IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | So you use AutoCAD and you are asking
yourself, can this program possibly do
| | 00:05 | anything else to make my design
workflow easier? The short answer is yes!
| | 00:14 | Welcome to AutoCAD 2009 Mastering
References. My name is Jeff Bartels and
| | 00:18 | it's my privilege to be your AutoCAD
instructor as we take this focused approach to
| | 00:22 | learning AutoCAD.
| | 00:23 | I have been using AutoCAD professionally
and teaching AutoCAD for more than ten years.
| | 00:27 | AutoCAD isn't just my career;
it's my lifestyle. I spend my days using
| | 00:32 | AutoCAD to produce civil engineering
construction drawings, and at night
| | 00:36 | I'm in the classroom teaching and
working with students just like you.
| | 00:39 | I have created this title to open up
your AutoCAD skills and go beyond simple
| | 00:44 | lines and text by taking a closer look
at one of its more versatile features.
| | 00:48 | I'm going to show you how we can
incorporate extractable data into our
| | 00:52 | drawings, such that we can produce
parts lists or summary of quantities.
| | 00:56 | I will show you how we can incorporate
imagery into our drawings, and how we
| | 01:00 | can place our images to a measurable scale.
| | 01:03 | Finally, we'll explore how we can link
our AutoCAD drawings together, such that
| | 01:06 | we can make revisions in one place
and literally update an entire plan set.
| | 01:11 | As we progress through the tutorials
I'll be working with you in the same way
| | 01:15 | as if you were with me at the
office and I was preparing you to work on
| | 01:18 | construction drawings. My goal is
to give you the skills you need to
| | 01:21 | successfully work in a production environment.
| | 01:23 | Well, we have a lot of things to talk
about and a lot of work ahead of us,
| | 01:28 | so pull up a chair and let's get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you are a premium member of the
lynda.com Online Training Library or
| | 00:04 | if you're watching this tutorial on a disc,
you have access to the exercise files
| | 00:08 | used throughout this title.
| | 00:10 | Now, I have placed my exercise files
on my desktop, but you can place your
| | 00:13 | folder wherever you like. I have
organized the files into folders that are
| | 00:17 | numbered based on the chapter. If we
open up a chapter folder, we can see all
| | 00:20 | of the drawings that are used within
that chapter. Each drawing is numbered
| | 00:24 | based on the number of the video. In
some cases if I thought it was helpful,
| | 00:27 | I have left you with a finished example.
| | 00:29 | If you a monthly or annual subscriber
to lynda.com, you don't have access to
| | 00:33 | the exercise files, but you can
follow along with your own drawings.
| | 00:37 | Let's get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. BlocksUsing blocks to automate layout data| 00:00 | Most of the time when we think of a
block, we think of a symbol in our drawing
| | 00:03 | like a tree or a toilet or a fire
hydrant. The fact is blocks don't have to be
| | 00:08 | symbols. We can use blocks for any
entities that are repeated in our drawing.
| | 00:12 | In this lesson, we are going to learn
how to use blocks to automate the data
| | 00:15 | on our layouts.
| | 00:16 | On my screen I have got a civil
engineering example. This is a drawing of a
| | 00:20 | proposed subdivision, and we are
currently looking at one of the layouts that's
| | 00:24 | set up for this file.
| | 00:25 | Before we get started, why don't we
take a quick tour of this drawing?
| | 00:28 | I'm going to come down and click my
Quick View Layouts tool. Now, my layout
| | 00:32 | previews are pretty big. I'm going to
move my cursor over one of these and hold
| | 00:35 | down my Ctrl key on my keyboard, and
then I'm going to roll my mouse wheel beck
| | 00:39 | to make these guys a little bit smaller.
Then I'm going to click this pushpin
| | 00:42 | so that this tool stays up on screen.
| | 00:45 | Notice that this drawing contains
four separate layouts. Each one views a
| | 00:49 | different portion of the subdivision.
By clicking on any of these previews,
| | 00:53 | I can jump to that specific layout.
| | 00:55 | Let's take a look at model space. I'm
going to come over and click my model
| | 00:58 | preview. Now, we don't need our
Lineweights right now. Let me come down and
| | 01:01 | click the Lineweight title to turn
those off. Notice in model space I can see
| | 01:05 | all of my linework. Generally
speaking, each of these layouts contains a
| | 01:09 | viewport that shows me a portion
of what's going on in model space.
| | 01:14 | Let's turn our Lineweights back on,
and we'll jump back out to layout PE1.
| | 01:18 | I'm going to pan over and we'll zoom in on
the right side of the sheet. If we look
| | 01:23 | right here, we can see that I have
created a legend that identifies some of the
| | 01:26 | linework that's in my drawing.
| | 01:27 | Now, this legend consists of a bunch of
individual objects. In this case I have lines,
| | 01:32 | I have text, and I have some
blocks. Now, this legend needs to show up
| | 01:36 | on all of the other layouts.
| | 01:38 | If I copy these individual entities
from one layout to the other, I'm going to
| | 01:42 | have problems later if this legend
changes, because I'm going to have to change
| | 01:46 | it on each individual layout. Instead,
I'm going to turn this legend into a
| | 01:50 | block and then I'll copy the block
onto each layout. This way if the legend changes,
| | 01:55 | I can redefine my block
and all of my layouts will update
| | 01:58 | automatically.
| | 01:59 | To turn this geometry into a block,
I'm going to come up to my Block panel in
| | 02:03 | my ribbon and I'll click the Create
icon. I'm going to call my block legend.
| | 02:08 | Let's come down and click Pick Point,
and I would like his insertion point to
| | 02:12 | be the endpoint right here.
| | 02:14 | Then we'll click Select Objects and
I'll select all of this linework and
| | 02:19 | right-click. In this case, I'm going
to select the Convert to Block option,
| | 02:24 | because I would like this legend
to be my first inserted block.
| | 02:28 | When I'm finished, I'm going
to come down and click OK.
| | 02:31 | If I select this guy, I can see he
is now a block. Let me hit Escape.
| | 02:35 | I believe in practicing good form.
Let's go over to our Layer dialog box.
| | 02:39 | I'm going to click my New icon and I
would like to create a layer for my legend.
| | 02:45 | Let's go ahead and set that layer
Current and then I'll move outside the
| | 02:47 | palette and we'll let it collapse. Now
I can select my block and we can grab
| | 02:52 | that layer from the Layer control.
| | 02:54 | When you are working with blocks,
it's always best to put your blocks on a
| | 02:57 | layer of their own.
| | 02:58 | Now that I have created my block, I'm
going to copy it to all of the other
| | 03:01 | layouts. To do that, I'm going to
use my Windows clipboard. I'll click to
| | 03:05 | select this and then I'll right-click
and I'm going to select Copy with Base Point.
| | 03:09 | This way I can copy my geometry
to my clipboard using a specific coordinate.
| | 03:14 | I am going to copy it from this
endpoint right here and then I'll come down and
| | 03:17 | select this layout. We'll right-
click and select Paste. Notice where
| | 03:23 | I'm holding it from. I'm going to
paste it to the same endpoint.
| | 03:26 | We will click this layout. I'll
right-click and paste to the endpoint.
| | 03:33 | Then lastly, we'll click this layout.
I'll right-click, select Paste, and
| | 03:38 | we'll drop it to the endpoint here.
| | 03:41 | My legend is now shown on every layout
and since I converted my legend into a block,
| | 03:46 | if I have to make changes, I
can simply redefine this block and
| | 03:50 | the legend on every layout
will automatically update.
| | 03:53 | Let's make a change. To do that, I'm
going to come up to my Menu Browser.
| | 03:57 | I'm going to come down to the Tools menu,
and we'll select Xref and Block In-place
| | 04:02 | Editing, and I'll click Edit Reference In-Place.
| | 04:06 | Let's select the block and
I'll click OK. This screens back
| | 04:10 | everything in my drawing except for
my block geometry. If we select this
| | 04:14 | geometry, we can see its individual
pieces and it says this block has been
| | 04:18 | created for the first time.
| | 04:20 | Let me hit Escape. Take a look at my
ribbon. Notice I have a new tab called
| | 04:24 | Edit Reference. This guy is giving me
tools that are specific to reference editing.
| | 04:28 | I am going to make a change. I'm going
to make a window around these blocks,
| | 04:32 | and I'll delete them and we'll remove
the blocks off the other side. There we go.
| | 04:37 | This makes my legend look a little
bit cleaner. At this point I'll come up
| | 04:40 | and click Save Changes. Yes, I would
like all of my references to be updated.
| | 04:45 | Let's click OK.
| | 04:46 | Now if I click on any of my other
layout sheets, I can see that I'm showing a
| | 04:50 | current legend. Keep your eyes open
for repeated entities in your drawings.
| | 04:54 | With a little foresight you can create
a block that will allow you to edit data
| | 04:58 | on multiple layouts at one time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Leveraging the block rotation angle| 00:00 | When creating the geometry for a block,
we typically draw our linework right
| | 00:04 | side up on our screen. In some cases,
it might be better to rotate our geometry
| | 00:08 | 90 degrees before turning it into a
block. This can give us much more control
| | 00:12 | later, if we need to insert
our block in a rotated angle.
| | 00:16 | On my screen, I have got a civil
engineering drawing. This linework was created
| | 00:19 | such that each unit equals 1 foot.
What we see on screen is an outline of a
| | 00:23 | proposed building and a parking lot.
I'm going to zoom in on the Southern part of the lot.
| | 00:29 | These white lines represent the
painted striping for my parking stalls.
| | 00:33 | These parallel lines represent my curve and
these small rectangles represent inlets.
| | 00:38 | An inlet is a structure that catches
rainwater. So when it rains on this
| | 00:42 | parking lot, the water is going
to find its way to these inlets.
| | 00:45 | My task in this session is to place
some arrows in this parking lot to identify
| | 00:49 | the direction the storm water is going
to flow into the inlets. As you can see,
| | 00:53 | I have created my first arrow. Since
I'm going to be inserting several of these
| | 00:57 | guys into the drawing, I'm going to
convert this geometry into a block.
| | 01:01 | Let's come up and click the Create Block
icon. I'm going to call my block Flow Arrow.
| | 01:07 | I'll click Pick Point, and I
would like the insertion point to be
| | 01:10 | the endpoint right here. Then I'll click
Select Objects, and we'll make a window
| | 01:14 | around our geometry. Let's right-click
and since I don't need this particular
| | 01:19 | Insertion, I'm going to select Delete.
| | 01:21 | When I'm finished, I'll click OK.
Let's back up a little bit and let's insert
| | 01:25 | our first Flow Arrow. To do that, I'm
going to come up and click the Insert icon.
| | 01:29 | I would like to insert the Flow
Arrow block, and when I drop this guy in
| | 01:32 | the drawing I would like to specify
both the insertion point and the Rotation.
| | 01:37 | It's important that these guys point
to the inlet. Let me click OK. I'm going
| | 01:40 | to drop this guy right here and notice
if I wanted to point him directly at the
| | 01:45 | inlet, I'm kind of holding it at an
awkward angle. I'm going to click to finish
| | 01:49 | the insertion and you know what, let's
click our Undo button a couple of times
| | 01:52 | to bring our geometry back.
| | 01:54 | Let's try and create this block a
different way. Since this block is
| | 01:58 | rotationally dependent when I put it in
my drawing, I'm going to rotate him so
| | 02:02 | he is aligned to the X-axis. Let's
select Rotate. I'll window this geometry and
| | 02:07 | right-click. I'm going to rotate him
from this endpoint and we'll rotate him
| | 02:12 | negative 90 degrees.
| | 02:15 | Now let's turn him into a block again.
Once again, I'll click my Create icon.
| | 02:19 | We'll call this guy Flow Arrow, Pick
Point. I would like my insertion point to
| | 02:24 | be right here, Select Objects. I'll
window this geometry and right-click, and
| | 02:28 | then we'll click OK.
| | 02:30 | Let's back up a little bit and we'll
drop a new one in our drawing. I'm going
| | 02:33 | to come up and click Insert. I'm going
to use the same Settings as before and
| | 02:37 | I'll click OK. Let's click on screen,
and notice as I pull my cursor away, the
| | 02:42 | Arrow is lined up exactly with my
rubberband line. So I can come down and click
| | 02:46 | the endpoint of my inlet and I know that
arrow was pointing exactly at that structure.
| | 02:50 | I am going to hit my spacebar and go
back into the command. We'll click OK,
| | 02:55 | we'll drop another Flow Arrow right
here and we'll point it at this inlet.
| | 02:58 | Let me back up a little bit.
I'm going to pan my drawing up.
| | 03:01 | Notice I have got a Handicapped
symbol right here. This is also a rotation
| | 03:06 | dependent symbol because you never
know the angle of your parking stall where
| | 03:09 | you are going to be placing one of
these guys. Let's try our rotation trick
| | 03:12 | with this block and see how well it
works when we insert it into the drawing.
| | 03:16 | I am going to zoom in on this geometry,
we'll rotate, we'll window this guy and
| | 03:20 | right-click. I'm going to rotate it
from the endpoint here and we'll rotate him
| | 03:24 | negative 90-degrees. Now he is aligned
to the X-axis. Let's click Create Block
| | 03:30 | and I'm going to call this handicapped.
Let's pick our insertion point.
| | 03:35 | Now, I don't have a Running Object Snap
set for midpoint, so I'm going to hold
| | 03:39 | my Shift key and right-click. This
gives me an object snap menu at my cursor.
| | 03:44 | Let me select Midpoint, and I'll grab
right here. I'll then select my objects
| | 03:49 | and right-click, and I don't need
this insertion, so I'll leave it set to
| | 03:52 | Delete. Let's click OK, and let's try
and drop one of these guys in the drawing.
| | 03:56 | I am going to pan this geometry up.
We'll zoom out just a little bit, and then
| | 04:00 | I'll come up and click Insert. We'll
select our new block. I would like to
| | 04:04 | specify his insertion point and
rotation, and I would like to drop in at the
| | 04:09 | middle of this stall. So I'm going to
hold my Shift key and right-click and
| | 04:13 | select mid between two points. I'll
click the endpoint here and the endpoint
| | 04:18 | here, and then I'll rotate him such
that he is Shift+Right-click perpendicular
| | 04:25 | to this edge. We can see that this
symbol is very easy to place within our
| | 04:29 | parking stalls. Before you turn your
geometry into a block, consider how
| | 04:33 | AutoCAD handles the rotation angle
during insertion. Sometimes rotating your
| | 04:37 | geometry can give you more
control later when inserting your block.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using DWG files to create blocks| 00:00 | It isn't always necessary to create a
block using the Block command. Blocks can
| | 00:04 | also be created from an existing
AutoCAD drawing. In this lesson, we are going
| | 00:07 | to learn how to create a block by
inserting one drawing into another.
| | 00:10 | On my screen, I have got a drawing of a
small park. This happens to be a civil
| | 00:14 | engineering example. I'm at the point
in this drawing where I would like to
| | 00:17 | start adding some landscaping. Now I
have already created a layer. If we look
| | 00:21 | up here in my Layer control, we could
see I have a layer called P-trees. This
| | 00:25 | stands for proposed trees
and this layer is current.
| | 00:28 | Now, if I wanted to, I can draw my
first tree and then convert that geometry
| | 00:33 | into a block. Instead, I'm going to
create my block from an existing drawing.
| | 00:37 | Before I do that, let's open another
drawing and take a look. I'm going to come
| | 00:40 | up and click my Open icon.
| | 00:42 | We are going to look inside the
Chapter 01 folder inside our Exercise Files
| | 00:46 | directory and we'll come down and
select the Tree drawing and click Open. Now,
| | 00:49 | there's nothing special about this
drawing. It was created from the default
| | 00:53 | AutoCAD template.
| | 00:54 | The only geometry in this drawing is
the geometry that we see on screen and
| | 00:58 | that geometry was created from the only
layer that's in this drawing, and that
| | 01:01 | happens to be Layer 0. So this is the
drawing we are going to be inserting. Let
| | 01:06 | me close this guy and we'll return to the park.
| | 01:08 | To insert my drawing, I'm going to
come up to the Block panel and click the
| | 01:11 | Insert icon. Now, this is where we
typically insert a block that's been defined
| | 01:16 | in our file. Instead, I'm going to
come over and click the Browse button
| | 01:19 | because I'd like to insert a drawing.
| | 01:22 | Let's navigate to the Chapter 01 folder.
