| | 03:54 | select the printer. I'm going to grab
Adobe PDF, you can grab any printer that
| | 03:59 | your machine is connected to, that
will accommodate an 8.5x11 sheet of paper.
| | 04:02 | I'm going to leave Paper size set to
Letter. In the Plot area, I click the
| | 04:08 | flyout and will select Window. I'll
click my first corner and I'll come down
| | 04:13 | and click my second corner to define my
window, the area that I'd like AutoCAD
| | 04:17 | to plot. Let's Center the plot on the
paper, and in the Plot scale area, I'm
| | 04:22 | going to remove my check from Fit to
paper and let's plot this with the Scale
| | 04:27 | of 1:1. Let's click Preview.
| | 04:31 | Let me zoom in, notice the difference.
Anything that was on a layer that was
| | 04:37 | assigned the color or pen 252 is now
appearing red in my plot. If I'd like to
| | 04:44 | complete my plot from this point,
there is a shortcut, I can right-click and
| | 04:48 | from the menu, I can select Plot.
| | 04:50 | Now, since I'm plotting to a PDF file,
I need to give this a file name. Your
| | 04:55 | plot is probably, already coming out of
your printer. On my screen, we can see
| | 04:59 | an example of my finished plot. One of
the benefits of having a pen table, is
| | 05:04 | that you can customize AutoCAD to your
own office standards. Most offices will
| | 05:08 | configure a pen table to be used
for all of their plotting needs.
| | 05:12 | For now, as a beginning student,
it's probably best to stick with the
| | 05:15 | monochrome pen table, such that all of
our line work will plot using the color black.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using layouts pt. 1: Choosing paper size| 00:00 | Most production drafting will require
us to create formal plots. These plots
| | 00:04 | will typically include a title block
that contains our company logo, client
| | 00:08 | information, scale information,
drawing title and other things. To create our
| | 00:12 | formal plots, we are going to use
what's known as a Layout. In this session, we
| | 00:16 | will setup our first layout
and choose our paper size.
| | 00:19 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:22 | drawing, this guy is located inside
the Chapter_15 folder inside the Exercise
| | 00:26 | Files directory, and this is the 03 80s
game controller drawing. Now, I'd like
| | 00:32 | to print this drawing using our
company title block. To do that, I'm going to
| | 00:36 | need to setup a layout. Let me show
you where we can go to find layouts.
| | 00:40 | I'm going to come down to my Quick
View Layouts tool right down here in the
| | 00:43 | Status Bar, and I'm going to click.
When I do, AutoCAD brings up some previews
| | 00:49 | on my screen. It also brings up a
Control panel. Now, since we are just
| | 00:53 | learning how to use this tool, what
I'd like you to do is, I'd like you to
| | 00:56 | click this Push Pin, and this will
force the previews to stay on the screen
| | 01:01 | until such time as we come over and click the X.
| | 01:03 | Now, let's take a look at the
previews. On the left, I can see one that's
| | 01:07 | called Model, and moving to the
right, I can see one called layout1 and
| | 01:11 | layout2. Each of these layouts
represents a sheet of paper that I can use to
| | 01:16 | print my drawing. To jump to a layout,
I'm going to click on the Preview. In
| | 01:22 | fact, I can jump to any location
just by clicking on the preview.
| | 01:25 | If I click this guy, I go back to model
place. Now, these previews are kind of
| | 01:30 | large, I like to have these a little
bit smaller on my screen. If you'd like to
| | 01:34 | resize your previews, you can hold down
your Ctrl key on your keyboard and roll
| | 01:39 | your mouse wheel back and you can
make these guys a little bit smaller.
| | 01:43 | Every AutoCAD drawing will contain at
least one layout. By default, when we
| | 01:48 | create a new drawing in AutoCAD, it
will have two layouts, layout1 and layout2.
| | 01:53 | So we can see that this drawing was
created from the default template. I'm
| | 01:56 | going to click layout1 to go back to my
sheet of paper. Now, if we look at the
| | 02:01 | screen, I can see the piece of
paper, I can also see my drawing.
| | 02:04 | Now, my drawing is inside this rectangle.
This rectangle is called a viewport,
| | 02:09 | and I really don't want to talk about
viewports right now. So let's erase this
| | 02:12 | guy. I'm going to move up and click my
Erase icon. Then I'm going to come down
| | 02:17 | and select my viewport and I'm going to
right-click. This leaves me with just a
| | 02:21 | piece of paper.
| | 02:22 | In addition of the paper, I can also
see this dashed line. This guy represents
| | 02:26 | my print of a margin. Anything that
falls outside that dashed line, will not print.
| | 02:31 | Now, the paper and the margin that we
see on our screen will change depending
| | 02:35 | on the printer and the paper size that
we choose for our plot. Let's select a
| | 02:39 | piece of paper for this layout. To
do that, I'm going to come down to my
| | 02:43 | preview and I'm going to right-click,
I'm going to select Page Setup Manager,
| | 02:48 | and then I'm going to click Modify.
| | 02:51 | Notice that the Page Setup dialog box
looks very similar to our Plot dialog
| | 02:55 | box. That's because it's essentially
the same thing. You see, what we are doing
| | 02:59 | is, we are setting up our plot ahead
of time. We pan this over a little bit.
| | 03:04 | You see, the layout that we see on
screen is a visible representation of our
| | 03:08 | plot settings.
| | 03:10 | Let me choose the Printer. I'm going
to come up and click the flyout, and I'm
| | 03:14 | going to select Adobe PDF. Then I'm
going to come down to my Paper size area,
| | 03:18 | and I'm going to select an 11x17 sheet of paper.
| | 03:22 | In the Plot area, I'm going to leave
this set to Layout that's what I want to
| | 03:25 | print. I want to print the layout. In
the Plot offset area, I can leave this
| | 03:29 | guy alone. If we come over to the Plot
scale area, I'm going to leave this guy
| | 03:34 | set to 1:1. You see the paper that we
will see on screen will measure 11 inches
| | 03:40 | x 17 inches. I will always want this
to print a true size. That's one of the
| | 03:43 | benefits of plotting using a layout.
| | 03:46 | When I'm finished, I'm going to come
down and click OK, and then I will click
| | 03:49 | Close. And the paper that we see on
screen is now an 11 inch x 17 inch sheet
| | 03:54 | of paper, and the dashed line is
consistent with the printable margin for the
| | 03:58 | Adobe PDF printer.
| | 04:01 | Now, that our layout is finished, I
want to address something. Take a look at
| | 04:04 | the Preview. The preview still shows
the geometry, it's actually showing us the
| | 04:08 | condition prior to when we raised the viewport.
| | 04:11 | You see, sometimes AutoCAD is a
little slow keeping up with the thumbnail
| | 04:15 | images down here. If I want to see a
current preview, I will just select one of
| | 04:19 | the other previews, and then come back.
| | 04:22 | Layouts are essentially a visible
display of saved plot settings. The piece of
| | 04:26 | paper we see on screen is a real life
representation of our paper as it will
| | 04:30 | come out of the printer.
| | 04:31 | In our next session, we will add
a title block to our new layout.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using layouts pt. 2: Inserting a title block| 00:00 | Now that we have set up our layout
and established our paper size, our next
| | 00:03 | goal is to add our title block. Now, I
have got a drawing up on the screen.
| | 00:07 | If you'd like to open the same drawing,
it's located inside the Chapter_15 folder
| | 00:12 | of our Exercise Files directory and
this is the 04_80s game controller drawing.
| | 00:18 | Now, this drawing is right where we
left off in the previous session. When we
| | 00:21 | had left off, we had created a layout
and then assigned it a sheet of paper.
| | 00:25 | Let's go back to our layout. I'm
going to come down and click my Quick View
| | 00:28 | Layout tool and I will select my Layout.