We'll come down and select Tree.
| | 01:25 | I'll click Open. Notice I now have a block
defined in my file that has the same name
| | 01:30 | as the file name and when I place
this tree, I would like to specify the
| | 01:34 | insertion point and I don't need to
specify the rotation. Let's come down and
| | 01:38 | click OK.
| | 01:39 | As I move my cursor, notice where I'm
holding my block from. Let me place this
| | 01:43 | guy right up here, and I'll click. Let
me zoom in a little bit, and if I click
| | 01:47 | on this geometry, we can see it's now a
block. Now, this block is no different
| | 01:51 | than any other block you have ever
created except that it's been created
| | 01:54 | through an insertion rather
than through the Block command.
| | 01:57 | Now, there are two things you may be
wondering. One, why is this block green?
| | 02:01 | Well, remember the tree drawing that
we looked at. The geometry was drawn on
| | 02:05 | Layer 0. If you create a block from
entities that were drawn on Layer 0, your
| | 02:09 | block will assume the properties
of the layer that it's inserted on.
| | 02:13 | Since this guy was dropped onto a layer
that's green, he looks green. Now, you
| | 02:17 | may also be wondering if there is a
way to control the insertion point? Yes,
| | 02:20 | there is. Let me show you how we can
do that. I'm going to hit Escape to
| | 02:24 | deselect this block, and then I'm
going to click my Undo button a couple of
| | 02:27 | times to remove that insertion, and
let's open that tree drawing up again.
| | 02:31 | I am going to click Open. We'll come
down and select tree, and we'll click the
| | 02:35 | Open button. To change the insertion
point of my block, I need to change the
| | 02:39 | base point of this drawing. Take a look
at my UCS icon. This guy is sitting at
| | 02:44 | the origin. The origin co-ordinate is 0, 0.
| | 02:48 | By default, every AutoCAD drawing has
a base point assigned of 0, 0. If you
| | 02:53 | insert one drawing into another, you
will be holding it from that coordinate.
| | 02:57 | To change my base point, I'm going to
come up to the Block panel and click the
| | 03:00 | flyout and I'm going to
click the Set Base Point tool.
| | 03:03 | Now, where would I like my base
point to be? I'm going to zoom in on this
| | 03:06 | geometry, and I'm going to select the
center of the tree. I happened to have a
| | 03:10 | Running Object Snap set for center.
| | 03:12 | Now that I have done that, let's do a
Zoom Extents, and I'm going to save this
| | 03:15 | file. Let's close and then we'll try
and insert this guy again. Once again,
| | 03:20 | I'll click my Insert icon. We'll
click Browse, because we are inserting a
| | 03:24 | drawing. I'll select Tree and click Open.
I'll accept my defaults and click OK.
| | 03:30 | Now, notice where I'm holding this
block from. This is obviously a much more
| | 03:33 | logical location. Let me click to place
this guy on my drawing. As you can see
| | 03:37 | if we insert one AutoCAD drawing into
another, it becomes a block. Using this
| | 03:42 | method along with the Set Base Point
option, we can easily create a block from
| | 03:46 | any existing AutoCAD drawing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the WBLOCK command| 00:00 | At some point when talking about blocks,
we need to discuss the WBLOCK command.
| | 00:04 | WBLOCK stands for WriteBlock, which
may seem a little confusing, because this
| | 00:08 | command isn't really used to create
blocks. It's used to create drawings.
| | 00:13 | In this lesson, we are going to learn
about the command known as WBLOCK.
| | 00:15 | On my screen, I have got an example of
a small community park. This happens to
| | 00:19 | be a civil engineering example, and it
was drawn such that each unit equals one foot.
| | 00:24 | Let me zoom in on this geometry up
a little bit and we'll center it on screen.
| | 00:28 | Now, one of the amenities I have added
to my park is this basketball court. I
| | 00:32 | have constructed this geometry using
standard basketball court dimensions, and
| | 00:36 | if I click on this linework, we
can see it's all individual entities.
| | 00:39 | Now, after creating this geometry, I
thought to myself, this line may come in
| | 00:43 | handy if I'm ever working on a
fitness center or a school or another park,
| | 00:48 | because I would rather not redraft this
linework again, instead I would rather
| | 00:52 | use this linework in any future
drawing where I need a basketball court.
| | 00:56 | So what I would like to do is save this
geometry as its own file. I'm going to
| | 01:00 | do that by using the WBLOCK command.
Now, WBLOCK is only available at the
| | 01:05 | command line. So we have to type this.
I'm going to type wblock and hit Enter.
| | 01:10 | Now, if I look up here in the Source
area, this is where we can select which
| | 01:14 | part of our drawing we would like to
save out. If I select Block, I can save
| | 01:18 | any existing block in my drawing as its
own AutoCAD file. I can also write out
| | 01:23 | the entire drawing. In this case, we
are going to be using the Objects option.
| | 01:26 | Then I'm going to come over and click
Select Objects. We'll center this on
| | 01:30 | screen and to make this a little easier,
I'm going to type wp and hit Enter.
| | 01:34 | That stands for Window Polygon, and I'm
going to click right here and here and
| | 01:39 | here. I'm being very mindful of my
running object snaps. I'll click here and
| | 01:43 | I'll click here. There we go. Then
I'll right-click, I'll select Enter, and
| | 01:48 | then we'll right-click
again to finish our selection.
| | 01:51 | Now, what base point would I like?
Would I like the default 00 coordinate or
| | 01:56 | would I like to pick my own? I'm going
to click Pick Point; in the event
| | 01:59 | I'm ever inserting this geometry into
another drawing, I would like to be holding it
| | 02:03 | from this endpoint.
| | 02:05 | One more thing, take a look at these
options. What do I want to do with this
| | 02:08 | geometry? In this case, I would like
to retain it, because I still need this
| | 02:12 | linework for this drawing, but I could also
convert it to a block or delete it if I wish.
| | 02:16 | Down here in the Destination area is
where we can give our AutoCAD drawing a name.
| | 02:20 | I'm going to select the ellipsis
button and we are going to save this in
| | 02:23 | the Chapter 1 folder, inside our
exercise files directory, and I'm going to
| | 02:27 | call this drawing b-ball_
court and I'll click Save.
| | 02:34 | When I'm finished, I'll click OK, and
I have just saved this geometry out as
| | 02:37 | its own AutoCAD file.
| | 02:39 | Let's open that drawing. I'm going to
come up and click Open. We'll look inside
| | 02:42 | the Chapter 1 folder and we'll drag
this all the way down to the bottom.
| | 02:46 | We'll select our drawing and click Open.
| | 02:48 | As you can see the only geometry that
exists in this file is my court geometry.
| | 02:53 | Let's close this drawing, we'll
return to our park. I'm going to back up a
| | 02:56 | little bit and we'll pan over, and
let's try and insert one of these guys and
| | 03:00 | see how it works.
| | 03:01 | I am going to come up and click my
Insert icon. I'm going to select Browse,
| | 03:04 | because we are inserting a drawing.
Let's pull down and select our b-ball_court
| | 03:08 | file. We'll click Open and in this
case I would like to specify its insertion
| | 03:12 | point on-screen, and I'll click OK.
| | 03:14 | Notice where I'm holding this guy from.
I'm holding him from the base point
| | 03:18 | that I selected. Let's drop the
geometry right here. If I then select the
| | 03:21 | geometry and go to my Property Changer,
we can see it's a block and the block
| | 03:26 | name is the same as the file name.
Let's move outside the palette and we'll hit
| | 03:29 | Escape to deselect.
| | 03:31 | Generally speaking, the WBLOCK command
acts just like the Save As command. The
| | 03:36 | difference being that WBLOCK lets us
save part of our drawing and gives us the
| | 03:40 | opportunity to select a different base point.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Inserting blocks with Divide and Measure| 00:00 | When inserting blocks, typically we
do it one at a time. In cases where our
| | 00:04 | blocks need to be evenly spaced, we
can insert all of our blocks at one time.
| | 00:08 | In this lesson, we are going to look at
how to insert blocks using the Measure
| | 00:11 | and Divide commands.
| | 00:13 | On my screen I have got a civil
engineering example. This is a drawing of two
| | 00:17 | existing roads, one is right here, and
one is here, and I have a proposed road
| | 00:22 | connection between them. Now this road
connection is quite long. Let me zoom in
| | 00:26 | a little bit, and we'll select the
centerline, and I'm going to go over to my
| | 00:30 | Property Changer. Now this
centerline is a polyline that spans the entire
| | 00:33 | lengths. If I come down here, I can
see the length is just over 2,000 feet.
| | 00:39 | Let's move outside the palette, I'm
going to hit Escape to deselect, and
| | 00:42 | I'm going to zoom in on the south end
of my road. Down here I have create a
| | 00:46 | geometry I would like to use for two
different symbols. The geometry on the
| | 00:50 | left represents a reflector, and
the geometry on the right represents a
| | 00:53 | proposed tree with a drop shadow.
Let's work with the reflector first.
| | 00:57 | Now you might see a reflector like this
when you are driving at night. Usually
| | 01:01 | they are installed down the center of
the road and they help you identify where
| | 01:04 | the pavement striping is
when you are driving after dark.
| | 01:07 | I would like to insert one of these
symbols every 50 feet along the centerline
| | 01:11 | of my road. Now that would be a very
tedious job, if I was dropping these guys
| | 01:15 | in one at a time. Instead, I'm going
to show you a way we can insert all of
| | 01:19 | them in one command.
| | 01:21 | First, I need to convert this geometry
into a block. Let me come up and click
| | 01:24 | my Create icon, I'm going to call this
reflector. Let's click Pick Point, and I
| | 01:31 | would like my insertion point to be the
midpoint of this edge, so I'm going to
| | 01:36 | hold my Shift key and right-click to
bring up my Object Snap menu. I'll pick
| | 01:40 | midpoint. And I'll grab
the midpoint of this line.
| | 01:43 | Then I'll click Select Objects.
That will select all of this geometry,
| | 01:47 | right-click. Now I don't need this
current insertion, so I'm going to delete
| | 01:51 | it, and when I'm finished
I'll come down and click OK.
| | 01:53 | Now that I have created my block,
let's zoom out a little so we can see the
| | 01:57 | south end of my road. Since I know the
distance between my symbols is going to
| | 02:02 | be 50 feet, I'm going to insert them
using the Measure command. I'm going to
| | 02:05 | click the Point flyout and the
Measure command is right here. Notice we can
| | 02:10 | place point objects or blocks at
measured intervals on an object.
| | 02:14 | Let me select the object I would
like to measure, and then I'm going to
| | 02:17 | right-click and select Block. Which
block would I like to insert? I would like
| | 02:22 | to insert the Reflector Block, Enter.
When I like to align this block with the
| | 02:27 | object? I'm going to hit Enter to
accept Yes. In my length of segment,
| | 02:30 | I'm going to type 50, and hit Enter.
| | 02:33 | Let me back up a little bit and notice
that AutoCAD dropped one of these blocks
| | 02:37 | every 50 feet along this line. And
notice as the line turns, the block rotates
| | 02:43 | with it. And these guys span the
entire length all the way down to here. You
| | 02:48 | know what? I don't need this one.
I'm going to window this and we'll click
| | 02:51 | the Erase icon.
| | 02:53 | So by using the Measure command in a
block, I was able to insert all of those
| | 02:57 | symbols in one step. I'm going to back
up. Let's zoom in on the south side of
| | 03:01 | our road again. We slide this over
on screen. I would also like to insert
| | 03:06 | several trees within the parkway
area along the full length of my road.
| | 03:11 | First, let's convert this tree geometry
into a block. I'm going to come up and
| | 03:15 | click Create. We'll call this tree.
Let's click Pick Point and my logical
| | 03:21 | insertion point will be the center of
the tree. Then I'll click Select Objects,
| | 03:26 | and we'll window this geometry,
we'll right-click. Now I don't need this
| | 03:30 | insertion, so I'm going to leave
this set to Delete and we'll click OK.
| | 03:33 | Let me back up a little bit, and let's
talk about the parameters that I would
| | 03:37 | like to use when I'm inserting these
trees. First of all this line represents
| | 03:41 | the property line. I would like to
insert my trees such that they are five feet
| | 03:45 | away from this line.
| | 03:46 | So I'm going to offset, let me click
my Offset tool. My offset distance is
| | 03:51 | five, and I'll hit Enter. Now
fortunately this is a polyline that runs the full
| | 03:55 | length, so I'll click this object,
and I'll offset it to this side and then
| | 03:59 | I'll hit Escape.
| | 04:01 | Now I would like to plant 20 trees
evenly spaced along this road. To do that
| | 04:05 | I'm going to divide my offset line into
21 equal increments, and that will give
| | 04:10 | me 20 inserted trees. To do that,
I'm going to use the Divide command.
| | 04:14 | Let's come up and click the Draw panel
flyout, we'll click the point flyout,
| | 04:18 | and we'll select Divide. Divide works
just like Measure, except in this case
| | 04:23 | I'll be evenly spacing my objects.
| | 04:26 | Let me select my object to Divide. I'm
going to right-click, and select Block.
| | 04:31 | I would like to insert my tree block,
Enter, align block with object, I'll hit
| | 04:36 | Enter to accept Yes. Now the number of
segments, I'll type 21, and hit Enter.
| | 04:41 | And if I back up, I can see
AutoCAD has inserted my trees.
| | 04:44 | Now there is a problem, watch this. As
I pan down the road, as the trees bend
| | 04:49 | around the corner, look at my drop
shadows, they are rotating with the tree.
| | 04:53 | This obviously isn't right.
| | 04:55 | Let me click my Undo button, we'll
back this up and remove the insertion, and
| | 04:59 | let's drop them in again. I'm going to
relaunch the Divide command. Then I'll
| | 05:03 | select my object, we'll right-click
and select Block. I would like to use my
| | 05:08 | tree block, and hit Enter.
| | 05:09 | Now align block with object. In this
case I'm going to right-click and select No.
| | 05:14 | This way my block will maintain its
original rotation. Number of segments,
| | 05:19 | we'll type 21, and I'll hit Enter.
| | 05:21 | Now as I back up, I can see my trees
span the entire distance, and all of my
| | 05:26 | drop shadows are pointing in the right
direction. Now that I'm finished, I can
| | 05:31 | get rid of my offset line. We
select this then I'll click Erase.
| | 05:35 | Whenever you are working with evenly
spaced geometry, ask yourself if you could
| | 05:39 | save some time by using a block
along with the Measure or Divide command.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exchanging one block for another| 00:00 | Think about this for a second. What if
you have inserted several blocks in your
| | 00:04 | drawing only to find out that you will
need to replace them with a completely
| | 00:07 | different symbol? While this may
sound like a difficult task, it's actually
| | 00:10 | quite easy. In this lesson, we are going
to learn how to use the Block Replace command.
| | 00:15 | On my screen, I have got an architectural
example. This is a drawing of a floor plan.
| | 00:19 | Although, this floor plan is small,
it does have two bathrooms. It's got
| | 00:23 | one right up here and I have got a
master bath right over here. I'm going to
| | 00:26 | zoom in on the master bath because
I'd like to talk about this symbol.
| | 00:30 | If I click this guy, we can see his
is a block. If we look at the property
| | 00:34 | changer, we can see the block name is
called basin. Now I'm using this symbol
| | 00:38 | for all of the basins in both of my
bathrooms. This symbol is more schematic
| | 00:42 | than anything else. It doesn't
represent the geometry for an actual fixture.
| | 00:46 | For right now, these guys are acting as
placeholders to identify the locations
| | 00:50 | where I would like to have a basin.
| | 00:51 | Now let's say that I have chosen a
specific basin. Let's also say I went to the
| | 00:56 | manufacturer's website and I was
able to download an AutoCAD file of that
| | 01:00 | fixture. What I'd like to do is swap
out these symbols with the symbol that
| | 01:04 | represents the actual geometry of the
basin. Now to make this work flawlessly,
| | 01:09 | we would need to do a little preparation first.
| | 01:11 | I want to pan this over and let's
insert a new basin symbol. Let me come up and
| | 01:15 | click Insert, we'll select that block.
I'm going to specify the insertion point
| | 01:19 | and I'll come down and click OK. We'll
drop him right here. Now this shows me
| | 01:24 | the default rotation of this symbol.
Let me zoom in. If I click, I can see
| | 01:28 | where the insertion point is located.
This information is very helpful because
| | 01:33 | I want to make sure that the block that
I'm going to be swapping this with has
| | 01:36 | the same insertion point and rotation.
| | 01:39 | Let me hit Escape and let's open
the drawing I downloaded from the
| | 01:42 | manufacturer. I'm going to click Open.
We're going to look inside the Chapter 1
| | 01:45 | folder. I'll pull down to the
bottom and we'll grab this drawing,
| | 01:49 | basin_model_XYZ. Now fortunately, this
drawing was created at the same rotation
| | 01:54 | as my original basin. The only thing
I'm unsure of is the location of the base
| | 01:58 | point in this drawing.
| | 02:00 | So I'm going to come over to my Block
panel and click the flyout. We'll click
| | 02:03 | the Set Base Point tool and I'm going
to make sure my Base Point is at the
| | 02:07 | Shift+Right-Click, Midpoint of this line.
There we go, let's save the drawing.
| | 02:13 | Then we'll close it and
we'll return to our floor plan.
| | 02:15 | Let me back up a little bit and let's
insert one of those basins into this
| | 02:19 | file. I'm going to click Insert;
we'll select the Browse button. We'll come
| | 02:23 | down and select basin_model_XYZ.
When I drop this in, I would like to be
| | 02:27 | specifying the insertion point. Then I'll
click OK and then I'll place this guy right here.
| | 02:33 | To swap out my blocks, I'm going
to go to the menu browser and click,
| | 02:37 | we'll come down to the Express menu and then
we'll come up to Blocks and click. Then
| | 02:41 | we'll select Replace block with another
block. Now AutoCAD is asking me, Select
| | 02:46 | the block to be replaced. I can choose
this from the list, or it's very easy
| | 02:50 | just to click Pick and I can
select the guy, I want to replace.
| | 02:53 | Let me click this one. Now I don't have
to select a specific one in that case,
| | 02:57 | AutoCAD is only using that Pick to get
the name. Now which block would I like
| | 03:01 | to replace it with? Once again, I'm
going to click Pick. I would like to
| | 03:04 | replace it with this one. Then finally,
AutoCAD is saying, you are getting rid
| | 03:08 | of this block, do you want to purge it from
the drawing? So that it's not even here anymore.
| | 03:12 | I'll hit Enter to accept Yes. If I back
up, I can see all of those blocks have
| | 03:16 | been swapped out for both bathrooms.
Knowing that we have the Block Replace
| | 03:21 | command, we never have to worry about
swapping out the blocks we're using in
| | 03:24 | our drawing. So long as our new block
and our existing block were created using
| | 03:28 | the same insertion point and rotation,
we can exchange the symbols in a single step.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a block tool palette| 00:00 | As your collection of blocks grows,
it's important to find a way to keep them
| | 00:03 | organized, such that you can locate and
use them in any future drawing. In this
| | 00:08 | lesson, we are going to learn how to
organize our blocks by using the tool palette.
| | 00:12 | On my screen, I've got an architectural
example. This is a drawing of a floor plan
| | 00:16 | for a small single family home.
This drawing contains a lot of blocks.
| | 00:21 | One way I can see all of the blocks in
my drawings is to come up and click the
| | 00:24 | Insert icon. I'll come over and click
the flyout and I can see a list of all of
| | 00:29 | the blocks that exist in this file.
| | 00:32 | Now that's the problems that these
blocks only exist in this drawing. Let me
| | 00:36 | hit Escape to clear this menu and we'll
click Cancel because I want to show you
| | 00:39 | how we can use these blocks in any
AutoCAD drawing. We're going to do that by
| | 00:43 | creating a tool palette. To bring up
the tool palette feature, I'm going to go
| | 00:47 | up to the View tab on my ribbon. In
the Palettes panel, I'm going to click on
| | 00:51 | Tool Palettes. You can also open or
close this palette by hitting Ctrl+3 on
| | 00:56 | your keyboard.
| | 00:57 | Now the tool palettes feature works
like any other palette in AutoCAD. I can
| | 01:01 | set this any place I like on my screen.
I can right-click on the mast and I can
| | 01:05 | anchor this guy. Let's anchor him to
the right. Now if I need him, I can simply
| | 01:09 | hover, use the tool and then I can move
out. If I would like him to stay open,
| | 01:14 | I'll hover and I'll come up and click
the Auto-hide button. So he stays docked
| | 01:18 | on my screen. So this is the same
palette functionality that we have been used to.
| | 01:22 | Notice all these tabs along the left
side. Each tab represents a palette full
| | 01:27 | of tools. I can jump from one palette
to the other by clicking the tab name.
| | 01:32 | For the most part, tool palettes are
used to bring blocks into our drawings.
| | 01:36 | They can also be used to insert tables,
hedge patterns or we can use them to
| | 01:39 | launch AutoCAD commands. For the
purposes of this lesson, we're going to use
| | 01:43 | them to create a custom block library.
| | 01:46 | To create my own palette tab, I'll
right-click on an existing tab and select
| | 01:50 | New Palette. Then I'm going to give my
palette a name, I'm going to call this
| | 01:55 | my blocks and hit Enter. Now if I
don't like my placement of the tab in the
| | 02:00 | stack, I can right-click and
select Move Up or Move Down.
| | 02:05 | As a courtesy, each time you create
a new tab, AutoCAD will give you a
| | 02:08 | hyperlink that you can access to learn
about customizing tool palettes. Let's
| | 02:12 | look at how easy it is to add blocks to
our palette. I'm going to click on this
| | 02:15 | existing door block and then I'll click-
and-hold and I'll drag this guy out of
| | 02:19 | palette and I'll release.
| | 02:21 | That's all there is to it. AutoCAD
automatically creates the symbol icon and
| | 02:25 | names it based on the name of my block.
I'm going to bring in a couple more.
| | 02:28 | Let me zoom in on this part of my
drawing and I'm going to select the toilet
| | 02:32 | symbol. Then I'll click-and-hold on it
and we'll drag it onto my palette. Then
| | 02:36 | I'll move out and I'll click and grab
my basin, we'll click-and-hold, and I'll
| | 02:40 | drag it onto the palette.
| | 02:41 | Imagine creating a palette for your
plumbing fixtures, imagine creating a
| | 02:46 | palette for your furniture, imagine
creating a palette for your landscape
| | 02:49 | objects, all of these could be easily
created by dragging-and-dropping. We can
| | 02:54 | rearrange the symbols on our palette
by clicking-and-holding and I can drag
| | 02:58 | this guy up or down and
place him wherever I like.
| | 03:01 | Let's take a look at one of the blocks
on the palette. I'm going to right-click
| | 03:04 | on the toilet block and I'm going to
come down and select Properties. Right up
| | 03:08 | here is where I can adjust the Name;
this is the name that we see on the
| | 03:11 | palette. I can also add a Description.
Probably, the most important setting
| | 03:15 | under properties is the Source file setting.
| | 03:18 | You would think that when you drag a
block onto this palette that the block
| | 03:21 | lives on the palette. Unfortunately,
it doesn't. The block is still linked to
| | 03:26 | the original file. That means if I was
to erase this current drawing or move or
| | 03:31 | rename it, this symbol would no longer
work. If the file is moved or renamed, I
| | 03:36 | would have to come over here and click
the ellipsis button and point to the new
| | 03:40 | location of the drawing.
| | 03:41 | Let me click Cancel. Notice that I can
preset the scale of my block or I can
| | 03:46 | have it scaled based on the plot scale
or the dimension scale of the drawing. I
| | 03:50 | can preset its rotation or I can
guarantee that I'm always prompted for a
| | 03:54 | rotation when it's inserted. I
can have my block coming exploded.
| | 03:58 | Probably, my favorite setting is
the Layer setting. Look at this. I can
| | 04:01 | guarantee what layer I'm inserting
this block on. Now I never have to worry
| | 04:05 | about inserting my blocks on the
wrong layer because I can set my insertion
| | 04:09 | layer here and my block will always go
in on the right layer. I'm going to come
| | 04:14 | down and click OK.
| | 04:16 | Let's close this current drawing and
we'll insert another drawing. We'll try
| | 04:21 | and use our palette. Let me click Open,
we're going to look inside the Chapter
| | 04:25 | 1 folder inside our Exercise Files
directory. Let's grab the 07_bathroom
| | 04:30 | drawing and click Open. Now this is
the drawing I recently started. This
| | 04:34 | geometry represents a bathroom.
| | 04:36 | Let's try and add one of our blocks.
To do that, I just have to come over and
| | 04:39 | click on the one I want. Then I can
place it in my drawing. If I hover over
| | 04:43 | this block, we can see he came in on
the right layer. Let's try and insert the
| | 04:47 | toilet symbol. Once again, I'll click
and I would like to place this to the
| | 04:51 | Shift+Right-Click, Midpoint between
two points. I'd like to drop it to the
| | 04:56 | midpoint between this endpoint and
this one. If I hover, I can see this guy is
| | 05:01 | automatically placed on the correct layer.
| | 05:05 | If we use tool palettes to organize our
blocks, we can have every symbol in our
| | 05:09 | library available at the click of a
button. We can control our standards by
| | 05:14 | ensuring our symbols are
inserted using the appropriate settings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. AttributesCreating an attribute to hold data| 00:00 | For the most part we typically think
of an AutoCAD drawing as a collection of
| | 00:03 | linework and dimensions. Did you know
that we can also use our drawings to
| | 00:07 | store our project data? In this lesson
we are going to learn how to create attributes.
| | 00:12 | On my screen I have got an
architectural example, this is a floor plan of a
| | 00:15 | small home, and we are going to use
this drawing to insert some attribute data.
| | 00:19 | Now attributes are associated with
blocks. And before we create our first
| | 00:23 | attribute, I would like to insert a
block that already has some attributes, so
| | 00:27 | you can see how they work.
| | 00:28 | Let's start out by zooming in on our
bathroom area, and we'll insert a block.
| | 00:33 | Let me go up and click the insert icon,
I'm going to click the flyout, and
| | 00:36 | we'll select the toilet block. And
when I bring this guy in, I would like to
| | 00:40 | specify the insertion point and
the rotation, and we'll click OK.
| | 00:44 | I would like to center him between my
vanity and my tub, so I'm going to hold
| | 00:49 | my Shift key and right-click, and
select mid between two points, and we'll
| | 00:54 | insert them at the mid point between
this endpoint, and this one. And then
| | 00:58 | I'll rotate them to the end of my
bathtub. Now look at this. It's asking me for
| | 01:02 | a price. Now I'm going to type in $275,
and hit Enter. What's my model number?
| | 01:08 | I'm going to type, abxyz-9999, and
then Enter. Into what room is this being
| | 01:15 | inserted? I'm going to type,
Bath #1, and hit Enter.
| | 01:20 | So in addition to inserting my symbol,
I was also able to insert some data.
| | 01:25 | Let's take a second and think about the
data that I inserted. I mentioned being
| | 01:28 | able to extract all of the price
information, from all of the blocks in your
| | 01:32 | drawing. That would be very helpful,
when it comes time to calculate your
| | 01:35 | construction cost?
| | 01:36 | What if you are able to extract all
the part numbers, from the blocks in your
| | 01:39 | drawing? That would be very helpful,
when it comes time to make a parts list.
| | 01:43 | In this case I'm also maintaining the
room information for my block. This means
| | 01:48 | I can generate a cost and
parts list on a room-by-room basis.
| | 01:52 | Now there is nothing fancy about
attributes. They are simply text within a
| | 01:55 | block. In fact, if I zoom in on this guy,
we can see right here the data that I
| | 01:59 | entered. I'm going to do Zoom Extents,
and let's pan over to the kitchen area,
| | 02:04 | let me zoom in a little bit.
| | 02:05 | Right next to my kitchen I have a
rectangle, this rectangle is going to
| | 02:09 | represent the dishwasher, and when I
insert my dishwasher block, I want to keep
| | 02:13 | track of its price, its part number,
and the room in which it was inserted. Let
| | 02:17 | me zoom in on this guy, and if I
hover over this, we can see this is just a
| | 02:21 | polyline. I created this using the
Rectangle command. And it is sitting on
| | 02:25 | Layer 0. I would also like my
attributes to be on Layer 0, so I'm going to
| | 02:29 | click the Layer control, and
we'll set that layer correct.
| | 02:32 | To create an attribute, I'm going to
come up to my Block panel flyout, and
| | 02:35 | click, and I'm going to select the
Define Attribute icon. Now an attribute
| | 02:40 | consists of a tag, a prompt, and a
default value. And since this attribute is
| | 02:45 | designed to hold the price information,
I'm going to click in the Tag field,
| | 02:48 | and I'm going to use a tag off Price.
Now this word represents the variable
| | 02:53 | that's going to hold my price information.
| | 02:56 | Think of it this way, if you were to
extract the data from this drawing into a
| | 02:59 | Microsoft Excel table, this text would
represent your column header. Let me hit
| | 03:04 | the Tab to jump out to my Prompt field.
Now the Prompt represents the question.
| | 03:09 | Since I want the user to input a price,
I need to ask the appropriate question
| | 03:13 | to elicit that information
about this. How much does this cost?
| | 03:19 | Then I'll hit my Tab key to jump down
to the Default field. In this area
| | 03:22 | I'm going to type 0.00, the default value,
is what you are going to get if someone
| | 03:28 | chooses not to answer the question. So
if they don't enter a price, I'm going
| | 03:32 | to get a price of zero. Generally
speaking, you want your default value to be
| | 03:36 | an example. That's how you want your
data entered, and you want the default
| | 03:40 | value to be wrong. You wouldn't want
to use the Default value of a $100,
| | 03:44 | because any time someone chooses not
to answer this question, you will be
| | 03:48 | adding an extra $100, to your total cost.
| | 03:51 | At this time I'm going to accept my
Default Mode settings, so only lock
| | 03:54 | position is checked. Let's look at
our text settings area. Remember that an
| | 03:58 | attribute is nothing more than a piece
of text. So we can see that I can set my
| | 04:02 | Justification, my Text Style, my
Height, and my Rotation. In this case
| | 04:06 | I'm going to leave all of these guys set
to the defaults, because I would like to
| | 04:09 | create some very small text. Finally if
we look at insertion point, we can see
| | 04:14 | that I'll be specifying the location of
my attribute on my screen. Let's click OK.
| | 04:18 | In this case, quite small, I'm
going to zoom in and I'll place it right here.
| | 04:22 | Let's create another attribute to hold
our part number information. Once again,
| | 04:26 | I'll click the flyout panel. I'll
select the tool. For my Tag, I'm going to
| | 04:30 | type part_no. Now if you are wondering
why I used an underscore, spaces aren't
| | 04:36 | allowed in your tag names.
| | 04:38 | Pressing Tab and we'll enter a Prompt.
What is the part number? And then we'll
| | 04:44 | hit the Tab and my Default value is
just going to be xxxx-0000. Once again
| | 04:51 | we'll accept the default text settings,
except this time I would like to align
| | 04:54 | my new attribute beneath my
previous one, and I'll click OK.
| | 04:59 | Let's create one more attribute for the
room information. To do that, I'm going
| | 05:02 | to right-click. It brings you right
into the command here. For my Tag,
| | 05:06 | I'm going to use the word room. Let's say
Tab. In my Prompt, we'll type 'Where is
| | 05:13 | this being inserted?' And for my
Default value, I'll use the word, room.
| | 05:20 | And once again, we'll align this
below the previous attribute.
| | 05:23 | Now that our attributes have been
created. Let's turn this geometry into a
| | 05:26 | block, because these attributes won't
become effective until they are encased
| | 05:30 | within a block. I'm going to zoom out
a little bit. And we are going to click
| | 05:33 | the Block Create icon, and I would
like to call this block, dishwasher.
| | 05:39 | Let's click Pick Point, and I would like my
insertion point to be the endpoint right
| | 05:43 | here. Then we'll Select Objects, and
I'll select this rectangle, and let me
| | 05:47 | zoom in a little bit.
| | 05:49 | Now the order in which I select my
attributes is the order in which the
| | 05:52 | questions will be asked when I insert
my block. So this is important, we could
| | 05:57 | select these in the appropriate order,
otherwise you could just select them
| | 06:00 | with a window. I'm going to right-
click, and I don't need this insertion so
| | 06:04 | I'll leave this set to
Delete, and I'll click OK.
| | 06:07 | All right, let's backup and we'll
pan over to our kitchen. Now I have
| | 06:10 | identified the location where I would
like to insert the dishwasher, and I
| | 06:14 | would like to insert this on my
appliances layer. So let's set that layer
| | 06:17 | Current, and we'll insert our block.