Now, if you have just opened the 04
| | 00:35 | drawing, you may have just gotten a
printer warning. That's because this
| | 00:38 | drawing references a printer name that
may not exist on your printer. There is
| | 00:42 | no problem, we just have to make a
change. We will right-click on the Layout.
| | 00:47 | Let me select Page Setup
Manager and we will click Modify.
| | 00:50 | From here, what I want to do is I want
to click this flyout and I want to just
| | 00:53 | select a printer that you are
connected to that will support an 11x17 inches
| | 00:58 | sheet of paper. If you do not have a
printer that supports that sheet size,
| | 01:02 | select DWF6ePlot. This is a virtual
printer that gets installed with your AutoCAD.
| | 01:08 | Now, this guy will support the 11x17
inch paper and you will be able to use him
| | 01:12 | to continue along with the example.
Generally speaking, a layout acts just like
| | 01:17 | model space. So if I wanted to, I can
draft to my title block right on this
| | 01:21 | Layout tab. We pan this guy up a
little bit, we will back up. This is a
| | 01:26 | drafting area just like model space. I
can come up and click my Rectangle tool
| | 01:31 | and I can click right here and I can
start drafting a title block right on this Layout.
| | 01:35 | Now that will be time-consuming, I
don't want to do that right now. I will tell
| | 01:38 | you what, I want to click Undo,
because I have created a title block in a
| | 01:42 | separate drawing. I'm going to grab
that title block geometry and we will bring
| | 01:46 | it into this file. I'm going to open
that drawing by coming up and clicking my
| | 01:50 | Open icon. We are going to look
inside the Exercise Files Directory, we are
| | 01:54 | going to go inside the Chapter_15
folder and I'd like you to grab the number 04
| | 01:59 | titleblock drawing.
| | 02:00 | We highlight that guy and I will click
Open. I now have two drawings open in my
| | 02:05 | AutoCAD interface. Since the pin is
pushed in, on my control panel, my previews
| | 02:10 | are still on screen. Now, this drawing
was created to model space. Notice that
| | 02:15 | the drawing also contains two layouts.
Remember that every new AutoCAD drawing
| | 02:20 | will contains some generic layouts. We
don't have to use them if we don't want
| | 02:24 | to. Let's split our screen so that we
can get a nice side-by-side comparison of
| | 02:28 | our two drawings.
| | 02:28 | I can do that by going to the View tab
and clicking. I'm going to come over to
| | 02:33 | the Window panel, and I'm going to
select Tile Vertically. Now I can see both
| | 02:38 | drawings open in the same interface.
I'm going to move to the current drawing,
| | 02:42 | I know it's current because the title
name is dark. Let me roll back my mouse,
| | 02:47 | we will zoom out a little bit, and
we will center this guy on screen.
| | 02:50 | Now, we will move in to the other
drawing and click. Once again I'm going to
| | 02:53 | zoom out, and we will center this guy
on screen. What I'd like to do is, I'd
| | 02:56 | like to drag this geometry into this
file. I can do that by clicking in this
| | 03:01 | drawing to make it current. I'm going
to click again and I'm going to create a
| | 03:04 | window. Let me click to finish my
window. This selects all of the geometry.
| | 03:09 | Now, I'm going to place my cursor on
a highlighted line. Do not place your
| | 03:14 | cursor on the grip. I will click and
hold and I will drag this into my Layout.
| | 03:19 | Now, I will center this guy as best I
can, let's go right there. Let me release
| | 03:25 | my mouse and this geometry is now in my
drawing. At this point, I can close my
| | 03:30 | titleblock file and I'm
going to maximize my Layout.
| | 03:35 | Let me zoom in just a little bit. Now,
I align this title block visually. I
| | 03:41 | mean it looks pretty good, it's fairly
well-centered on my screen. The only way
| | 03:46 | to know for sure is to actually plot
the layout. So if this guy is incorrect,
| | 03:49 | when I create my first plot, I can
always come back and use the Move command
| | 03:53 | and make adjustments.
| | 03:55 | Now that my title block is in my
drawing, I can zoom in on my text, I can
| | 03:59 | double-click to edit it and I can
change it to suit my needs. When I'm
| | 04:03 | finished, I can come up and click the
X to close the Text Editor. In addition
| | 04:07 | to title blocks, layouts are a great
place to put notes, legends, north arrows
| | 04:11 | and scale bars.
| | 04:13 | In our next session, we will
complete our layout by adding a viewport and
| | 04:16 | setting our geometry to a measurable scale.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using layouts pt. 3: Cutting viewports| 00:00 | Now, that we have added a title block
to our layout, we are ready to create a
| | 00:03 | viewport such that we can see our
part and set it to a measurable scale.
| | 00:06 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:11 | drawing and work along with me, this
guy is located inside the Chapter_15
| | 00:14 | folder inside the Exercise Files
directory, and this is the 05 80s game
| | 00:20 | controller drawing.
| | 00:21 | Now, we are picking up, right where we
left off in the previous session. Let's
| | 00:25 | take a look at our layout. I'm going to
do that by coming down and clicking on
| | 00:28 | my Quick View Layout tool. I want to
make sure that my push pin is in, this way
| | 00:33 | my preview stamp on screen, and I'm
going to click my Layout Preview. Now, you
| | 00:38 | may be wondering where is my layout
in relation to my model space geometry.
| | 00:42 | Let's take a look. I'm going to jump
to model space, by clicking the model
| | 00:45 | space Preview, this takes me to model
space. This is the place where we do all
| | 00:49 | of our drafting, we add our
annotation and our dimensions.
| | 00:53 | Now, the layout is where we keep our
sheet of paper and our title block and
| | 00:57 | this is where we setup our drawing to
plot. Now, our layout sits on top of
| | 01:02 | model space. So if I want to see my
model space geometry, I need to cut a hole
| | 01:06 | in this paper.
| | 01:07 | Now, AutoCAD uses a special name for
that hole, AutoCAD calls it a viewport.
| | 01:11 | Now, if I'm going to create a viewport,
it's important that I put it on its own
| | 01:15 | layer. Let's create a layer for our viewport.
| | 01:18 | I'm going to come up to the Layers panel,
and click the Layer Property Manager.
| | 01:22 | Let me click the New Layer icon and we
will create a new layer called viewport.
| | 01:28 | And I'm going to set his color to green.
| | 01:31 | Now, rather than turning the Layer
Property Manager on and off, what I'm going
| | 01:34 | to do is I'm going to anchor this guy
to the left side of my screen. Let me
| | 01:38 | move over to the mast, I'm going to
right-click and I'm going to select Anchor Left.
| | 01:41 | Now, my Layer Property manager is
available whenever I need it. All I have to
| | 01:45 | do is hover over the icon. Now, that I
have created my layer, let's set that
| | 01:49 | layer Current. I can do that right up
here in the Layer Control. Let me click
| | 01:52 | the flyout and we will select our new
layer and now we are ready to create our
| | 01:57 | viewport. We are ready to
cut a hole in our paper.
| | 02:01 | To cut a viewport into my paper, I'm
going to come up and click the View tab on
| | 02:04 | my ribbon. We will go to the viewports
panel and the icon is right here. Now,
| | 02:09 | creating a viewport using this icon is
a little bit unusual. You see, launching
| | 02:13 | the command is actually a three click process.
| | 02:16 | Let's try it out, I'm going to come up
and click once, then I'm going to come
| | 02:19 | down and click twice on single, and
then I'm going to come down and click OK. I
| | 02:24 | have just launched the command.
| | 02:25 | Now, AutoCAD is asking me to specify
first corner. We will take a move up in
| | 02:29 | the upper left-hand corner, now I do
have a running object snap. I don't want
| | 02:33 | to snap to the edge of my title block.
So I'm going to click right about here,
| | 02:37 | and then this is just like the
rectangle command. I'm going to pull down on to
| | 02:41 | the right, and I'm going to finish my
viewport right here. I have just cut a
| | 02:46 | hole in my paper, and now I
can see my model space geometry.
| | 02:50 | Now, viewports are just like a window
in the model space. Watch this, I'm going
| | 02:54 | to place my cursor inside the window
and I'm going to double-click. What I do,
| | 03:00 | I'm going to click and hold the wheel
down on my mouse to pan, and notice I can
| | 03:03 | pan this geometry within this
viewport. If I roll my wheel forward and
| | 03:07 | backward, I can also change the zoom
factor of this viewport. So it truly acts
| | 03:12 | just like a hole in my paper.
| | 03:14 | Now, what we want to do is, we want to
set the zoom factor of our viewport such
| | 03:18 | that our geometry will plot to a
measurable scale. Let's try that. What I'm
| | 03:22 | going to do is, I'm going to move
my cursor outside of the viewport and
| | 03:25 | double-click. This puts me right
back on my paper. I will then select my
| | 03:31 | viewport edge, and then I'm going to
come down to my viewport Scale flyout and
| | 03:36 | click, and from here, I can
choose from several standard scales.
| | 03:40 | Now, if I was an architect or if this
drawing was setup to architectural units,
| | 03:44 | I'd be selecting a scale down here.
Since this drawing is a decimal drawing,
| | 03:48 | I'm going to be using the scales up
here. Let's see if this drawing will fit
| | 03:52 | within my viewport at a scale of 1-2.
Let me click. Notice AutoCAD adjusts our
| | 03:58 | zoom factor accordingly. I can
see that it will obviously fit.
| | 04:02 | Let's try another scale. Once again,
I'm going to come down and click the
| | 04:05 | flyout, and let's try 1:1. That's
perfect, I can actually get away with that,
| | 04:11 | it looks like we can fit our
geometry on this paper at 1:1.
| | 04:14 | Now, if I'd like to reposition my
geometry inside this viewport, I can do that
| | 04:18 | by double-clicking inside the window.
I will click and hold the wheel on my
| | 04:22 | mouse, and I will pan. Be careful
when you are inside the viewport that you
| | 04:27 | don't roll your mouse wheel. If I
accidentally zoom, I just change the scale of
| | 04:32 | this viewport. Don't think that you can
roll back and fix it. That never works.
| | 04:36 | Let's fix the scale. I'm going to
move my cursor outside the viewport and
| | 04:39 | double-click, we will click the
viewport edge, and I'm going to come down and
| | 04:43 | set my scale again. We will set it
right back to 1:1. Now, I'd like to center
| | 04:49 | them a little bit better in the title block.
| | 04:51 | Sometimes, it's hard to tell if you are
inside the viewport or out. One way to
| | 04:55 | tell is, by watching this icon.
This icon represents that I'm currently
| | 04:59 | drafting or working on my paper. If I
double-click inside the viewport, notice
| | 05:04 | the icon is now here. Let me click,
hold and I will pan this guy over. I will
| | 05:10 | release my mouse wheel, and then I'm
going to double-click back outside to get
| | 05:14 | out of the viewport. One thing we can
do to protect ourselves from accidentally
| | 05:19 | changing our viewport
scale is to lock the viewport.
| | 05:23 | Let's do that, I'm going to click my
viewport edge, and I'm going to come right
| | 05:27 | down here and I'm going to click
this padlock. Notice, when I lock the
| | 05:30 | viewport, the flyout goes away, I
can no longer change the scale of this
| | 05:33 | viewport. Likewise, if I double-click
in the viewport and try and zoom or pan,
| | 05:38 | I'm panning the sheet.
| | 05:40 | So now I'm protected against making
accidental changes. I'm going to move out
| | 05:44 | onto my layout and I'm going to double-
click. Now, why did we put our viewport
| | 05:48 | on a separate layer? Well, when I plot
this drawing, I don't want to see this
| | 05:53 | rectangle. Since I put the viewport
on its own layer, I can turn off that
| | 05:57 | layer, and that rectangle will not plot.
| | 06:00 | Let's try that, I'm going to come over
to my Layer Control, let me just hover
| | 06:03 | over the icon, now I can't directly
turn off the viewport Layer, it happens to
| | 06:07 | be current. Let me select another
layer and make that current. I'm going to
| | 06:10 | select layer0, and we will click the
Check. Now, I will come down and turn off
| | 06:15 | the viewport layer. Let me move
outside the palette, and let it collapse.
| | 06:19 | Now, when I plot my drawing, the
viewport will be invisible. Just remember, if
| | 06:23 | you want to make changes to your
viewport, you will have to turn it back on.
| | 06:26 | One more thing I'd like to address,
take a look at our preview, our preview
| | 06:30 | still hasn't updated to show us our
geometry. Don't worry about that. If I just
| | 06:34 | click model space and come back,
I will get a current preview.
| | 06:39 | Let's give this layout a name. I can
see right now, it's got kind of a generic
| | 06:42 | name, layout1. If I'd like to change
the name, I will double-click right down
| | 06:46 | here, and I will type in a new name.
I'm going to call this 11x17, and hit
| | 06:52 | Enter. We are almost ready to plot this
guy, I'd like to address the fact that
| | 06:57 | everything is still in color. We need
to set a pane table for this layout.
| | 07:02 | To do that, I'm going to come down and
I'm going to right click on the Layout
| | 07:05 | Preview, I'm going to select Page Setup
Manager, and we will click Modify. Now,
| | 07:10 | this layout has already setup to Plot,
I'm going to look right up here in the
| | 07:14 | Plot Style Table area. Let me click
the flyout and I'm going to select
| | 07:18 | Monochrome.
| | 07:20 | Notice, I also have a Check that says
Display Plot Styles. If I put a Check in
| | 07:25 | this box, AutoCAD will show me my plot
styles on my layout. Let's come down and
| | 07:29 | click OK and we will click Close.
| | 07:32 | Let me zoom in. Notice that all of my
layers now appear black. I'm seeing my
| | 07:39 | pan styles. I can take this one step
further. If I come down to my Status Bar
| | 07:44 | and I click this icon, this guy
represents my Show/Hide Lineweight. If I click
| | 07:49 | this button, AutoCAD will also show
me the line thicknesses on my layout.
| | 07:54 | Now, I'm truly working in a Plot
Preview. I'm going to double-click my wheel
| | 07:59 | and we will do a zoom extent, so we
can see the whole layout. Once our layout
| | 08:03 | has been setup, they are very easy to
plot. If I want to plot my layout, I can
| | 08:08 | simply come down to my Preview, click
the Plot icon and select OK. I don't have
| | 08:13 | to worry about any of the settings,
because they have already been taken care of.
| | 08:17 | Now, since I'm plotting this to a PDF,
AutoCAD is asking me for a file name.
| | 08:21 | I'm going to click Save to finish my
plot. On my screen, we can see an example
| | 08:28 | of my finished plot. Layouts are the
most powerful way of creating plots in
| | 08:31 | AutoCAD. Their benefits even go beyond
the viewports, Plot Preview and naming
| | 08:36 | features that we have seen here.
| | 08:38 | If we can incorporate layouts into our
workflow, we have taken the first step
| | 08:42 | towards using even more powerful
features like sheet sets, page setups and publishing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing layouts| 00:00 | The best part about layouts is that
you can reuse them. This means you only
| | 00:03 | have to setup your 11x17 inch layout
one time, and then you can use it for any
| | 00:08 | other drawing you wish to print to
11x17 paper. Let's plot this drawing using
| | 00:12 | an existing layout.
| | 00:13 | Now, I have got a drawing on my screen.