Let me click the Insert icon, we'll click
| | 06:22 | the flyout, and we'll select dishwasher.
Now when I bring this guy in, I would
| | 06:26 | like to specify his insertion point.
And I don't need to specify the Rotation,
| | 06:31 | so I'll remove that check, and we'll click OK.
| | 06:34 | Let's drop at right at the end of this
arrowhead. Now how much does this cost?
| | 06:38 | Let's say $375, and hit Enter.
What's the part number? I'm going to type
| | 06:43 | tri-456cb, I'm making these values up,
by the way, let's hit Enter. And where
| | 06:52 | is this being inserted? I'll type,
kitchen, Enter. Let's get rid of our Arrow.
| | 06:56 | I'm going to select this and we'll
click Erase, and we'll take a look at our
| | 07:00 | block. Notice my dishwasher is now
holding the price, the part number and the
| | 07:04 | room in which it was inserted.
| | 07:07 | By creating attributes, we can use our
drawing to store data associated with
| | 07:11 | our project. Later in the design cycle,
we can extract this data, to determine
| | 07:15 | construction costs, or to
create a summary of quantities.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the attribute modes| 00:00 | When creating an attribute, we can
control everything from the display of the data
| | 00:04 | to the way in which the questions
are asked. In this lesson, we are going
| | 00:07 | to explore our Attribute Mode
settings. On my screen, I have got an
| | 00:10 | architectural example. This is a floor
plan of a small home. Off to this side
| | 00:15 | you can see I have created some
geometry. Let's zoom in on this guy.
| | 00:18 | Now, this linework represents a bathtub
and we are going to create a block from
| | 00:23 | this geometry and we are going to
include some attributes such that we can
| | 00:26 | maintain some project data. As we
create the attributes, we are going to talk
| | 00:30 | about the Attribute Mode settings. So,
let me zoom in a little bit closer and
| | 00:34 | let's say I would like to create an
attribute that's going to hold my price
| | 00:37 | information. Let's come up and click
the Block flyout and select Define Attribute.
| | 00:42 | Now, for a Tag I'm going to use the
word price. Let's hit Tab and then for my Prompt,
| | 00:47 | I'm going to type 'How much
does this cost?' And then I'll hit Tab and
| | 00:52 | I'll use a default value of 0.00. As
for my Text Settings I'm going to leave
| | 00:58 | these as they are. Let's talk about
these settings in the upper left-hand
| | 01:01 | corner. These guys represent our Mode settings.
| | 01:04 | Mode settings are controls that we have
over our attributes. For instance, if I
| | 01:08 | check Invisible, my attribute won't
display on screen nor will it plot because
| | 01:13 | it's invisible. Let me remove this.
Let's talk about Verify. If I create an
| | 01:17 | attribute when Verify is checked,
AutoCAD will ask me the question twice such
| | 01:23 | that I can verify my answer.
| | 01:24 | Now, you may be wondering if we can
set multiple modes like Verify and
| | 01:28 | Invisible, and yes that is possible.
We can mix and match several of these
| | 01:31 | settings. Let me uncheck these guys and
let's talk about Preset. If I create an
| | 01:36 | attribute when Preset is checked,
AutoCAD will not ask me the question. It will
| | 01:41 | simply accept the default value.
| | 01:43 | I might use this option for part
numbers because maybe I don't know the number
| | 01:47 | when I'm inserting my symbols, but I
would like to maintain that data. This way
| | 01:51 | when I insert my block, AutoCAD won't
bother me with the question. It will
| | 01:54 | simply accept the default and later
when I know the part number, I can come
| | 01:58 | back and change it.
| | 01:59 | Let's talk about Constant. Constant
is like a boilerplate. It represents a
| | 02:03 | fixed value that cannot be changed.
Watch this. If I set my attribute to
| | 02:07 | Constant, notice AutoCAD grays out
the Prompt and it will just accept the
| | 02:12 | default value. The only time you
would use this option is if you wanted to
| | 02:15 | input data that you knew
would never ever change.
| | 02:18 | Let me remove this. Let's talk about
Lock position. This setting controls the
| | 02:22 | location of our attribute relative to
our block. Since this is set to Lock, I
| | 02:27 | won't be able to move my attributes.
If I uncheck this, I'll be able to use
| | 02:31 | grips to move my attribute
text independently of my block.
| | 02:35 | I'm going to leave this on.
| | 02:36 | Finally, there is Multiple Lines. Most
times our attributes will be a single
| | 02:40 | line of text. If I check this box, my
attributes will act line multiline text
| | 02:45 | objects and I can set my column width
right down here. I'm going to uncheck
| | 02:49 | this and let's set a mode for our price.
As far as my price is concerned,
| | 02:53 | I'm going to set this to Verify such that
I can verify my price when I insert my block.
| | 02:58 | Let's click OK and I'm going to place
my attribute right up here. Let's create
| | 03:03 | another attribute to hold our part
number. To do that I'm going to right-click
| | 03:07 | and select Repeat ATTDEF. Notice
AutoCAD remembers the previous settings. Since
| | 03:12 | this a part number, I'm going to use
the Tag of part_no. Prompt, I'm going to
| | 03:20 | type 'What is the part number?' And I'm
going to use a Default value of X's and O's.
| | 03:28 | Now as far as this attribute goes
I'm going to set this to be a Preset and
| | 03:34 | I'm going to align this beneath my
previous attribute. Let's create one more
| | 03:38 | attribute to hold our room information.
Once again, I'll right-click,
| | 03:41 | we'll select the command and for my Tag
I'm going to type room. My Prompt will be
| | 03:47 | 'Where is this being inserted?' And
we'll use a Default of room. Let me come
| | 03:54 | over and uncheck Preset. And I don't
want this attribute showing up on screen
| | 03:59 | so we'll set this one as Invisible
and I'll align this beneath my previous
| | 04:02 | attribute and we'll click OK.
| | 04:04 | Now that our attributes are finished,
let's back up and make a block out of
| | 04:07 | this geometry. I'm going to click my
Create icon. We'll call this bathtub.
| | 04:13 | I'll click Pick Point and I would like
my insertion point to be right up here.
| | 04:17 | Let's click Select Objects and I'm just
going to window everything and right-click.
| | 04:22 | Let's accept Delete and I'll click OK.
| | 04:25 | I am going to back up. We'll pan over
to our bathroom area. I would like to
| | 04:28 | insert my tub into this room and I
would like my tub to be on the plumbing
| | 04:32 | layer so let me click the Layer
control and will set that layer current.
| | 04:36 | Then we'll come up and click Insert.
We'll select our new bathtub block and when
| | 04:41 | I drop this guy in the drawing I only
want to specify the insertion point.
| | 04:44 | Let's click OK and I'm going to drop it right here.
| | 04:48 | Now where is this being inserted?
Bath number one. How much does this cost?
| | 04:53 | We'll type $325. Notice it's asking me
the question again. Why? Because I set
| | 04:59 | this to Verify. Let's accept the
default of $325 and let's zoom in and take a
| | 05:05 | look at our attributes.
| | 05:06 | Notice I can see my price, notice I
can see my part number. Note I was never
| | 05:11 | asked for this because I set the
Mode to Preset. Also notice that my room
| | 05:15 | attribute is not displaying on
screen because we set it to Invisible.
| | 05:19 | Effectively, setting your Attribute
Modes let you control not only the
| | 05:23 | appearance of your data, it can also make
your data entry faster and less prone to error.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using attributes for labels| 00:00 | Just because we use an attribute
doesn't mean we have to extract the data.
| | 00:04 | In this lesson, we are going to learn
how to use attributes to automate and
| | 00:07 | standardize text labels in our
drawing. On my screen, I have got a civil
| | 00:11 | engineering example. This drawing was
set up such that each unit equals one foot
| | 00:15 | and I currently have my layout active.
This is a 22-inch x 34-inch sheet
| | 00:20 | of paper. This layout represents a
detail sheet that's going to be part of a
| | 00:24 | larger plan set.
| | 00:26 | In the upper left-hand corner I have
got my first two details. Let's zoom in on
| | 00:30 | these guys. Now this linework was not
drawn on this layout; it actually exists
| | 00:35 | in model space. These rectangles are
viewports. In fact, if I double-click on
| | 00:40 | this one, we can see the viewport
scale is 1:4 or 1 inch equals 4 feet.
| | 00:45 | If I click on this one, I can see he
is set to 1 inch equals 2 feet. Let me
| | 00:50 | double-click out of my Layout to get
out of the viewports and let's take a look
| | 00:53 | at this geometry down here. We are
going to use this geometry along with some
| | 00:57 | attributes to create some
standardized labels for our details.
| | 01:01 | Let's create our first attribute. I'm
going to come up and click the Block
| | 01:04 | panel flyout and we'll select Define
Attributes and I would like to create an
| | 01:09 | attribute to hold the name of the
detail. So for my tag, I'm going to use the
| | 01:13 | word name. Let me hit Tab and for my
Prompt I'm going to type 'What is the
| | 01:19 | detail name?' Then I'll hit Tab and
for Default value, I'm just going to use
| | 01:24 | the word name.
| | 01:25 | Let's take a look at the Mode settings.
I'm going to make sure that this is set
| | 01:28 | to the default so only Lock position
is checked. Then we'll look at our Text
| | 01:33 | Settings. Since attributes are text we
can format them just like any other text
| | 01:38 | object. I'm going to leave my
Justification to Left and I'm going to use the
| | 01:42 | Text style called detail-title. I
created this just a little bit ago and this
| | 01:47 | guy has a height assigned. That's why
my Text Height is grayed out. Let's click
| | 01:51 | OK and I'm going to place this
attribute -- I don't want my running object
| | 01:55 | snaps to get in the way, let me turn
those off momentarily and we'll place this
| | 01:58 | attribute right here.
| | 02:00 | Let's create another attribute to
hold the scale information. I'm going to
| | 02:04 | right-click and we'll go right back
into the previous command. For my Tag,
| | 02:08 | I'm going to use the word scale. Let's hit
Tab and for my Prompt I'm going to type
| | 02:13 | 'What is the detail scale?' And then my
Default value, I'm going to type SCALE
| | 02:21 | X"=X'. This is descriptive of
how I want the data entered.
| | 02:27 | Once again, I'm going to go with the
Left Justification. Let's click the flyout
| | 02:31 | and select a new Text style. I'm going
to use the style called detail-scale.
| | 02:35 | This guy also has a height assigned,
so that's why this is grayed out.
| | 02:39 | We'll click OK and I would like to
place this one right there.
| | 02:44 | Let me mention this on some systems
when you create a new attribute sometimes
| | 02:48 | it doesn't accept your Text style.
If you see an incorrect Text style on
| | 02:53 | screen, we can simply pan this over,
we can select the text and you can come
| | 02:57 | over to the Property Changer and you
can set this text to whatever style you
| | 03:01 | like. Okay, mine looks good, but if
yours doesn't, that's how you can change it.
| | 03:06 | Let's create one more attribute that
holds the detail number. I'm going to come
| | 03:09 | up and click the Block flyout and
we'll select the tool. I'm going to call my
| | 03:13 | tag number. We'll hit Tab. Our
question will be 'What is the detail number?'
| | 03:23 | And for my Default I'm going to
type 00. Let me push this over.
| | 03:28 | For my Justification, this time I'm
going to go with Middle center because I
| | 03:32 | would like my attribute centered
inside this circle. For my Text style,
| | 03:36 | I'm going to choose detail-title and I'll
click OK. Let me turn my running object
| | 03:41 | snaps back on; we'll
place it to the center here.
| | 03:44 | All right, let's convert this geometry
into a block. I'm going to come up and
| | 03:47 | click Create. We are going to call
this block detail label. We'll click our
| | 03:53 | Pick Point button and I would like the
insertion point to be the center of this
| | 03:56 | circle. Then I'll click Select Objects
and I'll make a crossing window around
| | 04:01 | this geometry and right-click. Now
I don't need the original insertion,
| | 04:04 | we'll leave this set to Delete and we'll click OK.
| | 04:07 | Let's pan up a little bit and we'll
try and use our new block to label these
| | 04:11 | details. Let's click Insert, we'll
click the flyout and we'll select our new
| | 04:15 | detail label block. I would like to
specify the insertion point only and
| | 04:20 | I'll click OK and I'm going to drop this
guy right here. Now, what's my detail
| | 04:25 | number? We'll make this number one,
Enter. What's the scale? I'm going to type
| | 04:30 | SCALE 1"=4', Enter and the name of
this detail is SILT FENCE DETAIL, Enter.
| | 04:41 | Let's pan over and we'll create one
more label. Insert, I'll click OK and we'll
| | 04:47 | drop this one right here. My detail
number is going to be 2, Enter. We'll go at
| | 04:53 | the SCALE 1"=2', Enter and the name of
this detail is SILT FENCE SECTION A-A, Enter.
| | 05:06 | Used wisely, attributes can automate
some of the labels in your drawing, and
| | 05:10 | you can ensure a consistent
look throughout your plan set.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing attributes| 00:00 | At some point you will need to modify
your attribute data. Whether you need to
| | 00:03 | edit your attributes one at a time,
layer by layer, or globally, AutoCAD has
| | 00:08 | several tools you can use to make changes.
| | 00:10 | In this lesson, we are going to learn
how we can edit our attributes.
| | 00:13 | On my screen I have got an architectural
floor plan. This drawing contains several
| | 00:17 | blocks and all of the blocks contain
attribute data. Let's zoom in and take a
| | 00:21 | look at some of these blocks.
| | 00:23 | Notice that each one is maintaining the
price, the part number, and the room in
| | 00:26 | which the block was inserted. I'm
going to back up, we'll pan over to the
| | 00:30 | kitchen area, and I would like to
zoom in on my refrigerator block.
| | 00:35 | When I inserted this block, I used an
incorrect room name so I need to edit this.
| | 00:41 | To edit an attribute, we can simply
double-click on it. This brings up our
| | 00:45 | Attribute Editor. If you look right
here, you can see all of my tags,
| | 00:48 | my prompts, and my values for this block.
If I select any tag in the list,
| | 00:54 | I'll have access to the value below. Let's
select Room and I'm going to change this
| | 00:58 | to Kitchen. As long as we are here,
notice there are two more tabs.
| | 01:02 | Now currently my Room tag is selected.
If I click the Text Options now, I can
| | 01:08 | adjust the text properties of this
attribute. If I click the Properties tab,
| | 01:12 | I can adjust this attribute's general
properties. I can put it on a different
| | 01:17 | layer if I like. Let me click the
flyout and I'll force this to be a color.
| | 01:21 | Notice we can see the change right up here.
| | 01:23 | Any changes that we make on these tabs
will affect this block insertion only.
| | 01:28 | Any other refrigerator blocks wouldn't
be affected. Let me switch this back,
| | 01:32 | and we'll click OK.
| | 01:33 | I am going to back up a little bit.
We'll pan over to the left. Let's take a
| | 01:37 | look at these two stools. Now, when I
inserted these blocks, I didn't know the
| | 01:41 | price information or the part number,
but I inserted them anyway with the
| | 01:46 | intention that I would come back later,
as soon as I knew this information.
| | 01:49 | In this case, I would like to edit
both of these blocks at one time. To do
| | 01:52 | that, let me pan these over a little
bit. I'm going to select them with a
| | 01:56 | crossing window. Then we'll go to our
Property Changer. If we look right down
| | 02:00 | here at the bottom, we can see
their attribute tag information.
| | 02:03 | I am going to click in the Price
field and we'll set their prices to 49.99.
| | 02:08 | Let's click in Part_No and we'll set
this to STL-700KL. Then I'll hit my Tab
| | 02:15 | key, and I'll move outside the
palette and we'll hit Escape to deselect.
| | 02:18 | As you can see using the Property
Changer I was able to edit multiple
| | 02:21 | attributes at one time. I'm going to
zoom out again. Let's pan over; I'll zoom
| | 02:26 | in on this door block. Now, this
block represents a 30-inch door. I'm using
| | 02:31 | several of these doors inside my plan.
I'm also using a couple of 36-inch doors
| | 02:36 | and some 28-inch doors.
| | 02:38 | Let's say when I was inserting the 30-
inch doors, I entered the wrong Part_No.
| | 02:42 | Let's change the Part_No that's
associated with the 30-inch doors. To do that,
| | 02:46 | I'm going to start out by isolating
this layer. If I hover over this geometry,
| | 02:50 | I can see it's on layer doors.
| | 02:52 | Let's go to our Layer palette and
I'll select the Doors layer. Then I'll
| | 02:55 | right-click and I'll select Invert
Selection. This will select all of the other
| | 03:00 | layers. Then I'll click the light bulb
to turn them off, and we'll turn off the
| | 03:04 | current layer.
| | 03:05 | If I back up, I can see all of my doors
on my screen. Unfortunately, all of my
| | 03:10 | door sizes are on this layer. So if I
was to select all of these guys and go to
| | 03:14 | my Property Changer, if I came down
here and set a Part_No, I would be setting
| | 03:18 | it for all of the doors. I don't
want to do that. Let me hit Escape.
| | 03:22 | Instead, I'm going to zoom in on one
of my 30-inch doors and I'm going to
| | 03:26 | double-click on it. I'll make sure my
Part_No tag is selected, and then I'll
| | 03:30 | highlight this value and right-click
and select Copy. This just copied the
| | 03:34 | Part_No to my clipboard. Let
me click OK. I'll back up again.
| | 03:37 | I am going to make my edit using the
Find & Replace command. So I'm going to
| | 03:42 | come up and click the Menu Browser,
we'll come down to the Edit menu, and then
| | 03:45 | I'm going to come over and down and select Find.
| | 03:47 | Now, Find & Replace is used to swap out
one text string for another, and since
| | 03:52 | attributes are text, we can use this
command for attributes as well. In my Find
| | 03:57 | what area, I'm going to right-click
and select Paste. Then in my Replace with
| | 04:01 | area, I'm going to type the correct
part number; in this case, I'm just going
| | 04:06 | to throw in a bunch of 9s.
| | 04:07 | Then I'll come down and click Replace
All. We can see that AutoCAD found and
| | 04:12 | corrected nine of my blocks. Let's
click OK, and I'll click Close. If I zoom in
| | 04:17 | and pan around, I can see all of my 30
-inch doors now have the correct part number.
| | 04:22 | I am going to click Layer Previous to
put my layers back the way they were, and
| | 04:25 | let's do a zoom. By allowing us to
edit attributes with several different
| | 04:29 | tools, AutoCAD makes it easy to
modify the data in our drawing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the attribute system variables| 00:00 | When creating attributes, it can be
helpful to know how to customize the way
| | 00:04 | AutoCAD handles the attributes in our
drawing. In this lesson, we are going to
| | 00:07 | look at some of the system variables
that control how our attributes function
| | 00:11 | inside of AutoCAD.
| | 00:12 | On my screen I have got an
architectural floor plan. This drawing contains
| | 00:15 | several blocks and all of the blocks
in this drawing contain attributes.
| | 00:20 | Let's start out by zooming in on this
bathroom area and we'll center it on screen.
| | 00:24 | This area has a large collection of
blocks with attributes. The first system
| | 00:28 | variable I would like to talk about is
called ATTDISP. Now, don't worry about
| | 00:33 | writing this one down, because this
system variable we can access using our icon.
| | 00:36 | I am going to click the Block panel
flyout and ATTDISP is right here. I'm going
| | 00:41 | to click this flyout, and
notice that we have three settings.
| | 00:45 | Let's look at Hide first. If I click
this, notice my attributes no longer show
| | 00:50 | up on screen. Now I can make my plots
and I don't have to worry about my part
| | 00:54 | numbers and my prices showing up on the paper.
| | 00:56 | Let's click the flyout again and let's
set this to Display All Attributes. This
| | 01:01 | makes all of my attributes visible,
even the ones I set to be invisible using
| | 01:05 | the Attribute Mode setting.
| | 01:07 | Finally, we'll click the flyout one
more time and we'll set this to Retain
| | 01:11 | Attribute Display. This happens to be
the default. This means that the display
| | 01:16 | of my attributes will be controlled
by their individual mode settings.
| | 01:20 | I'm going to zoom out a little bit
and let's pan this over to the side.
| | 01:23 | I am going to insert a block. I'm
going to come up and click the Insert icon.
| | 01:28 | We'll click the flyout and I would
like to insert my refrigerator block. So
| | 01:32 | I'll select this guy, and when I
bring him in, I only want to specify the
| | 01:36 | insertion point, so we'll click OK.
Let's drop him on screen right here. Then
| | 01:40 | I'm going to hit Enter just to accept
the default values for each of these attributes.
| | 01:44 | Now, let's talk about another system
variable. This one we have to type. This
| | 01:49 | one is called ATTDIA. This stands for
Attribute Dialog Box and it's a toggle; 0
| | 01:56 | means off and 1 means on. We can see by
default it's turned off. Let me type 1
| | 02:02 | and I'll hit Enter, and then we'll
insert this same block again. Let me come up
| | 02:06 | and click Insert. We'll come down and
click OK. I'll drop this guy on screen.
| | 02:10 | When I do, rather than asking me a
bunch of individual questions, AutoCAD gives
| | 02:15 | me a dialog box that I can use to
enter my values. From now on every time I
| | 02:19 | insert a block with attributes,
I'm going to get this dialog box.
| | 02:22 | Let's accept these defaults. And I'm
going to come down and click OK. Now
| | 02:26 | personally, I happen to prefer the
interrogation method as opposed to the box,
| | 02:30 | so I'm going to right-click and
go to Recent Input and I'm going to
| | 02:33 | set my ATTDIA back to 0.
| | 02:35 | I have got one more system variable I
want to talk about. This guy is ATTREQ.
| | 02:42 | This stands for Attribute Required.
It's also a toggle, and we can see
| | 02:46 | by default he is turned on. Let me
type 0 and hit Enter to turn him off.
| | 02:51 | Then I'm going to insert this block again.
Let me come up and click, we'll select OK,
| | 02:55 | and then I'll click to place him on screen.
| | 02:57 | Notice in this case I wasn't asked any
questions. That's because my Attribute
| | 03:01 | Required system variable was set to 0,
meaning that the attributes weren't
| | 03:05 | required. From now on, every time I
insert a block with attributes, I'll never
| | 03:09 | be asked the questions.
| | 03:11 | We might use this setting if we wanted
to insert blocks with attributes, but we
| | 03:15 | didn't want to maintain the data. We
only wanted the block for its symbol. Once
| | 03:19 | again, I'm going to put things back
the way they were. Let me right-click.
| | 03:22 | I'm going to Recent Input, I'll select
ATTREQ, and we'll set this back to 1.
| | 03:27 | Now that I'm finished, we don't need these
symbols. I'm going to make a window to
| | 03:31 | select these and we'll click Erase.
| | 03:33 | Having an understanding of the
attribute system variables gives us even more
| | 03:37 | control over how we insert and
display the attributes in our drawing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Redefining blocks with attributes| 00:00 | After inserting your attributed blocks,
you may decide you would like them to
| | 00:03 | hold even more information. In other
words, you would like to add attributes to
| | 00:07 | your blocks. You might also want to
remove attributes or even change the
| | 00:11 | appearance of your block geometry. All
of this can be done by redefining the block.
| | 00:15 | On my screen I have got an architectural
floor plan. We are going to start by
| | 00:19 | zooming in on the master bath area.
More specifically, I would like to zoom in
| | 00:23 | on this basin symbol. I can see this
block is holding data concerning the
| | 00:28 | basin's price, part_no, and the
room in which it was inserted.
| | 00:32 | Let's say I have inserted several of
these basins throughout my drawing. Then I
| | 00:36 | decide later that I would like this
block to also hold the color information.
| | 00:40 | That means I have to add an attribute
to this guy. No problem, all I have to do
| | 00:44 | is redefine the block.
| | 00:46 | Let me pan this over, we'll get some
open space. To redefine this, I'm going to
| | 00:50 | insert a new one first. Let me come up
and click Insert. I'll select the basin
| | 00:56 | block. When I bring this into the
drawing, I only want to specify the insertion
| | 01:00 | point. Let's click OK and I'll drop
him right here. Then we'll just hit Enter
| | 01:04 | and accept all of these attribute defaults.
| | 01:07 | To redefine this block, I'm going to
come up to my menu browser and click. Then
| | 01:10 | I'm going to come down to the Tools
menu and I'll come over and select In-place
| | 01:14 | Editing and I'll click Edit Reference
In-Place. Then we can select our block
| | 01:19 | and we'll click OK.
| | 01:21 | As you can see, my block geometry is
isolated on screen. It's as though I'm
| | 01:25 | creating this symbol for the very first
time. I'm going to zoom in a little bit
| | 01:29 | and let's create our new attribute.
I'm going to come up to the Block panel,
| | 01:32 | which is now collapsed. Let me click
the flyout and then we'll click the panel
| | 01:36 | flyout. I'll select the Define Attribute tool.
| | 01:39 | Since I want to maintain color
information, I'm going to use the word color for
| | 01:43 | my Tag. Let's hit Tab and my Prompt
will be 'What color is this?' Then finally
| | 01:50 | for my Default value, I'm just going
to type color. Let me push this over a
| | 01:55 | little bit. Here is where it would be
nice if I knew what these text settings
| | 01:59 | were because I would like my new
attribute to match these existing ones.
| | 02:03 | Rather than worrying about it, I'm
just going to accept these defaults and
| | 02:07 | click OK. Let me drop my new attribute
over here. Then we'll correct this guy
| | 02:11 | using the Match Properties tool. I'm
going to come up and click the Properties
| | 02:15 | panel flyout and we'll select Match
Properties. I'll then select an object that
| | 02:20 | has the properties I would like to steal.
| | 02:21 | Then I'll click an object that I would
like to receive those properties. When
| | 02:25 | I'm finished, I'll right-click and
select Enter. I'll zoom in a little bit and
| | 02:29 | I'm going to select this attribute and
click the grip. We'll line him up just a
| | 02:33 | little bit better. There we go. Let me
zoom out a little bit and let's save our changes.
| | 02:38 | Since I'm in the Reference Edit tool,
I have got some additional tools for
| | 02:42 | editing my block references. I'm just
going to come right up here and click
| | 02:45 | Save. Then we'll click OK. Notice my
new attribute does not show up on the symbol.
| | 02:50 | Let me back up a little bit;
notice it doesn't show up on
| | 02:53 | the existing symbols either.
| | 02:55 | Watch this; I'm going to pan back over.
Let's insert a new basin. I'm going to
| | 02:59 | click Insert, we'll make sure basin is
selected and we'll click OK. I'm going
| | 03:03 | to drop one right here. Then
we'll hit Enter through the values.
| | 03:09 | If you edit a block with attributes,
the changes will only affect any new
| | 03:13 | blocks that you insert into the drawing.
But don't worry. We can fix this. To
| | 03:17 | push my new attribute onto my existing
blocks, I need to synchronize the block
| | 03:21 | definition. Let me click my Block
panel flyout. That is what this icon does.
| | 03:26 | Let me click this and then AutoCAD
wants the name of the block that I would
| | 03:29 | like to synchronize. I'm going to
click Select and then I'll select this one.
| | 03:33 | It doesn't matter which one I select,
AutoCAD is only using it to get the name.
| | 03:37 | Would I like to
synchronize this? I'll select Yes.
| | 03:40 | Notice my existing blocks now have my
new attribute. Using the same technique,
| | 03:44 | I can add more attributes to a block, I
can remove attributes from a block or I
| | 03:49 | can go through and redefine
the appearance of my block.
| | 03:52 | Finally, since I'm done with these
extra basins, let's select them and we'll
| | 03:56 | click Erase. As you can see, redefining
a block with attributes is no different
| | 04:02 | than redefining a standard block.
Attributed blocks just need to be
| | 04:05 | synchronized after you
have finished the changes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Extracting attribute data| 00:00 | The greatest benefit of inserting
attributes in your drawing is that you can
| | 00:03 | extract the data later. In this
lesson we are going to learn how to extract
| | 00:06 | our attribute data.
| | 00:08 | On my screen, I have got an
architectural example. This drawing contains
| | 00:11 | several blocks and all of the blocks
contain attributes. Before we get started,
| | 00:16 | I would like to zoom in on
the bathroom area. I want to mention that
| | 00:19 | all of these blocks share the same
tag names. For instance, each of these
| | 00:23 | blocks contains a tag called price
that's holding the price information.
| | 00:27 | Let's do a Zoom Extents. Since we are
going to be doing an extraction, I think
| | 00:30 | it's important for us to have a goal.
For our first extraction, our goal is
| | 00:33 | going to be to extract all of the
price information from these blocks.
| | 00:37 | So we're going to find out how much it will
cost to buy all the objects in this drawing.
| | 00:41 | To create a Data Extraction, I'm
going to up to the menu browser and click.
| | 00:45 | We'll go down to the Tools menu, and
then we'll come over and down and select
| | 00:48 | Data Extraction. This brings up an eight
-page dialog box. Now we are not going
| | 00:53 | to be able to go through every
option on every page, so if you have any
| | 00:57 | questions along the way, simply hit
the F1 key on your keyboard, and AutoCAD
| | 01:01 | will take you to a context sensitive
Help document, and you can get all
| | 01:05 | the information you need.
| | 01:06 | Let me close this. Page 1 is where we
create our data extraction file.
| | 01:11 | Think of it this way. In order to create
my extraction, I have got to fill out
| | 01:15 | an 8-page dialog box. By creating a data
extraction file, I'm saving all of the
| | 01:20 | values that I enter on all of these
pages. That way the next time I want to do
| | 01:24 | an extraction, I can use my previous
extraction as a template, or I can edit an
| | 01:28 | existing data extraction.
| | 01:30 | Let me click Next and we are going to
save our extraction file in the exercise
| | 01:34 | files folder. We'll, going to the
Chapter 2 directory and I'm going to call
| | 01:39 | this guy, price info, and I'll click Save.
| | 01:45 | On Page 2, we tell AutoCAD where we
want to search for the data. We can
| | 01:49 | see by default we're searching the
current drawing. Now I can have my search to
| | 01:52 | be as narrow as looking at some
individual objects in the drawing, or I can be
| | 01:56 | as broad as adding additional drawings,
or I can search an entire folder of
| | 02:00 | drawings for data.
| | 02:02 | Let's click Next. Now on Page 3, based
on where we told the AutoCAD to search,
| | 02:07 | it's showing us a list of all of the
objects that it found. And it's saying
| | 02:11 | from which of these objects
would you like to extract data?
| | 02:14 | Notice that some of these objects
aren't even blocks. That's because the data
| | 02:18 | extraction wizard can also extract
object properties like Lengths, or Radius,
| | 02:22 | or coordinates. In this case I want
to restrict my objects to blocks only.
| | 02:27 | Let me click Display Blocks with Attributes
only and then I'm going to remove this check
| | 02:31 | from Display all object types.
Now I'm only seeing a list of the blocks
| | 02:37 | that exist in this file that have
attributes and notice they are all selected.
| | 02:41 | Let's click Next. On Page 4,
AutoCAD is saying based on the objects you
| | 02:45 | selected, what data would you like to
extract? Look at all the data that we can
| | 02:49 | pull off of these guys. Now I'm not
interested in all of this. I'm only
| | 02:52 | interested in the attributes. So I'm
going to come over and un-check all these
| | 02:56 | categories, and I can see that the
three attributes that are common to all of
| | 03:00 | my blocks. Now we only want the price.
So I'm going to un-check the other two
| | 03:04 | and I'll click Next.
| | 03:06 | Page 5 shows me the example of the data
I'm extracting. If I use this slider,
| | 03:10 | I can pull this up and down and see the
whole list, or I can come down and click
| | 03:14 | full preview. This shows me an exact
representation of what my data would look
| | 03:18 | like in a program like Microsoft Excel.