If you'd like to open the same drawing,
| | 00:17 | this guy is located inside the Chapter
_15 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:21 | directory and this is the 06 Stereo
Viewer drawing. Now, I'd like to print this
| | 00:26 | drawing to an 11x17 sheet of paper, and
I'd like to use my company title block.
| | 00:31 | Now, I could go through the effort of
setting up my own layout that would take
| | 00:34 | a little bit of time. But you know
what, I don't have to. I already have an
| | 00:37 | 11x17 layout that I used in another
drawing. What I'd like to do is, I'd like
| | 00:42 | to take an 11x17 inch layout from an
existing drawing and I'd like to bring it
| | 00:46 | into this one. To do that, I'm going
to use AutoCAD's Design Center. Now, the
| | 00:50 | Design Center allows us to steal
content from an existing AutoCAD drawing.
| | 00:55 | To bring the Design Center up on screen,
I'm going to use a Ctrl key sequence.
| | 00:59 | I'm going to hold my Ctrl key and hit
the number 2 on my keyboard. When this
| | 01:04 | comes up, it's essentially split into
two panes. The left pane acts just like
| | 01:08 | Windows Explorer, and the right pane
is where we can see our content. So I'm
| | 01:12 | going to move into the left pane
and let's navigate to the drawing that
| | 01:15 | contains my 11x17 layout.
| | 01:18 | Now, that's in my Exercise Files
directory. So I'm going to click my Plus,
| | 01:22 | we'll open up this folder. Then, I'm
going to come down into the Chapter_15
| | 01:25 | folder, we will click the Plus to open
up this guy, and I'm going to go to this
| | 01:29 | drawing, 06_80s game controller
finished. This is where the Design Center
| | 01:33 | surpasses the Windows
Explorer. Notice this plus.
| | 01:37 | The Design Center is allowing me to
navigate into this drawing. Let me click
| | 01:41 | the Plus to open it up, and AutoCAD
gives me a list of all of the items that I
| | 01:45 | can take from this file. One of them
happens to be Layouts. Let me click. Right
| | 01:50 | up here, I can see a layout that I
have called 11x17 . To bring this into my
| | 01:54 | current drawing, I'm going to click,
hold, and I'm going to drag it in and release.
| | 02:00 | Now, that I'm finished with the Design
Center, I'm going to come up and click
| | 02:02 | the X to close the palette. Now, I
dragged in that layout, let's take a look at
| | 02:07 | it. I'm going to come down and click
my Quick View Layout tool. AutoCAD shows
| | 02:11 | me some previews. Here is the 11x17
inch layout that I dragged in. Let me click
| | 02:16 | the Preview to take a look at the layout.
| | 02:19 | Now, notice that my layout still
shows geometry from the other drawing.
| | 02:23 | Remember, AutoCAD is not the best at
keeping up with the thumbnail images. If I
| | 02:27 | want to correct this thumbnail, I'm
just going to click once to go to model
| | 02:30 | space and then I will click once to come back.
| | 02:32 | Now, the nice thing about this layout
is it's already setup to plot. All I have
| | 02:36 | to do is take care of my viewport. In
fact, I remember in the previous drawing,
| | 02:41 | I have created a viewport already,
let's turn on the Layer. Let me go up to the
| | 02:44 | Layer Control, click the flyout, and we
will come down and we will turn on our
| | 02:48 | viewport Layer. Let me click on my
Layout to clear the menu. Here is my
| | 02:53 | viewport, but you know what, where
is my part, remember the viewport is a
| | 02:57 | window in the model space. I
should be able to see my part.
| | 03:01 | Well, think of it this way. This layout
comes from another drawing. There is no
| | 03:05 | guarantee that the geometry in that
drawing was created in the same coordinate
| | 03:09 | space as my current drawing. So to see
my geometry, what I'm going to do is I'm
| | 03:13 | going to click the viewport edge,
because I happen to remember this was a
| | 03:16 | locked viewport. I'm going to come down
and click the padlock, now the viewport
| | 03:21 | is unlocked.
| | 03:22 | Let me Double-click inside the
viewport. I can see by the icon that I'm now
| | 03:26 | inside the viewport, and I'm going to
double-click the wheel on my mouse. Let's
| | 03:29 | do a zoom extents. There is my
geometry. All right, all we have to do is
| | 03:35 | set this viewport to a measurable scale.
To do that, I'm going to click outside
| | 03:39 | the viewport, we will grab the viewport
edge. Let me click the flyout and let's
| | 03:44 | try half-scale. Let's see if this
drawing will fit in half scale. Well, it will
| | 03:48 | obviously fit at half. Let me
click the flyout again. Let's try 1:1.
| | 03:55 | That's not too bad. It looks like it
will fit on the sheet, but my viewport is
| | 03:58 | a little small. That's all right,
take a look at these grips. I can edit my
| | 04:03 | viewport using these grips. Let me
click this grip and I'm going to place it to
| | 04:07 | the endpoint right here.
| | 04:10 | Remember, that your viewport is a
window to model space. If I click a grip, I
| | 04:15 | can open and close this viewport as
much as I like. Let me click this grip. I
| | 04:20 | have got a running object snap set for
endpoint, so I'm going to drop it right
| | 04:24 | here. Now, my viewport is as large as
it can be in this title block, and I can
| | 04:29 | see that my geometry fits at 1:1. When
I'm finished, I'm going to hit Escape to
| | 04:33 | clear my grips, and I can plot this drawing.
| | 04:36 | To plot the drawing, I will just
come down and click the icon, and I will
| | 04:39 | select OK. And on my screen, we can
see an example of the finished plot.
| | 04:48 | Imagine, if you created a master
drawing on your network that contained all of
| | 04:52 | your typical title blocks saved as
layouts. Anytime you needed to add a title
| | 04:56 | block to a drawing, you could simply
drag and drop a layout from your master file.
| | 05:00 | Layouts give you the power of
automating your title block insertions and reduce
| | 05:04 | the effort of plotting to a
couple of clicks of your mouse.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Calculating scale factors| 00:00 | Chances are the majority of the
drawings you will be printing in a production
| | 00:03 | environment will not be plotted at 1:1
scale. Most often, the geometry you plot
| | 00:08 | will be represented much smaller than
it is in real life. Because of this, we
| | 00:12 | need to have an understanding of our
scale factor such that we can properly
| | 00:15 | size our dimensions, our
text and our line types.
| | 00:18 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:21 | drawing, this guy is located inside
the Chapter_15 folder inside the Exercise
| | 00:25 | Files directory, and this is the 07
Calculating Scale Factor drawing. Now, as
| | 00:31 | we can see, I have got an
architectural example on my screen. This is a floor
| | 00:34 | plan for a single family home. I'd like
to zoom in on the master bathroom area.
| | 00:39 | Let me place my cursor here, and I'm
going to roll my wheel forward to zoom in.
| | 00:42 | Let me hold my wheel down to pan this
and center it on screen. Now, I have
| | 00:47 | placed a call out in this drawing for
a specific fixture I'd like to use in
| | 00:51 | this bathroom. Now, the call out
reads great on screen. I have also setup a
| | 00:56 | layout in this drawing such that I can
print this file. Let's take a look at
| | 00:59 | the layout. I'm going to come down
and click my Quick View Layout tool.
| | 01:02 | Let me make sure that my push pin is
pressed in, and let me select the layout.
| | 01:07 | I have created an 8.5 inch x 11 inch
layout, and I have created a viewport and
| | 01:12 | I have set the scale such that it's
1/16th of an inch equals a foot. Let's zoom
| | 01:16 | in on the same master bath area.
Notice my problem, I can't read my text. You
| | 01:23 | see, when I was creating my text, I
wasn't considering the scale at which my
| | 01:27 | drawing will be plotted. Whenever
placing text in a drawing, we need to
| | 01:30 | consider our scale factor.
| | 01:33 | Let's take a second, and talk about how
we can calculate our scale factor. The
| | 01:37 | scale factor is the relationship
between our printed units and our model space
| | 01:41 | units. For instance, if I gave you a
scale of 1:1, this means that one printed
| | 01:47 | unit is the equivalent of one model
space unit. So my scale factor would be 1.
| | 01:52 | Let's try another, if I gave you a
scale of 1:10, this means that 1 printed
| | 01:56 | unit is equivalent to 10 model space
units. So my scale factor would be 10.
| | 02:01 | Let's look at a metric example.
| | 02:03 | Now, in a metric drawing, frequently
the printed units are millimeters. That's
| | 02:07 | how the paper is measured. And let's
say in our case, the model space units are
| | 02:11 | also millimeters. So with a scale of 1:
50, my scale factor would be 50. Let's
| | 02:16 | try civil engineering example. Now, in
a civil engineering drawing, our printed
| | 02:20 | units are typically inches. A paper is
generally measured in inches, and in the
| | 02:25 | world of civil engineering, our model
space units are set to feet. So if I gave
| | 02:29 | you a scale of 1:50. That essentially
means 1 inch equals 50 feet. So my scale
| | 02:34 | factor would be 50.
| | 02:35 | Now, you are probably thinking, did we
need slides for this, this seems pretty
| | 02:39 | simple. I show you these examples
to prepare you for this one. The
| | 02:43 | architectural example. You see
architects don't use the same type of scales as
| | 02:47 | the rest of us. They use fractional scales.
| | 02:50 | On our screen, we can see an example
of a typical architectural scale, one
| | 02:55 | quarter of an inch equals a foot. Now,
in an architectural drawing, the printed
| | 02:59 | units are inches, and the model space
units are inches. So what this scale
| | 03:03 | essentially says, is that one quarter
of a printed unit is equivalent to 12
| | 03:07 | model space units. Try
not to think of it that way.
| | 03:10 | Instead, let me show you how we can
calculate our scale factor using an
| | 03:14 | architectural scale. It's really
simple. What we are going to do is, we are
| | 03:17 | going to flip the fraction and then
multiply it by 12. So one over four becomes
| | 03:22 | four over one, which is four, four
times 12 is 48. So our scale factor is 48.
| | 03:28 | Let's try another one. What about
1/8th of an inch equals a foot. Once again,
| | 03:32 | I'm going to flip my fraction that
becomes eight over one, which is eight,
| | 03:36 | eight times 12 is 96. So my scale
factor is 96. Your scale factor is simply the
| | 03:42 | relationship between your printed
units and your model space units.
| | 03:46 | Knowing how to calculate your scale
factor is your first step towards creating
| | 03:50 | predictably sized text,
dimensions and line types.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sizing model space text| 00:00 | Let me start by saying we should never
place text in a drawing until we know
| | 00:04 | our intended plot scale. If we don't
know the scale at which our drawing will
| | 00:07 | be plotted, we have no way of
knowing if the text we create will even be
| | 00:11 | readable when our drawing is printed on
paper. In this session, we are going to
| | 00:14 | learn how we can predictably size
the text we place in model space.
| | 00:18 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on the
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:21 | drawing, this guy is located inside
the Chapter_15 folder inside our Exercise
| | 00:25 | Files directory, and this is the 08
Properly Sizing Model space Text drawing.
| | 00:31 | Now, what we have on screen is an
architectural example. This is a drawing of a
| | 00:35 | basketball court. This court was
created using architectural units. By zooming
| | 00:40 | up the center of the court, I can
see that I also have a basketball.
| | 00:43 | Now, I have created an 8.5 inch x 11
inch layout for this drawing, and I have
| | 00:47 | already inserted the title block. Let's
take a look. I'm going to come down and
| | 00:51 | click my Quick View Layouts tool,
AutoCAD will bring up my previews. I'm going
| | 00:55 | to make sure that my push pin is
currently pressed in. This way my previews
| | 01:00 | will stay on screen. To view our
layout, I'm going to click the Preview.
| | 01:05 | Now, at this point, I'd like to cut a
viewport, so that I can see my geometry.
| | 01:09 | I'm practicing good form, we can see
that I have already created a layer for my
| | 01:12 | viewport. Now, unfortunately it's
truncated. If I click the flyout, you can see
| | 01:16 | it right here.
| | 01:18 | To cut my viewport, I'm going to go to
the View tab of my ribbon and click, and
| | 01:23 | I'm going to go to the viewports panel.
Now, launching the viewport tool, is a
| | 01:26 | three click process, let's try it. One
click, I'm going to come down and click
| | 01:31 | Single, and then I'm going to click OK.
At this point, I will move up, and I
| | 01:36 | will click my first corner.
| | 01:37 | Now, I have got a running object snap
set, so I want to make sure that I don't
| | 01:41 | grab my title block. I'm going to click
right here, and I will come down and I
| | 01:45 | will click my opposite corner right
about here. Once again, I'm trying to avoid
| | 01:49 | the title block.
| | 01:51 | Now, that I have cut my viewport, I
can see my geometry and model space.
| | 01:55 | Generally speaking, whenever we cut a
viewport in our layout, the view we see
| | 01:59 | within the viewport, is
essentially a zoom extents.
| | 02:02 | So AutoCAD is showing us our geometry
as large as possible within the viewport.
| | 02:06 | Let's set this viewport to a
measurable scale. To do that, I'm going to click
| | 02:10 | the viewport edge, and I'm going to
come down and click the viewport flyout,
| | 02:14 | and I can select my scale. Now, since
this is an architectural example, I will
| | 02:18 | be using an architectural scale. I'd
like to set the scale of this viewport
| | 02:22 | such that 1/16th of an inch equals a foot.
| | 02:25 | Let me click this in the list, and my
viewport is scaled. Now that I have set
| | 02:30 | my scale, I'm going to protect myself,
I'm going to come down and click the
| | 02:32 | padlock to lock my viewport. And at
this point, I'd like to go to model space.
| | 02:37 | So let me move to the model preview,
and I will click. Let's back up a little
| | 02:42 | bit, and we will center this on screen.
| | 02:45 | Now, a typical architectural note
measures an eighth of an inch tall when
| | 02:49 | printed on paper. So I need to know how
large to create my text in model space,
| | 02:54 | such that it will measure an eighth of
an inch tall on my paper. All I have to
| | 02:58 | do is multiply one eighth of an inch
times the scale factor of my viewport.
| | 03:03 | Since my viewport is set to 1/16th of
an inch equals a foot, my scale factor is
| | 03:08 | 192.
| | 03:10 | Now, if you don't know how I came up
with 192, please watch the video where I
| | 03:13 | show you how to calculate your scale
factor. Let's create a text note. I'm
| | 03:18 | going to go to my Home tab and click,
and since we are going to be creating
| | 03:22 | text, let's set our Text Layer current.
I'm going to come up and click the
| | 03:26 | flyout, and we will select the Text
Layer. To create my text, I'm going to come
| | 03:31 | up and launch my Single Line Text tool.
AutoCAD is asking me to specify the
| | 03:36 | start point of my text. I'm
going to click right here.
| | 03:40 | Now, my height, what height should I
use. You know what, I'm going to let
| | 03:43 | AutoCAD figure it out. I'm going to
use the quick calculator. So AutoCAD is
| | 03:47 | asking me to specify a height, I'm
going to use the Ctrl key sequence to bring
| | 03:51 | up my calculator, Ctrl+8. I need to
take 1/8th inch, and I just got the quotes
| | 04:00 | from my keyboard, and I'm going to
multiply that by 192, and I will click the
| | 04:07 | equal (=) button. 2 feet, I need to
create text with the height of 2 feet. I'm
| | 04:11 | going to come down and click Apply.
AutoCAD places that value at the command
| | 04:15 | line. Let me hit Enter to accept value,
and then I'm going to hit Enter to
| | 04:19 | accept the 0 rotation. I'm going to
type COURT, and then I'm going to hit Enter
| | 04:25 | and then Enter again.
Let's go back to our layout.
| | 04:31 | Notice, my text is very easily
legible. If we were to plot this sheet and
| | 04:35 | measure this text, it would measure
1/8th of an inch tall. I'm going to create
| | 04:39 | one more viewport. Let's set the layer
Current. I'm going to go up to my Layer
| | 04:42 | Control and click. We will come
down and select the viewport Layer.
| | 04:46 | Now, I'd like to create another viewport,
but you know what, the viewport tool
| | 04:49 | is on another tab. If you don't like
jumping from tab to tab, let me show you a
| | 04:53 | shortcut. Since I just launched the
viewport tool recently, if I place my
| | 04:57 | cursor down on the command line and I
right-click, I can come up at the top of
| | 05:01 | the list, and select Recent Commands.
AutoCAD will show me the last several
| | 05:05 | things that I have done.
| | 05:07 | Notice, I can come down and select
viewports. Now, launching the command is
| | 05:11 | still going to be a three click process.
Click once, we'll come down and click
| | 05:15 | single, and then we will click OK.