Now here is my problem. If our goal is
| | 03:22 | to add up all of the prices, this
formatting isn't going to work very well for me.
| | 03:26 | Because notice my window cost is $242,
but I have 12 windows. I can't find
| | 03:32 | the sum of this column as-is because
it doesn't include all of the information.
| | 03:36 | Let me click the X to close this and
I'm going to come over and remove the
| | 03:39 | check from Combine Identical Rows. Now
every block shows up with a count of 1
| | 03:46 | in my list and this is exactly what I want.
| | 03:48 | Let me come down and click Next. On Page 6,
I determine how I want to output my data.
| | 03:53 | Notice that I can extract it into
an AutoCAD table that I can insert into
| | 03:57 | my drawing, or if I click this check box,
I can extract it to an external file.
| | 04:02 | I'm going to click the ellipsis and
let's save our extraction in the exercise
| | 04:05 | files folder. We'll go into the Chapter
2 directory and I'm going to call this
| | 04:10 | price list.xls. This happens to be on
Microsoft Excel format. If I click this
| | 04:16 | flyout, you can see that we can also
save this as a Microsoft Access database file,
| | 04:20 | a comma-delimited
file or a generic text file.
| | 04:24 | I am going to come up and click Save,
then we'll click Next. Now if you were
| | 04:28 | keeping score, we went right from
Page 6 to Page 8. The reason for that is
| | 04:32 | because we are not extracting our
information into an AutoCAD table. On Page 7,
| | 04:37 | I could setup my table style for
my AutoCAD table. Now that I'm done,
| | 04:40 | I'm going to come down and click Finish.
| | 04:42 | At this point, let's jump to Microsoft
Excel and take a look at our parts list.
| | 04:46 | Notice I can see all of the price
information for all the blocks in my drawing.
| | 04:50 | Now there is one thing we have to do
before we can add these up. Notice each of
| | 04:53 | these guys has a little green triangle.
That's because when AutoCAD extracted
| | 04:57 | the data, it added an
apostrophe in front of each of these.
| | 05:00 | No problem! I'm going to click and
hold and we'll pull down and select the
| | 05:04 | entire column. And then I'm going to
come up and click this exclamation point
| | 05:08 | and we'll set this to Convert to Number.
There we go. Now we can click in the
| | 05:11 | cell at the bottom. We can come up and
click our Auto Sum button and we'll hit
| | 05:15 | Enter. And I can see that if I was to
purchase all of these objects, it would
| | 05:19 | cost me a little more than $7700.
| | 05:22 | Let's jump back into AutoCAD. Now that
we have run through the data extraction
| | 05:26 | process one time, I would like to
create a quick parts list by using our
| | 05:30 | previous data extraction file. So I'm
going to relaunch the Data Extraction tool.
| | 05:34 | I'll come down to Tools. We'll
select Data Extraction. And this time
| | 05:38 | I'm going to use a previous extraction as
a template. So I'm going to put a check
| | 05:42 | in this box. We'll click the ellipsis
button, we'll look inside the Chapter 2 folder,
| | 05:46 | and we'll select our Price Info
Extraction Template and I'll click Open.
| | 05:51 | By doing this AutoCAD has filled out
the majority of these pages for me.
| | 05:55 | All I have to do is tweak anything that's
specific to this extraction. Let me click Next.
| | 05:59 | And AutoCAD wants me to name this
extraction. I'm going to call this one
| | 06:05 | parts list and I'll click Save. We can
go ahead and accept these settings and
| | 06:09 | click Next. Once again, AutoCAD is
remembering my previous settings.
| | 06:12 | Let me click Next. This time I'll insert
in the part number, so I'll select that
| | 06:16 | and it will deselect the price, and
we'll click Next. And since I'm making a
| | 06:21 | parts list, I would like to combine my
identical rows. That way I can see how
| | 06:25 | many of each item that I have.
| | 06:27 | Once again, we'll click Next. I'm
going to output this as a Microsoft Excel file.
| | 06:31 | Let me click the ellipsis. We
are going to save this in Chapter 2,
| | 06:35 | just like the last one. And I'm going to
call this parts list and then we'll click
| | 06:41 | Next and we'll click Finish.
| | 06:43 | Once again, we'll jump out to Excel
and take a look at our new extraction
| | 06:46 | and in my list I can see all of my objects,
how many of each I need, and their specific part number.
| | 06:52 | Having the ability to extract our
attribute data means we can automate and
| | 06:56 | calculate construction costs, parts
lists, summary of quantities, or other data
| | 07:01 | driven tables, and since we are taking
the data directly from the drawing,
| | 07:05 | we have less chance for errors or omissions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. External ReferencesUnderstanding external references| 00:01 | In this lesson, we are going to talk
about how external references can make it
| | 00:04 | easier to update our drawings. On my
screen I have got a civil engineering
| | 00:08 | example. This drawing was created
such that each unit equals one foot.
| | 00:12 | This drawing represents the
geometry for a proposed subdivision.
| | 00:15 | We are going to be using this
geometry to talk a little bit about external
| | 00:19 | referencing. An external reference
is essentially a link from one AutoCAD
| | 00:23 | drawing to another. Here we can see
an example of the proposed subdivision
| | 00:27 | geometry that we just saw on AutoCAD.
This geometry is in a drawing called prop.dwg.
| | 00:33 | Now, in a production environment I
would be using this drawing to produce
| | 00:36 | several other drawings. I had use the
proposed geometry to make a grading plan.
| | 00:41 | A grading plan shows the proposed
ground elevations and topography of the site.
| | 00:46 | I had also used the geometry to create
a utility plan. The utility plan shows
| | 00:50 | us the design and location of the
proposed sanitary sewer, storm sewer, and
| | 00:54 | waterman on the side.
| | 00:56 | The geometry would also be used to
create a landscaping plan. The landscaping
| | 01:00 | plan identifies the locations and
species of the parkway trees and other
| | 01:04 | vegetation design for the site.
| | 01:07 | So when it comes right down to it my
proposed subdivision geometry needs to be
| | 01:11 | seen in all three of these other drawings.
| | 01:14 | Now, I could take my proposed drawing
and physically insert it into each of the
| | 01:17 | others. The problem is if my proposed
subdivision changes, I'll have to make
| | 01:22 | the changes in every one of the other
drawings. Instead, I'm going to create a
| | 01:27 | link from each of these drawings back
to my proposed geometry. Creating a link
| | 01:32 | to an AutoCAD drawing is called
external referencing. The beauty of the
| | 01:36 | external reference is that if my
proposed geometry changes, any drawing that
| | 01:41 | references my proposed geometry
will be updated automatically.
| | 01:45 | The general rule of thumb is if you
have geometry that needs to appear in
| | 01:48 | multiple drawings, create an external
reference. This way when you have to make
| | 01:53 | changes, you can modify one drawing
and quite literally update an entire plan set.
| | 01:58 | Let's jump back to AutoCAD and take a
look at how this works. On my screen I
| | 02:02 | have got my proposed subdivision
geometry. At this point I'm going to open
| | 02:06 | another drawing. Notice that we can
also see the proposed lot geometry in this
| | 02:10 | drawing. Let me zoom in a little bit.
| | 02:14 | Even though we see this geometry,
technically its not here. This geometry is an
| | 02:19 | external reference or a link to the
original file. Generally speaking, what we
| | 02:25 | see as a representation of the
currently saved state of the other drawing.
| | 02:29 | If I was to select this geometry, I can see
it acts like a single object, just like a block.
| | 02:34 | Let me hit Escape to deselect. Now, you
can't make any geometric changes to an
| | 02:39 | external reference. If I wanted to
change this geometry, I have to do it in the
| | 02:44 | original file. The nice thing is
any changes I make over there will
| | 02:49 | automatically show up in this drawing.
| | 02:52 | Let's try that. I'm going to close
this drawing. We won't save changes. This
| | 02:57 | takes me back to my proposed
subdivision. Now, at this point I would like to
| | 03:00 | make a change. In my case, I just
want to do something that's going to look
| | 03:04 | significant. So I'm going to launch
the Stretch command and we'll make a
| | 03:07 | crossing window around this geometry
and right click, and let's stretch this
| | 03:12 | stuff down to here. That is an obvious change.
| | 03:16 | Let me come up and click Save and then
let's reopen the other drawing. To do
| | 03:20 | that I'm going to come up to my Menu
Browser and click. I'm going to come down
| | 03:24 | to Recent Documents and
I'll select the Geometric Plan.
| | 03:28 | Notice that we are seeing the current
state of that proposed geometry. Now
| | 03:32 | remember, we have only opened up one
drawing, imagine if we had 20 drawings in
| | 03:37 | our plan set that referenced the same
lot geometry. Imagine how fast we could
| | 03:41 | make our changes. Any time you have
geometry that needs to be seen in multiple
| | 03:45 | drawings, you should externally
reference that geometry. External references
| | 03:50 | allow you to use one
drawing to update several others.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a link to a DWG file| 00:00 | Linking to AutoCAD drawings is done
through a special palette called the
| | 00:04 | External Reference Manager or
Reference Manager for short. In this lesson,
| | 00:09 | we're going to learn how to use the
manager and in doing so we'll create a link
| | 00:12 | to some AutoCAD drawings. Let me
mention that this file that we are using was
| | 00:16 | created from the default AutoCAD
template. The only difference is the units in
| | 00:21 | this drawing have been changed to feet.
| | 00:23 | If I come up and click my Tools tab,
then we come over and click the Units
| | 00:27 | icon, we can see that right here. I
made this change because I have a desire to
| | 00:31 | work in feet and the drawings that
we'll be referencing are both set to feet.
| | 00:36 | So this way all of my units match and
I don't have to worry about my drawings
| | 00:39 | changing size when they
are attached to this one.
| | 00:42 | I am going to click OK to close the
dialog box and let's attach our first
| | 00:46 | drawing. To externally reference a
file, I need to bring up the External
| | 00:50 | Reference Manager and I can find him
on the View tab of my ribbon. Right here
| | 00:54 | in the Palettes panel I can click this
icon. The Reference Manager is a palette
| | 01:00 | and this palette works just like any
other AutoCAD palette. Since we're going
| | 01:04 | to be focusing on this guy I'm going to
dock the palette so it stays on screen.
| | 01:07 | So I'm going to right-click on this
column and select Anchor Left and now
| | 01:12 | I'm going to hover over the icon and
we'll click Auto hide so he stays open.
| | 01:16 | The External Reference Manager is the
tool we'll use to attach, detach and
| | 01:21 | manage all of our referenced files.
It's divided into two panes. The upper pane
| | 01:26 | shows me a listing of all of the files
that I have referenced. The only drawing
| | 01:30 | name in this list is the name of the
current drawing. There is quite a bit of
| | 01:34 | information up here. If I click and
hold on this slider, I can drag it left and
| | 01:38 | right to see all of the columns. The
lower pane is where we'll see detailed
| | 01:42 | information about a selected reference.
| | 01:45 | I can change the size of these panes
by clicking and holding and dragging on
| | 01:49 | this divider. To reference a drawing
I'm going to come up and click the DWG
| | 01:53 | Attach button. Reference drawings are
inserted very similar to blocks. If I
| | 01:59 | look up here, I can see the Reference
name. For right now I'm going to leave my
| | 02:02 | Reference Type set to Overlay.
| | 02:05 | Since I'm linking to another file, I
have a choice of how much of the path I
| | 02:09 | would like this drawing to save. I
would like this current drawing to remember
| | 02:13 | the full path to that file. If we
look down here, we can see the same three
| | 02:17 | questions we get when we insert a block.
For right now I'm going to leave all
| | 02:21 | of these unchecked and I'm going to click OK.
| | 02:23 | If we look at the command line, we can
see the existing conditions drawing has
| | 02:26 | been loaded, but unfortunately we
don't see it. Now it is here, I just wasn't
| | 02:30 | lucky enough to have it pop up in my
current field view. I'm going to do a Zoom
| | 02:34 | Extents. There we go, now we can see
him on screen. Here is the interesting
| | 02:38 | thing. This geometry I see,
technically this geometry isn't here.
| | 02:43 | What I'm seeing is a representation
of the currently saved state of this
| | 02:47 | drawing. Referencing a drawing is a
lot like bringing in a photograph of the
| | 02:50 | drawing. It gives me the ability to
draft while using this reference drawing as
| | 02:54 | a background. As a bonus I do
have access to all the object snaps.
| | 02:58 | I am going to click my Home tab and
we'll launch the Line command. Notice that
| | 03:02 | I can draft using this geometry. I
can draw on top of it all I like. I just
| | 03:07 | can't make changes to this referenced
linework. If I wanted to do that I would
| | 03:12 | have to open the original file. Let's
take a look at the Reference Manager.
| | 03:15 | Notice I can see the name of my referenced file.
| | 03:18 | If I click the slider at the bottom
and hold and drag over, I can see all of
| | 03:22 | the information regarding this
reference. Likewise if I place my cursor over
| | 03:26 | the reference and hover, I'll get the
same information and a preview. If I
| | 03:31 | select the reference and we look down
in the Details pane, we can see the same
| | 03:35 | information here as well. The nice thing is
we can change some of the settings down here.
| | 03:40 | For instance, if I click in this field
I can change the name of my reference.
| | 03:44 | Now I wouldn't suggest doing this
until you are more familiar with referenced
| | 03:47 | files. If I click and type, I could
change how this reference was attached.
| | 03:52 | We're going to leave this to Overlay.
| | 03:54 | Probably the most important field is
the Found At field. This is where I can
| | 03:58 | change the path to my reference. If
this drawing that I have referenced gets
| | 04:02 | renamed or moved to another folder,
I can use this field and the Ellipses
| | 04:07 | button to reconnect to the drawing.
Let me close this and I'm going to hit
| | 04:12 | Escape and I'd like to
reference one more drawing.
| | 04:15 | To do that, we'll come up and click
our Attach icon. I'm going to leave my
| | 04:18 | dialog box settings the exact same as
they were before. As far as these three
| | 04:23 | questions are concerned, 99% of the
time when you reference a drawing, you will
| | 04:27 | not put checks in these boxes because
you want your reference to come in at the
| | 04:31 | same location, size and
rotation as the original file.
| | 04:37 | Let me click OK and notice we can
now see our proposed geometry in this
| | 04:41 | drawing. The beauty of the external
reference is that I can display this
| | 04:45 | geometry in my drawing and always
know that the geometry I see is current.
| | 04:49 | Let's say for the sake of science I
would like to make a change to my proposed
| | 04:53 | law geometry.
| | 04:54 | To do that, I'm going to have to make
the changes in the original file. One
| | 04:57 | quick way I can get there is by
coming over to my Reference Manager and
| | 05:00 | right-clicking on the file name and I
can select Open. And AutoCAD opens the
| | 05:05 | drawing in a separate window. From here
I can make my changes. I'm going to use
| | 05:09 | the Stretch command. There we go.
We'll just pull this geometry down a little bit.
| | 05:15 | That is a significant enough change.
| | 05:17 | Let me click Save. And then I'm going
to minimize this guy and return to my
| | 05:22 | original drawing. When I do, AutoCAD
brings up a bubble that says, hey!
| | 05:26 | The file which you have referenced is
changed. Would you like to reload the most
| | 05:29 | current version? If I want to do that
I can click this hyperlink to reload.
| | 05:34 | Notice we can now see the current
state of their proposed drawing. This means
| | 05:38 | that I can be working in my drawing
and seeing the proposed subdivision
| | 05:41 | geometry. Well, somebody on the other
side of the office can be working in that
| | 05:45 | drawing. Every time they save changes,
AutoCAD is going to let me know and give
| | 05:50 | me an opportunity to reload my
reference. Since we've talked about attaching
| | 05:54 | references, let's look at how we can detach one.
| | 05:57 | To detach a reference I can simply right
-click on the reference name and select
| | 06:01 | Detach. This removes the reference for
my file and the geometry is no longer
| | 06:06 | visible. If you have any questions
regarding attaching, detaching or working
| | 06:11 | with externally referenced files,
simply click the Help icon in the Manager and
| | 06:15 | AutoCAD will launch the context-sensitive Help
and give you all the information you need.
| | 06:20 | As you can see, referencing in AutoCAD
drawing is very similar to inserting a block.
| | 06:24 | The biggest difference is that
the geometry that you reference is tied
| | 06:28 | to another drawing, and anytime the
reference drawing is updated, your drawing
| | 06:32 | will also reflect the changes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Controlling the appearance of referenced drawings| 00:00 | After we reference a drawing into
our current file, we have a little more
| | 00:04 | control over the drawing than you might
think. While it's true we can't change
| | 00:07 | the geometry of a referenced drawing,
we have free reign over the layer settings.
| | 00:11 | In this lesson, we are going
to learn how to control the appearance
| | 00:15 | of an externally referenced drawing.
| | 00:16 | Now, on my screen I have got a civil
engineering example. This is a grading plan
| | 00:21 | that I'm working on for a proposed
subdivision. If I zoom in a little bit,
| | 00:25 | you can see I have several text
entities in this drawing. Now, each of these
| | 00:30 | guys represents a proposed ground
elevation. I have got several of them
| | 00:34 | throughout my site.
| | 00:35 | I have also labeled each of my house
locations for their proposed top of
| | 00:38 | foundation elevation. I'm going to a
Zoom Extents and at this point I would
| | 00:42 | like to reference another drawing.