AutoCAD is asking me to specify first
| | 05:20 | corner. Well, I will start it right
here at the end point of the other one.
| | 05:23 | I'll click, and then I'm going to come
down, trying to avoid my title block, I
| | 05:29 | will click right here.
| | 05:30 | Let's set this viewport to a
different scale. I'd like to focus on the
| | 05:34 | basketball on this viewport. Let me
click the viewport edge. We will come down
| | 05:38 | and set our scale. This is going to be
an architectural scale. I'm going to set
| | 05:42 | the viewport to three quarters of an
inch equals a foot. Once again, we will
| | 05:47 | return to model space.
| | 05:48 | Let's zoom in on the basketball. I'm
going to create another note. Let's set
| | 05:56 | the text layer Current, let me click
the flyout, and we will select text. Now,
| | 06:00 | I'm going to come up and click my
Single Line Text tool, and I will click the
| | 06:04 | start point for my text.
| | 06:06 | Now, what's my height going to be. Well,
I know I want my text to be an eighth
| | 06:10 | of an inch tall. I just need to take
an eighth of an inch times the scale
| | 06:14 | factor of my viewport. Now, since my
viewport is three quarters of an inch
| | 06:17 | equals a foot, my scale factor is 16.
| | 06:19 | So let's bring up the calculator,
AutoCAD is asking me a height. So I'm going
| | 06:23 | to hit Ctrl+8 on my keyboard. And I'm
going to type 1/8th inch times 16, I will
| | 06:35 | hit equals (=) 2 inches. That's perfect.
| | 06:38 | Let me come down and click Apply.
AutoCAD puts that value at the command line.
| | 06:41 | I will hit Enter to accept the value,
and then enter to accept the rotation.
| | 06:45 | When I'm finished entering my text, I
will hit Enter twice, Enter, Enter. Let's
| | 06:52 | go back to the layout again.
| | 06:55 | Once again, my text is very easy to
read. If I was to plot this, it would
| | 06:59 | measure an eighth of an inch tall. In
this example, I have got my geometry
| | 07:02 | being displayed in two different
viewports at two different scales, and I was
| | 07:06 | still able to predictably size my text.
| | 07:09 | The last thing I'd do before sending
this plot would be to turn off my viewport
| | 07:13 | Layer. I'm going to come over to the
Layer Property Manager. We will come down
| | 07:17 | and click the light bulb to turn off
our viewport, and then we will move
| | 07:20 | outside and let the palette collapse.
| | 07:22 | Once we know our intended plot scale,
we can use our scale factor to accurately
| | 07:26 | calculate the height of our model space
text such that it will be consistently
| | 07:30 | and predictably sized
across all of our viewports.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sizing model space dimensions| 00:00 | Our rule for dimensions is the same as
our rule for text. We should never place
| | 00:04 | dimensions in a drawing until we know
our intended plot scale. Let's look at
| | 00:08 | how we can create predictably
sized dimensions in our drawing.
| | 00:10 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on the
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:14 | drawing, this guy is located inside
the Chapter_15 folder inside our Exercise
| | 00:18 | Files directory, and this is the 09
Properly Sizing Model space Dimensions drawing.
| | 00:23 | Now, I have got a civil engineering
example on my screen. This is a site plan
| | 00:28 | for a proposed parking lot. Since this
is a civil example, my model space units
| | 00:33 | are set to feet. Every one unit equals one foot.
| | 00:36 | Now, our goal in this session is to
place some dimensions in this parking lot,
| | 00:40 | such that we can plot the drawing and
fax it to our client for the review. Now,
| | 00:43 | I have already created a
layout. Let's take a look at it.
| | 00:46 | I'm going to come down to my Quick View
Layouts tool, I will click and then we
| | 00:49 | will select the Layout. Now, at this
point, I'd like to cut a viewport. I'm
| | 00:54 | practicing good form. I have a
viewport Layer created already.
| | 00:57 | To create my viewport, I'm going to
go to the View tab on my ribbon, and
| | 01:01 | launching the viewport command is a
three click process. Let's do it, one
| | 01:05 | click, I'm going to come down and click
Single, and then I'm going to click OK.
| | 01:10 | AutoCAD is asking me to
specify my first corner point.
| | 01:13 | Now, I'd like my viewport to be as
large as possible on this title block. So
| | 01:17 | I'm going to use my running object
snap and I'm going to select this upper
| | 01:20 | left-hand corner of my Title Block, and
I will come down, and I will click this
| | 01:24 | corner in the lower right.
| | 01:26 | Now, my viewport is as large as it
can be. Let's set this viewport to a
| | 01:30 | measurable scale. I'm going to click
the viewport edge, we will come down to
| | 01:35 | our viewport flyout and click. Now,
since this is a civil example, I'm going to
| | 01:39 | be using the scales right up here.
Let's say, if this guy will fit at 1:20. One
| | 01:43 | inch equals 20 feet.
| | 01:45 | Now, that's going to be a little bit
too big. Let's try another scale. Once
| | 01:50 | again, I'm going to come down and
click the flyout. Let's try 1:30, one inch
| | 01:54 | equals 30 feet. You know what? I think
that will work. I just need to adjust my
| | 01:59 | view a little bit. Let me double-click
inside the viewport. I'm going to hold
| | 02:02 | down the wheel on my mouse, and we
will pan this view down just a little bit.
| | 02:06 | That should work. Let me release my wheel.
| | 02:09 | Now, I will double-click outside of
the viewport to get back on my paper. We
| | 02:12 | will select the viewport edge and we
will lock this guy. When I'm finished, I
| | 02:17 | will hit Escape to clear the grips. So
we are going to be plotting this guy at
| | 02:21 | 1:30. Let's go back to model space.
| | 02:23 | Now, I'd like to place some dimensions.
So I'm going to go to my Home tab of my
| | 02:29 | ribbon. I will click. And let's
practice good form, we want to put our
| | 02:33 | dimensions on a layer of their own. So
I'm going to come to the Layer Control
| | 02:36 | and click the flyout. We will come
down and select the Dimensions Layer.
| | 02:39 | I'm going to zoom in on this parking
stall, and let's try and dimension the
| | 02:44 | width of this guy. To do that, I'm
going to come up to the Annotation panel. I
| | 02:48 | will click the flyout right here and
I'm going to select the Aligned dimension.
| | 02:54 | Now, I have a running object snap set.
So I'm going to move down and click this
| | 02:57 | endpoint, and this one, and I'm
going to pull out and set my dimension.
| | 03:02 | Now, at least one time, every
AutoCAD drafter has experienced this. We're
| | 03:06 | trying to create a dimension and then
we wonder why the devil has that thing
| | 03:09 | microscopic. Remember this, in our
Dimensions Style dialog box, the size
| | 03:14 | settings that we enter into the
dialog box represent the size we want our
| | 03:18 | dimensions to appear on paper. So when
I insert my dimension into this drawing,
| | 03:22 | I'm inserting it at paper size and
it's within the context, the very large
| | 03:26 | parking lot. Now, I
don't have to erase this guy.
| | 03:29 | Let's just make a change to our
dimension style. To change the dimension style,
| | 03:33 | I'm going to do it from here. I'm
going to go up to my Annotation panel and
| | 03:35 | click the flyout, this gives me access
to all of my styles. I'm going to click
| | 03:40 | my Dimension Style button to bring up
the Dimension Style Manager. Then, I will
| | 03:43 | come over, and select Modify.
| | 03:45 | Then, I'm going to go to the Fit tab,
and I'm going to come right down here to
| | 03:49 | the Use Overall Scale Of area. The
value that I'm going to place here is my
| | 03:54 | scale factor. Now, since my viewport is
set at 1:30, my scale factor is 30. I'm
| | 04:00 | going to enter 30 in this field. When
I'm finished, I will come down and click
| | 04:05 | OK and we will click Close to close the manager.
| | 04:09 | Now, that dimension is perfect, let's
add one more. I'm going to back up just a
| | 04:12 | little bit, and we will pan this guy
over. I'm going to do another aligned
| | 04:15 | dimension. So I will come up and click
this icon. Let's dimension the length of
| | 04:19 | the stall. I'm going to click the
endpoint here, and we will go to the endpoint
| | 04:23 | here. Here we go. Let me
click to place my dimension.
| | 04:27 | All right, let's go back out to our
Layout. I'm going to come down and click my
| | 04:31 | Preview. Notice, my dimensions are
very easy to read. They are going in based
| | 04:37 | on the size that I have placed in the
Dimension Style dialog box except that
| | 04:40 | size has been scaled up 30 times to
match the scale of my viewport. Let me back
| | 04:45 | up just a little bit on our screen,
and we will take a look at the entire layout.
| | 04:48 | Notice my center line. I just want to
address this real quick. My center line
| | 04:51 | doesn't look correct. This is a Regen
issue. When I adjust to the scale of my
| | 04:56 | viewport, AutoCAD needs to Regen the
geometry such that my line types look
| | 05:01 | correct. Let's do that. I'm going to
come up and click my Menu Browser. We will
| | 05:05 | come down to View, and this time
instead of selecting Regen, I'm going to
| | 05:10 | select Regen All. Regen All causes
AutoCAD to regenerate the layout and
| | 05:16 | everything in model space. And
now my line types look correct.
| | 05:21 | This drawing is now ready to plot and
fax to our client. Remember the settings
| | 05:25 | in our Dimension Style dialog box
reflect the size we would like our dimensions
| | 05:29 | to appear on paper. Knowing this,
placing correctly sized dimensions in our
| | 05:33 | drawing is a symbol of setting our
dimension scale to match the scale factor of
| | 05:37 | our viewport.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling linetypes| 00:00 | Believe it or not, the size of the
dashes and our line types is also affected
| | 00:04 | by our scale factor. So if we want our
hidden lines, center lines and phantom
| | 00:08 | lines to look the same on all our
printed drawings, we need to know how to
| | 00:12 | properly set our LT Scale.
| | 00:13 | Now, I have got a drawing on my screen.
If you'd like to open the same drawing,
| | 00:17 | this guy is located inside the Chapter
_15 folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:21 | directory and this drawing is
called 10 Properly Setting Your LTSCALE.
| | 00:25 | Now, this is a civil engineering
example. I have got a drawing of a parking
| | 00:30 | lot, and what I have done is I have
created a layout. I have set this up such
| | 00:33 | that I can plot this drawing and fax it
to my client. I'm using this drawing as
| | 00:37 | an example, because it contains a
dashed style line type. Take a look right
| | 00:41 | here, we can see our center line.
| | 00:42 | Now, I'm going to go down and I'm
going to bring up our Quick View Layouts
| | 00:46 | tool. Let me come down and click the
icon, will bring that guy up on screen,
| | 00:50 | and I'm going to check that my push pin
is pressed in, such these previews stay
| | 00:54 | on the screen. Now, take a look at this
line type on my layout. Now, let's jump
| | 01:00 | to model space. Take a look at
the line type here. It appears to be
| | 01:05 | microscopic. Let me back up just a little bit.
| | 01:08 | Now, you may be wondering why our
line types look so much smaller in model
| | 01:12 | space. In the big scheme of things,
our line types are represented in both
| | 01:16 | places at the same size. The
difference being that on my Layout tab, my
| | 01:21 | geometry is being represented so
much smaller, it makes my line type look
| | 01:25 | bigger. Okay, so that's understandable.
Every time I plot from a layout, my
| | 01:29 | line types are going to look great. But,
what if I go to my model space, what
| | 01:33 | if I wanted to create a plot from here,
how can I make my line types look good here?
| | 01:37 | Let me back up just a little bit. We
are going to look at a system variable
| | 01:41 | called LTSCALE. LTSCALE controls the
scale of our line types. Now, you'd think
| | 01:47 | a system variable to be changed to our
Options dialog box, unfortunately not.
| | 01:52 | The only way to change LTSCALE is
by typing it at the command line.
| | 01:56 | So I'm going to move down to my
command line and click and we will type
| | 01:59 | ltscale. Let me hit Enter. We can see
that by default, our line type scale
| | 02:06 | factor is set to 1. Well, if I'm
plotting from model space, what should I set
| | 02:10 | my LTSCALE to? Well, it depends on the
scale we want to print the drawing. You
| | 02:15 | see, if we plot from model space, we
want our LTSCALE to match the scale factor
| | 02:20 | of our plot. If I was going to plot
this drawing at 1:30, my scale factor would
| | 02:25 | be 30. So my line type scale should be
set to 30. Let me type 30 and hit Enter.
| | 02:30 | Notice, my line types now look correct.
All right, let's go back to our Layout.
| | 02:35 | Let me click and notice they look
terrible here. Here is the rule of thumb. If
| | 02:40 | you are going to plot from model space,
your LTSCALE should equal the scale
| | 02:44 | factor of your plot. When plotting
from a layout, your LTSCALE will always be
| | 02:49 | set to 1. Let's set this guy back to 1.
Now, since we have to type it in, I'm
| | 02:54 | going to give you a little shortcut.
| | 02:55 | The only thing that we have to type is
lts, and when we hit enter, it brings up
| | 03:00 | our line type scale. LTS is just a
shortcut to the system variable. Let me set
| | 03:05 | this guy back to 1 and hit Enter, and
now our line types look great on our
| | 03:09 | layout. Knowing how to properly set
your LTSCALE, will guarantee that your line
| | 03:14 | types are predictably sized, no matter
how you plot. Whether you are making a
| | 03:17 | quick plot for model space or using a layout.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
16. Sharing DataSaving in other formats| 00:00 | Occasionally, we will be asked to
send our AutoCAD drawing to someone else.
| | 00:04 | When this happens, it's important to
remember that everyone doesn't necessarily
| | 00:07 | use the most current version of AutoCAD.
Some firms in fact don't use AutoCAD
| | 00:11 | at all. They may use a completely
different CAD program. Let's look at how we
| | 00:15 | can save our drawings for clients who
may not be using the same software as we are.
| | 00:19 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:22 | drawing and work along with me, this
drawing is located inside the Chapter_16
| | 00:26 | folder inside our Exercise Files
directory, and this is drawing 01 Topo Survey.
| | 00:31 | Now, on my screen, I have got an
example of a topographic survey and now that I
| | 00:35 | have finished this drawing, I'd like to
send it to the landscape architect for the review.
| | 00:39 | Now, the landscape architect is using
a version of AutoCAD 2000. Now, this is
| | 00:43 | not a problem, I just need to save this
drawing as an older release, let's try
| | 00:47 | that. I'm going to go up and click my
Menu Browser, I'm going to come down to
| | 00:51 | File and then I'm going to come over
and down, and I'm going to select Save As.
| | 00:54 | Now, in the Files of Type area, take a
look at this. It says AutoCAD 2007. Let
| | 00:59 | me click this flyout, and notice there
is no AutoCAD 2009, that seems odd. We
| | 01:05 | are using AutoCAD 2009, but we are
saving as AutoCAD 2007. You see the DWG file
| | 01:12 | format changes about every three years,
and the last time it changed, was in
| | 01:17 | 2007.
| | 01:18 | So even though we are using AutoCAD 2009,
the 2007 version is the most current
| | 01:23 | AutoCAD format. Now, if I'd like to
save this for the landscape architect, I
| | 01:27 | can just come down and select AutoCAD
2000. This will save it in a format that
| | 01:31 | he can open. Also notice that I have
several options down here. These guys are
| | 01:35 | all DXF files. This stands
for Drawing Interchange Format.
| | 01:40 | Now, most CAD packages, if they cannot
open a DWG file, they will be able to
| | 01:44 | open a DXF. So I have several
DXF choices available as well.
| | 01:48 | Now, my landscape architect needs
AutoCAD 2000. So we will select that guy from
| | 01:52 | the list, and I'm going to place an
extension on this file name. I'm going to
| | 01:56 | call this Topo Survey-2000.
| | 01:57 | Now, it's important to note when you
save as an older release of AutoCAD that
| | 02:03 | certain features and certain entities
did not exist in the older releases. So
| | 02:08 | there is no guarantee that the drawing
that my client opens is going to be the
| | 02:10 | exact same as what I see on my screen,
but it will be really close. Let me come
| | 02:15 | over and click Save. Now, I can take
this file that I have just saved and I can
| | 02:21 | email it to my client.
| | 02:22 | No matter what CAD package our client
may be using, whether it be an older
| | 02:25 | version of AutoCAD or a program from
another company, we can still provide our
| | 02:29 | client with a drawing they can use by
simply saving as an alternate format.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| E-transmitting drawings| 00:00 | Email is the number one way of
exchanging CAD files with others. The best way
| | 00:04 | to package our drawings for email
is by using the E-transmit command.