I say another, because this proposed
| | 00:46 | geometry is already being
referenced into this file. Let me hit Escape.
| | 00:50 | Since I already have one drawing
referenced, I can bring up my external
| | 00:54 | Reference Manager by clicking the
Manage Xref icon right down here in my Status bar.
| | 00:58 | This icon shows up as soon as you
have referenced your first drawing.
| | 01:03 | Now that my Manager is on screen, we can
see the one drawing that I have already
| | 01:06 | referenced. Before I reference my next
drawing, take look at my current layer.
| | 01:10 | Notice I have got a layer called xref.
I have created this layer, because
| | 01:14 | whenever you reference a drawing, the
drawing is referenced onto the current
| | 01:17 | layer. Good practice is to create a
layer for your x-references and then attach
| | 01:22 | all of your x-references onto that layer.
| | 01:24 | Now, to complete my grading plan, I
need to see my existing conditions drawing.
| | 01:29 | So I'm going to come over to the
Manager and I'm going to click the Attach DWG icon.
| | 01:33 | I'm going to come down and
select drawing number 03, exist,
| | 01:37 | and I'll click Open.
| | 01:38 | I am going to attach this drawing
using the Default Overlay method and
| | 01:42 | I'm going to make sure all of my boxes
are unchecked and I'll click OK.
| | 01:47 | Let's back up a little bit so we can
see all of our geometry. Since our goal is
| | 01:52 | to learn how to control the
appearance of our referenced files,
| | 01:55 | let's talk about the most basic
appearance setting: On and Off.
| | 01:59 | If I would like to turn off an
external reference I'll right-click on the
| | 02:03 | reference name and I'll select Unload.
This removes the reference from screen,
| | 02:07 | but my drawing maintains the
attachment. We can also see that the status is
| | 02:11 | changed to Unloaded. To reload the
reference, I'll right-click on the reference
| | 02:15 | name again and I'll select Reload.
| | 02:18 | Now, I would like a little more screen
real estate. So I'm going to move to the
| | 02:20 | top of the palette and I'm going to
click Minimize, and this collapses my
| | 02:24 | palette down to a single icon.
| | 02:25 | Let me pan my geometry over. Let's
open up our Layer palette. When you
| | 02:31 | reference a drawing, all the layers
that are in that drawing come into your
| | 02:34 | current file. Any layer coming from a
reference will start with the filename
| | 02:39 | and then a vertical bar, and then the
layer name from that original drawing.
| | 02:44 | So as I pull the slider down, we can see
all the layers coming from my existing
| | 02:47 | reference. We can see the layers
coming from my proposed reference, and these
| | 02:52 | are the layers that are
native to this current drawing.
| | 02:55 | Also, notice that once we start referencing
drawings, AutoCAD creates automatic filters.
| | 02:59 | Notice AutoCAD has created
a filter that will show me all of
| | 03:03 | my existing conditions layers. This
filter shows me all the layers coming from
| | 03:07 | my proposed reference. If I would like to
see all the layers in my drawing again,
| | 03:11 | I can come up and click All.
| | 03:13 | Now, even though I can't change the
geometry of my referenced file, I can do
| | 03:17 | whatever I want with the layer settings.
For instance, I'm going to push this
| | 03:20 | to the top. These guys are coming from
my existing drawing. If I click some of
| | 03:25 | these light bulbs, we can see those
layers change on screen. Let me turn these
| | 03:29 | back on. Any of these
layer settings is fair game.
| | 03:33 | Let me show you where this comes in
handy. I'm going to move out and let this
| | 03:36 | palette collapse. This drawing
has a layout that's been setup;
| | 03:40 | let's take a look at that.
| | 03:41 | I am going to come down and click the
Quick View Layouts tool and we'll select
| | 03:45 | the layout. Let's center this on
screen a little bit. The layout that we see
| | 03:50 | represents a 22 x 34-inch piece of
paper. My geometry is showing up in a
| | 03:55 | viewport. If I double click, I can see
the viewport scale is set to 1 to 40 or
| | 04:00 | 1 inch equals 40 feet. Let me double
click on my desktop to get out of the viewport.
| | 04:05 | Now, I'm going to zoom in on this side.
It would be really nice if my existing
| | 04:09 | conditions geometry looked different
than my proposed conditions. I would like
| | 04:13 | my existing conditions to be screened
back or grayscaled, so that they don't
| | 04:17 | look so important on the sheet. I'm going
to do that by changing my layer properties.
| | 04:22 | Let's come over to the Layer palette.
I'm going to click the filter that gives me
| | 04:26 | only my existing drawing layers.
Then I'm going to move over here and
| | 04:29 | right-click, and I'm going to click
Select All. Then we'll change their color
| | 04:34 | property. Let me select one of these guys
and I'm going to go to the True Color tab.
| | 04:38 | Let's click and drag our Color
Selector down to the bottom so we get
| | 04:42 | a nice grayscale. Then I'm going to
push up my Brightness slider to lighten
| | 04:46 | that up just a little bit. Let's click OK.
| | 04:49 | Let me go back to my Layer palette.
Notice I have applied that color to all of
| | 04:53 | my reference layers. Let's move out.
At this point I'm going to do a Regen.
| | 04:58 | Let's go to the Menu Browser. We'll
select View and we'll select Regen All.
| | 05:03 | Let me do a Zoom Extents and notice
the difference. Not only do I have the
| | 05:08 | proposed and existing geometry
dynamically referenced from another file,
| | 05:12 | I'm also able to control the appearance of
my referenced geometry, such that I can
| | 05:16 | place emphasis on certain areas of my plot.
| | 05:19 | Now, I do have one point of order
that I want to fix before we leave.
| | 05:22 | Let me zoom in. Since I brought this
reference in last, it's sitting on top of
| | 05:27 | my other geometry.
Let's fix this with Draw Order.
| | 05:30 | I am going to click my Model preview.
Let's select our referenced file. Then
| | 05:34 | we'll click the Draw Order flyout and
we'll send this guy to the back.
| | 05:38 | Then we'll click our Layout preview
to return. Once again, we have to do
[00:05:421.83]
a quick Regen to see the results.
Now my lines look great.
| | 05:47 | When it comes to the layer settings of
our referenced drawings, we can do just
| | 05:50 | about anything we want. A few simple
layer changes can completely alter the
| | 05:54 | appearance of our reference linework
and allow us to give it less or more
| | 05:58 | impact on our printed sheets.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Choosing whether to attach or overlay| 00:00 | When creating an external reference,
we have a choice between Attach and
| | 00:03 | Overlay. In this lesson we are going to
learn the difference between these two
| | 00:07 | options. Let me mention that this
drawing that I have opened is a blank AutoCAD
| | 00:11 | drawing. It contains no geometry and
no layers; well, except for layer 0.
| | 00:15 | I would like to start by externally
referencing an AutoCAD drawing. Now,
| | 00:19 | my Reference Manager is currently anchored
on the side of my screen. Let me hover
| | 00:22 | over this guy and we'll open him up. To
reference my drawing I'm going to click
| | 00:26 | the Attach DWG icon. We are going to
navigate into the Chapter 3 folder, inside
| | 00:30 | our exercise files directory, and I
want you to come down and select drawing
| | 00:34 | number 4, the prop
drawing, and we'll click Open.
| | 00:38 | Whenever we create an external
reference or an xref for short, we have
| | 00:42 | the choice between Attachment and Overlay.
Now, these settings only come into play
| | 00:46 | if someone was to reference my current
drawing. What these settings essentially
| | 00:50 | do is control what happens to my
reference drawing if someone references my
| | 00:54 | current file.
| | 00:55 | If I reference a drawing via
Attachment and someone later x-references my
| | 01:00 | current drawing, they will also get
the file that I have referenced. If I
| | 01:03 | reference a drawing via Overlay and
someone later x-references my current
| | 01:08 | drawing, they will not get the
drawing that I have referenced. So these
| | 01:11 | settings control what happens to my
referenced file if someone references my drawing.
| | 01:16 | I am going to leave this set to
Overlay, which is the default. I'm going to
| | 01:19 | leave my boxes unchecked, and I'm
going to come down and click OK.
| | 01:21 | Now that my drawing has been referenced,
I'm going to do a Zoom Extents so we
| | 01:25 | can see it on screen. Let me pan this
over just a little bit, and then let's
| | 01:28 | take a look at our Reference Manager.
| | 01:30 | Notice that even though I referenced
only one drawing, I have got four drawings
| | 01:34 | in this list. That's because the one
drawing that I referenced, referenced
| | 01:38 | three other drawings via Attach. If I
click this slider and pull over, we can
| | 01:43 | see this in the Type column. In fact,
we can see it even better if we click the
| | 01:46 | Tree view. Notice this is the
drawing that I referenced and these three
| | 01:50 | drawings are coming along for the ride.
These files are also considered nested
| | 01:54 | x-references, because they are
a reference within a reference.
| | 01:58 | So knowing what we know now if I was to
select the file that I have referenced
| | 02:02 | and come down and change its type to
Attach, if anybody references my current
| | 02:07 | drawing, they are also going
to get this one and these three.
| | 02:11 | Now, sometimes nested xrefs can get out
of control. That's why AutoCAD defaults
| | 02:15 | to the Overlay method. That way if
you reference drawings and someone
| | 02:18 | references you, they are
only going to get your drawing.
| | 02:21 | I am going to set my Reference
Manager back the way it was. Let's click the
| | 02:24 | List view. I'm going to pan this over,
and I'm going to change my Reference
| | 02:28 | method back to Overlay. This way if
someone references my file, they won't be
| | 02:34 | getting all of my references.
| | 02:36 | When attaching xrefs remember that
the attachment method you choose will
| | 02:39 | control what happens to those
references if someone references your drawing. If
| | 02:44 | you are unsure of which method to use,
the safest choice is to go with Overlay.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Clipping an external reference| 00:00 | At some point, you may need to
reference a large drawing and if you only need a
| | 00:04 | small part of that file, referencing
the entire drawing can seem like overkill.
| | 00:08 | In this lesson, we are going to learn
how to clip our external references such
| | 00:11 | that we can control how much of
the file displays in our drawing.
| | 00:14 | On my screen, I have got an example
of a plative survey. These cyan lines
| | 00:18 | represent my property boundary and you
can see I have dimensioned the length
| | 00:22 | and the bearing of each of these sides.
As part of my survey, I would like to
| | 00:26 | include the existing topography of this side.
| | 00:28 | Now, my topographic information is
saved in another AutoCAD drawing and what
| | 00:32 | we'll do is X-ref that drawing into
this one. Let's go over to the Reference
| | 00:35 | Manager, mine happens to be anchored
on screen, and I'll click Attach DWG.
| | 00:39 | Then we'll navigate into the
Chapter 3 folder inside our Exercise Files
| | 00:44 | directory and we'll come down and
select drawing number 05, existing topo, and
| | 00:48 | we'll click Open. I'm going to accept
the default setting of Overlay and
| | 00:51 | I'm going to make sure that all of these
boxes are unchecked and I'll click OK.
| | 00:55 | Let me zoom in a little bit. These
lines that we see represent contour lines.
| | 01:00 | Contour lines show us the existing
elevation of our site and in this case,
| | 01:04 | they are showing me the elevations in even
one-foot increments. I'm going to do a
| | 01:08 | Zoom Extents and notice the file that
I have referenced is quite a bit more
| | 01:12 | than what I need.
| | 01:13 | Now, this isn't a problem because
AutoCAD allows us to clip our referenced
| | 01:16 | files. Let me zoom back in on my
geometry. To clip my X-reference, I'll select
| | 01:22 | it by clicking. I'll right-click, and
then I'll select Clip X-ref from the menu,
| | 01:26 | and then I'll come
down and select New Boundary.
| | 01:28 | Now, I have got a couple of options.
I can do a Rectangular Boundary or a
| | 01:31 | Polygonal. I can also select an
existing polyline. I want to go with a
| | 01:35 | Rectangular boundary. Let me back up
just a little bit. I'm being careful of my
| | 01:40 | running object snaps. I'm going to
click right here, and I'll pull down my
| | 01:43 | rectangle and we'll click right here
and you can see that my reference has been
| | 01:47 | clipped, and I'm only seeing
the part of the file that I need.
| | 01:50 | Now, let's talk about how we can edit
a clip to reference. Once again, I'll
| | 01:54 | click to select, and then right-click
and we'll select Clip X-ref. Take a look
| | 01:58 | at this at the top of the menu. I can
select whether I want my clipping to be
| | 02:01 | on or off. I can also delete the
clipping altogether. If I was to select
| | 02:05 | Generate Polyline, AutoCAD will
recreate the polyline that was used
| | 02:09 | to clip my reference.
| | 02:11 | This guy can come in handy if I want
to change my boundary. For instance, let
| | 02:14 | me click to select this. I'm going to
grab this grip, and we'll pull it up to
| | 02:18 | here. I'll click and we'll drag this
grip out to here. Let's hit Escape and
| | 02:23 | we'll re-clip our drawing
using this new boundary.
| | 02:25 | Once again, I'll click to select.
I'll right-click and select Clip X-ref. I
| | 02:30 | want to create a new boundary and yes,
I would like to delete the old one. This
| | 02:35 | time, I'm going to use the Select
Polyline method, and I'll click this shape
| | 02:39 | and you can see that my drawing is
now clipped to that new boundary.
| | 02:42 | Now, when I'm finished, I don't need
this polyline anymore. So I'm going to
| | 02:45 | select this and I'm going to come up
and click Erase. Clipping in External
| | 02:49 | Reference allows us to control how much
of our reference geometry we see in our
| | 02:53 | drawing, and it can be a great way to
simplify our linework in model space.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Binding references| 00:00 | Once you have a drawing that X
references several files, you may wonder how you
| | 00:04 | can email that drawing to a client.
Do you have to send all of the attached
| | 00:07 | drawings separately or is there a way
to merge everything into one drawing?
| | 00:11 | In this lesson, we are going to learn
how to bind our external references.
| | 00:14 | Now, this drawing contains a couple of
external references. One of the drawings
| | 00:17 | I'm referencing is this linework
around the outside; this geometry represents
| | 00:21 | my existing conditions. In fact, if I
hover over this geometry, we can see that
| | 00:26 | it is an external reference.
| | 00:28 | The other drawing that I'm referencing
contains these internal lot lines. This
| | 00:31 | linework represents my proposed
conditions. Let's say I would like to email
| | 00:35 | this drawing to a client and rather
than sending them all of the individual
| | 00:39 | files, I'm going to merge all these
drawings together into one drawing.
| | 00:43 | Now, normally when we merge drawings
together, it is for a temporary reason
| | 00:47 | like sending an email. So to protect
myself from damaging this file, I'm going
| | 00:51 | to save it as a copy. I'm going to
come up to my Menu Browser and click.
| | 00:54 | I'm going to go to File, and I'm going
to select Save As, and I'm going to save
| | 00:59 | this in the Chapter 3 folder inside our
Exercise Files directory. And I'm going
| | 01:03 | to call this 06_grading_plan-copy and
I'll click Save. Now, no matter what I
| | 01:10 | do, I can't damage my original file.
Let me pan this over and let's take a look
| | 01:15 | at our layer settings before we do our merge.
| | 01:19 | If I grab this slider and push it up,
I can see all the layers that are coming
| | 01:23 | along for my referenced files. To
merge my references into this drawing,
| | 01:27 | I'm going to use the External Reference
Manager. Now, mine is anchored on screen.
| | 01:30 | Let me hover over this icon.
| | 01:32 | Let's start with the existing drawing.
I'm going to place my cursor over this
| | 01:35 | reference name, and I'm going to right
-click, and I'm going to select Bind.
| | 01:40 | Bind will dissolve the reference and
physically insert the geometry into this
| | 01:43 | current drawing.
| | 01:44 | Now, there are two ways to bind an
external reference. There is the very
| | 01:48 | descriptive Bind method and there is
the Insert method. We are going to look at
| | 01:52 | both. Let's do Bind first. I'm going to
come over and click OK, and when I do,
| | 01:56 | let's go back to our Reference Manager.