| | 00:07 | E-transmit can take everything that's
contained or attached to our drawing and
| | 00:12 | place it in a single ZIP file,
ready to be sent to the client.
| | 00:15 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:18 | drawing, this guy is located inside the
Chapter_16 folder, inside the Exercise
| | 00:23 | Files directory, and this is
the 02 Topo Survey drawing.
| | 00:27 | Now, I have got an example of a
topographic survey on my screen. I have just
| | 00:31 | finished this drawing and this point,
I'd like to email it to the surveyor for
| | 00:34 | the review. Now, rather than sending
him the DWG file, I'm going to E-transmit
| | 00:39 | this drawing.
| | 00:40 | The E-transmit command allows me to
take this drawing and everything that's
| | 00:43 | attached to this drawing, and place it
into a very small Zipped file. To access
| | 00:48 | the E-transmit command, I'm going to
go to the Output tab on my ribbon and
| | 00:51 | click. The E-transmit
command is located right here.
| | 00:54 | Now, when I launch the E-transmit
command, I do have the option of saving the
| | 00:59 | drawing before I continue. In this case,
I'm going to select No. Now, when I
| | 01:02 | E-transmit a drawing, essentially what
I'm doing is creating a transmittal. I'm
| | 01:07 | packaging everything together such
that I can give it to the client. In this
| | 01:11 | pane on the left, I can see my drawing
name, I can also see a list of all of
| | 01:15 | the components that are associated with
this file that are also included in the
| | 01:18 | transmittal.
| | 01:19 | For instance, I'm also sending my
pane table, and I'm sending my plotter
| | 01:23 | configuration file. This list can also
include any attached images or drawings
| | 01:27 | references. I can even add a file to
this list by coming down and clicking the
| | 01:31 | Add File button. Perhaps, I have a
Microsoft Word document or an Excel document
| | 01:36 | or a PowerPoint file that's associated
with this drawing. I can navigate to the
| | 01:40 | location on my hard drive, I can
select the file, and I can click Open to add
| | 01:44 | it to my transmittal.
| | 01:45 | Now, in this case, I don't have any
added files. So I'm going to click Cancel.
| | 01:48 | If I come down to this area, I can add
notes that I'd like to include with my
| | 01:52 | package. I'm going to click, and I'm
going to type an example. Let's come down
| | 02:04 | and click the View Report button. This
will show us everything that's included
| | 02:08 | in our transmittal.
| | 02:12 | Now, the report is also included in the
ZIP file. It will have a TXT extension,
| | 02:16 | and the client can open this file to
see what's included in the ZIP. Here is
| | 02:20 | the note that I placed, here is my
pane table, we can see that's included in
| | 02:24 | the transmittal. If we come down to
the bottom of the report, and I can see
| | 02:29 | that AutoCAD is also including
instructions for the client. If they would like
| | 02:33 | to use my pane table or my plot
configuration file. Let's come down and click
| | 02:38 | Close to exit the report.
| | 02:39 | Once I have added everything to my
transmittal and taken care of my notes, I
| | 02:44 | want to come down and click the OK
button, and now I can save my transmittal as
| | 02:48 | a ZIP file. The ZIP file that I
created, is now ready to be emailed to my
| | 02:54 | client. By E-transmiting our drawings,
we can be assured that our client is
| | 02:58 | getting everything related to our
AutoCAD file, from pane tables to images to
| | 03:02 | references, and everything is being
sent using the smallest possible file size.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Plotting to the Design Web Format| 00:00 | Sometimes, a client may want to
review our CAD drawing, but they don't have
| | 00:03 | AutoCAD. So a DWG file isn't helpful.
At times like these, we can ship our
| | 00:08 | client a DWFx file. The DWFx stands for
Design Web Format, and a DWFx file can
| | 00:15 | be opened or plotted using a
current version of Internet Explorer.
| | 00:18 | Now, I have got a drawing opened on my
screen. If you'd like to open the same
| | 00:22 | drawing, this drawing is located
inside the Chapter_16 folder, inside the
| | 00:26 | Exercise Files directory, and this is
the 03 Topo Survey drawing. Now, I have
| | 00:32 | got an example of a topographic
survey on my screen. I'd like to take this
| | 00:36 | drawing, and send it to the
property developer for the review.
| | 00:39 | Now, before I prepare the drawing for
sending, I want to address these lines.
| | 00:43 | Look it, how fat these things are.
This is a product of my Lineweight mode.
| | 00:48 | Right now this guy is turned on, so I'm
seeing my line weights. If I click this
| | 00:51 | button, they will all turn off,
and my drawing will look normal.
| | 00:55 | One of the drawbacks to the
Lineweight button is that it looks great on our
| | 00:58 | layouts, but it doesn't
look so good in model space.
| | 01:01 | Now, I have already set this drawing
up to plot, I have created a layout with
| | 01:04 | the title block, let's take a look at
that guy. I'm going to come down and
| | 01:08 | click my Quick View Layouts button,
and then I'm going to select my layout.
| | 01:12 | Now, that we are viewing the layout, we
would like to see the line weights, we
| | 01:16 | can turn the Lineweight button back on.
| | 01:19 | Now, I need to send this drawing to a
property developer, but unfortunately the
| | 01:23 | developer doesn't have a version of
AutoCAD, doesn't matter. What I'm going to
| | 01:26 | do is, I'm going to plot this drawing
to the DWFx format. If I ship my client
| | 01:31 | the DWFx file, he can review or plot
drawing using his Internet Explorer.
| | 01:37 | To plot the drawing, I'm going to move
over to my layout, I'm going to click
| | 01:40 | the Plot button, and I'm going to go
into the Printer/plotter area, I will
| | 01:45 | click the flyout, and I'm going to
select DWFx ePlot. This will create a DWFx
| | 01:52 | file, and that's all I have to do.
Let me come down and click OK.
| | 01:57 | I'm going to save this file inside the
Exercise Files directory, I'm going to
| | 02:03 | save it inside the Chapter_16 folder,
and we will click Save. You know what,
| | 02:09 | let's address this issue too. Notice, I
have got this little bubble that popped
| | 02:12 | up that said, Hey! Your plot job is
complete. Unfortunately, this bubble stays
| | 02:17 | on screen forever until you come over
and click the X. Let me show you where we
| | 02:21 | can adjust this.
| | 02:22 | If I come down and click this flyout, I
can come over and select Tray Settings
| | 02:27 | and in the Display notifications from
services, I'm going to change this from
| | 02:32 | Display until closed to Display time.
Now, those little pop-ups will come up
| | 02:37 | for five seconds and they will
close on their own. Let me click OK.
| | 02:40 | All right, let's take a look at our
DWFx file, the same way our client will see
| | 02:45 | it. To do that, I'm going to launch my
Windows Explorer. Let's navigate to the
| | 02:50 | Exercise Files folder and we will jump
into the Chapter_16 folder. Here is our
| | 02:56 | DWFx file right here.
| | 02:58 | Now, I'm going to open this by right-
clicking on it, and I'm going to select
| | 03:02 | Open with Internet Explorer. This is
how my client can view the drawing. Now,
| | 03:08 | the Pan and the Zoom feature inside
this viewer is just like it is in AutoCAD.
| | 03:11 | If I hold my wheel down, I can pan. If
I roll my wheel forward and back, I can
| | 03:16 | zoom in and out. Not only can the
client review the drawing, but if he wants,
| | 03:21 | he can also plot his own copies. All
the while, he never has to have a special viewer.
| | 03:27 | Plotting our files to the DWFx format
allows our clients to collaborate on the
| | 03:31 | design process, even if they don't
have AutoCAD. DWFx files don't require a
| | 03:37 | special viewer. As long as our
clients have a current version of Internet
| | 03:40 | Explorer, they can easily
view or print our drawings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | Well, we have reached the end of the
title. Once again, it's been my pleasure
| | 00:04 | to be able to work with you
throughout these tutorials.
| | 00:06 | In fact, this really isn't the end for
you, this is just the beginning. Now,
| | 00:10 | it's the time for you to take the
skills you have learned and capture your
| | 00:13 | designs on paper. Good luck!
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