Notice my existing reference is now gone.
| | 02:00 | In fact, if I hover over this
geometry, I can see it's now a block in my
| | 02:04 | current file. Let's take a look at
the Layer Manager. Take a look at what
| | 02:08 | happened to my layer names. If I bind
an external reference using the Bind
| | 02:12 | option, the geometry is inserted as
a block and all the layer names are
| | 02:16 | maintained. The only difference being
that the bound layers are converted from
| | 02:20 | a vertical bar to this dollar sign,
zero, dollar sign. If I use the Bind
| | 02:24 | option, I can be certain that there
will be no change in the appearance of
| | 02:27 | my bound geometry.
| | 02:28 | Let's move outside the palette and
we'll let this collapse and then we'll bind
| | 02:31 | the proposed drawing. Let me
come back to my Reference Manager.
| | 02:35 | I'll right-click and I'll select Bind. This time,
I'm going to go with the Insert method.
| | 02:41 | Once again, my Reference is dissolved,
and if I hover over the geometry, I can
| | 02:45 | see this is also a block in the current
file. If I bind my reference using the
| | 02:49 | Insert option, it's the equivalent of
inserting my proposed drawing as a block
| | 02:53 | into this drawing.
| | 02:54 | So if I take a look at the Layers
palette, we can see that the layers that were
| | 02:57 | coming from the proposed drawing are
now incorporated into this current file.
| | 03:01 | Now that I have bound my geometry, I
can save this file, and then attach it to
| | 03:05 | an email. If we bind our external
references, we can quickly convert multiple
| | 03:09 | reference files into a single
convenient file that we can email to a client or
| | 03:14 | use as an archive to document
the progress of our project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Adding ImageryInserting images| 00:00 | Even though AutoCAD's primary job is
constructing geometric shapes and text,
| | 00:05 | it's also quite comfortable working
with images. In this lesson we are going to
| | 00:09 | learn how to insert an image into an
AutoCAD drawing. If you would like to work
| | 00:12 | along with me, this drawing is located
in the Exercise Files folder, and this
| | 00:17 | is drawing number 1, flashlight.
| | 00:19 | On my screen, I have got a mechanical
example. This is a drawing of a proposed
| | 00:23 | flashlight concept. What I have done
is created a top view and an end view of
| | 00:28 | this flashlight, and I have added
some dimensions. I'm at the point where
| | 00:32 | I would like to ship this drawing to
a client for their approval, but before
| | 00:36 | I print the drawing, I would
like to add one more thing.
| | 00:38 | I have used AutoCAD to create a three
-dimensional rendered image of this
| | 00:42 | flashlight, and I would like to add
that image to my drawing. To bring an image
| | 00:47 | in the AutoCAD, we are going to
use the External Reference Manager.
| | 00:51 | So I'm going to come up and click the
View tab on my ribbon. We'll come over to
| | 00:54 | the Palettes panel, and I'll select
the Tool right here. Now with these guys
| | 00:59 | up, I'm going to right-click on the mast,
let's anchor them on the left side of
| | 01:03 | my interface, and then we'll hover over
the icon, and we'll click Auto-hide so
| | 01:08 | it stays open.
| | 01:09 | This is the exact same palette
that's used to reference AutoCAD drawings.
| | 01:14 | Images just happen to be a different
type of reference file. Now there is a
| | 01:17 | couple of ways we can attach an image
to an AutoCAD drawing. One way is to
| | 01:21 | click the flyout next to the Attach
DWG icon, and we can select Attach Image
| | 01:27 | right here. Let me hit Escape.
Probably the fastest way I can attach an image
| | 01:32 | is by simply right-clicking in this
upper pane, and I can select it from the menu.
| | 01:38 | Before I select my image, let's take
a look at the files of type area. If I
| | 01:43 | click this flyout, we can see that
AutoCAD supports several of the industry
| | 01:47 | standard image formats. I'm going to
leave this set to All image files and then
| | 01:52 | we are going to navigate to the
Chapter 4 folder inside our Exercise Files
| | 01:56 | directory and I would like to select
the flashlight image. Notice we see a nice
| | 02:00 | preview of this image over to the
right, let me come down and click Open.
| | 02:04 | Now referencing an image is almost
identical to inserting a block. If I look
| | 02:09 | right up here I can see my image name.
Since I'm attaching an external file, I
| | 02:13 | also have the ability to select a Path
Type. Let me click the flyout, and I can
| | 02:17 | choose how much of the path I want my
current drawing to remember. We'll leave
| | 02:22 | this set to Full for right now.
| | 02:24 | Finally, we have the same three
questions that we see when we insert a block.
| | 02:29 | For the most part when we bring in
an image, we would like to specify the
| | 02:32 | insertion point on screen, and we would
also like to specify the scale. Let me
| | 02:36 | come down and click OK, and as I move
my cursor you can see I'm holding my
| | 02:41 | image from the lower left corner. I'm
going to click to set this guy on screen,
| | 02:45 | and then as I move my mouse,
notice I can adjust the scale.
| | 02:49 | Now the scale doesn't have to be
perfect right now. I'm just going to pull this
| | 02:51 | down. Let's go with that size right
there, I'll click again to set my scale.
| | 02:57 | Let's zoom in, as we pan around we can
see that AutoCAD is no Photoshop, but it
| | 03:02 | does display the image fairly well.
I'm going to back up, because I want to
| | 03:07 | show you that images act just
like any other AutoCAD object.
| | 03:10 | I am going to launch the Move command.
Let me come up and click my Home tab,
| | 03:14 | we'll select the Move tool, and here's
the important thing, when you select an
| | 03:18 | image, you have to select it by the edge.
Let me right-click and notice that I
| | 03:22 | have endpoint object snaps on all the
corners. Let's pick it up from the end
| | 03:27 | point here. I'll turn-off my Ortho,
and we'll move it over to right here.
| | 03:33 | Let's take a look at our Reference
Manager. Notice we can see our flashlight
| | 03:37 | image reference. There's actually quite
a few columns of data in this manager.
| | 03:41 | If I click and hold the slider,
I can see all of the information.
| | 03:46 | Likewise if I hover over my Reference
file, I can see the same information and
| | 03:50 | I can see a preview of the image. If I
select the Reference, AutoCAD gives me
| | 03:54 | access to the data down here. The nice
thing is I can change the data below.
| | 03:59 | For instance, if I click here, I could
change the name of my referenced image.
| | 04:03 | Now that's not changing the name of the
file, it's just changing the name as it
| | 04:07 | appears in my manager.
| | 04:08 | Probably the most important setting
is right down here. It's the Found At
| | 04:12 | setting. This is the path where the
drawing was found. If I click in this
| | 04:16 | field, I can click this ellipsis and I
can change the path for this image. This
| | 04:21 | can come in handy if this image gets
renamed, or move to a different folder.
| | 04:25 | Let me hit Escape, we'll hit Escape
again to take the focus off of the palette.
| | 04:30 | Let's talk about removing an image
from our drawing. Boy, it's real easy to
| | 04:34 | come up and click the Erase icon, and
then select this image, and right-click.
| | 04:38 | This will remove the image from the
screen, but take a look at the Reference
| | 04:41 | Manager, the Reference still remains,
and I have got a big red exclamation point
| | 04:46 | that says Unreferenced. If you ever see this,
it's because someone erased your image.
| | 04:52 | Let me click Undo to bring this back.
The proper way to remove an image is to
| | 04:56 | right-click on the Reference Name
and select Detach. This removes the
| | 05:01 | reference, thus removing the image
from your drawing. Since I'm going to be
| | 05:05 | plotting this drawing for a client,
I'm going to click Undo to bring my image back.
| | 05:10 | Incorporating images into your
AutoCAD drawings is a great way to give
| | 05:13 | your drawing a professional look. Images
can be used for company logos, location
| | 05:18 | maps, concept renderings, and legends.
As you can see, referencing an image is
| | 05:23 | as easy as inserting a block.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing the appearance of images| 00:00 | After you have attached an image to
your drawing, you might want to adjust its
| | 00:04 | appearance, possibly making it lighter
or darker. From minor adjustments,
| | 00:08 | we can make the changes within AutoCAD.
| | 00:10 | In this lesson, we are going to
learn how to use AutoCAD to alter the
| | 00:13 | appearance of our images. If you would
like to work along with me, this drawing
| | 00:17 | is located in the Exercise Files
folder and this is drawing number 2,
| | 00:21 | flashlight. On my screen, I have got a
mechanical example. This is a concept
| | 00:26 | drawing of a proposed flashlight design
and this drawing contains a referenced image.
| | 00:31 | Let's zoom in; we'll center this guy
on screen. Now the first appearance
| | 00:36 | setting I would like to talk about is
probably the simplest: On and Off. And I
| | 00:41 | could make this adjustment by
using the External References Manager.
| | 00:44 | Now mine is anchored to the left side
of my screen, I'm going to hover over the
| | 00:47 | icon. I can see my referenced image
right here. To turn this off, I'm going to
| | 00:52 | right-click on the
reference name and select Unload.
| | 00:55 | Now you may wonder why you would want
to turn off an image in your drawing? One
| | 01:00 | good reason would be if you are
working with a very large image. Images with
| | 01:04 | large file sizes tend to slow down the
performance of your AutoCAD. So if you
| | 01:08 | don't need to see the image on your
screen while you are working, it's better
| | 01:11 | to unload it and then your
machine will operate faster.
| | 01:14 | Let me turn my image back on, once
again, I'll right-click over the reference
| | 01:18 | name and select Reload. I'm going to
move outside the palette. We'll let it
| | 01:22 | collapse. Let's say I would like to adjust
the brightness or the contrast of this image.
| | 01:28 | Now I could do that with a program
like Photoshop but it may mean having to
| | 01:31 | save an alternate version of the image
for this AutoCAD drawing. Instead,
| | 01:36 | I'm going to make the changes right here.
First I'm going to select the image by
| | 01:40 | clicking on the edge, then I'll right-
click and in the Image menu I'm going to
| | 01:45 | select Adjust.
| | 01:46 | Now AutoCAD is certainly isn't
Photoshop, but we do have a couple of sliders.
| | 01:52 | If I click and hold down the Brightness,
I can adjust the overall brightness or
| | 01:56 | darkness of this image. Likewise, I
have a slider that ? adjust the contrast.
| | 02:01 | When I'm finished making my changes, I
can come down and click OK to see those
| | 02:05 | changes on screen. Now the important
thing to note is that I have not changed
| | 02:09 | my original image file. I'm merely
changing the way that image is being
| | 02:13 | displayed in my AutoCAD drawing.
| | 02:15 | Let's bring up the Editor again,
once again I'll select my image and
| | 02:18 | right-click. We'll go to the Image menu
and click Adjust. At any point, if you
| | 02:23 | would like to put your image back to
its original settings, you can come down
| | 02:26 | and click Reset.
| | 02:28 | In my opinion, the most valuable
setting in this box is the Fade setting. If I
| | 02:33 | click this slider and drag up, I can
start to screen back my image. Now it
| | 02:37 | almost looks like the image is becoming
transparent. It's not. The Fade setting
| | 02:42 | has nothing to do with transparency.
This setting allows me to screen back or
| | 02:46 | fade my image such that it can be used
as a background or possibly a watermark
| | 02:50 | in my drawing. Let's click OK and
you can see the change on screen.
| | 02:56 | AutoCAD certainly is known for its
image editing capabilities but it does a
| | 03:00 | pretty good job with minor
corrections and it eliminates the need to create
| | 03:03 | duplicate copies of your image files.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Controlling the display of the image border| 00:00 | When you reference an image, the
image comes in on the current layer.
| | 00:04 | As a result, the border of your image will
have the properties of the current layer.
| | 00:08 | In some cases, you might want to have
borderless images in your drawing.
| | 00:12 | In this lesson, we are going to learn how
to control the appearance of the borders
| | 00:16 | around our images. If you'd like to
work along with me, this drawing is located
| | 00:20 | in the Exercise Files folder and
this is drawing number 3, detail_plan.
| | 00:24 | On my screen, I have got an empty layout.
Well, my layout does contain a title block.
| | 00:30 | This guy represents a 22 x 34
inch sheet of paper and this sheet will be
| | 00:35 | used as a detail plan in my plan set.
| | 00:38 | The first detail that I'll be using
is an image that was faxed to me by a client.
| | 00:42 | To bring in the image, I'll be
using the Reference Manager. Now mine
| | 00:46 | it's currently anchored to my interface,
let's hover over this guy and to bring
| | 00:50 | in the image I'll right-click and
select Attach Image from the menu.
| | 00:53 | I am going to look inside the
Chapter 4 folder inside our Exercise Files
| | 00:57 | directory and I'm going to select the
image called the grate_detail and
| | 01:01 | I'll click Open. When I bring in the image,
I do want to specify the insertion point
| | 01:07 | but in this case I'm going to uncheck
Scale and I'm going to leave this set to
| | 01:11 | 1. That's because I want the image to
come in at a scale of 1 to1 or the same
| | 01:16 | size of the image was what it was
scaled. To see the image size, I can come
| | 01:21 | over and click the Details button and
we can see the size in inches right down here.
| | 01:25 | I am going to click Details again to
close this and we'll click OK. Notice
| | 01:31 | I'm holding this image at true size on my
cursor and I'm going to place it in the
| | 01:35 | upper right corner of my title block.
| | 01:38 | Let's zoom in a little bit. Now from
here my image looks a little shoddy. The
| | 01:43 | image is actually fine. The
problem I'm having here is with my screen
| | 01:47 | resolution. Since this drawing
contains some fine linework, the lines don't
| | 01:52 | always match up well with the pixels.
| | 01:55 | If I zoom in closely, we can see that
this image is okay and it will plot just
| | 01:59 | fine. I'm going to zoom out a little
bit and let's pan over to this right side.
| | 02:03 | I would like to talk about the edge
around the outside of my image. This guy is
| | 02:08 | called our Image Frame and the
appearance of this line is based on the layer
| | 02:12 | that the image was inserted on. We can
see that this guy was inserted on the
| | 02:16 | current layer, which is zero. Let's put
him on a different layer. I'm going to
| | 02:20 | select them by the edge, I'll click
the Layer control and I'm going to select
| | 02:24 | layer BORD-5. This guy has a heavier pen weight.
| | 02:27 | Let me hit Escape. Notice the
change in my image frame. That's why it's
| | 02:32 | important to put images on a layer of
their own. That way you can control the
| | 02:36 | line weight of your image frame. I
already have a layer created for my images
| | 02:41 | so I'm going to select this guy. We'll
click the Layer control again and I'll
| | 02:45 | put them on an image layer. And then
I'll hit Escape to deselect. In this case,
| | 02:50 | with my detail I kind of have two
borders. My detail has its own border and
| | 02:55 | I'm also seeing my image frame. Since
the appearance of the image frame is
| | 03:00 | unnecessary it might look
better if I could it turn it off.
| | 03:03 | To turn-off my image frame I'm going
to go up to the Menu Browser and click.
| | 03:06 | I'm going to come down to the Modify
menu and then we are going to come over
| | 03:10 | and select Object. We are going to come
down and select Image and I'll select Frame.
| | 03:15 | Notice I have three possible settings
the default is 1. That means my frame is
| | 03:20 | visible. Let me set this to 0, 0 means
my image frame will not display and this
| | 03:27 | setting controls the image frame for
every image in my drawing by the way. Also
| | 03:31 | one side effect of turning off your
image frame, your images are no longer
| | 03:35 | selectable. You can only select
your image by its image frame.
| | 03:40 | Let's bring up the image frame
adjustment. Again I'm going to right-click.
| | 03:43 | We'll select Repeat IMAGEFRAME, this
time we are going to go with the number 2
| | 03:47 | setting. If I set this to 2 my frame
will show such that I can select my image
| | 03:53 | but the frame will not plot. So it's
like having the best of both worlds.
| | 03:57 | We can see and use the frame but we don't
have to worry about it showing up on our plots.
| | 04:02 | To test this let's do a plot preview.
I'm going to come up and click Output
| | 04:06 | then we'll come down to the Plot panel
and we'll select Preview. And if I zoom
| | 04:11 | in on my detail, I can see that my
image frame does not show. Let's come up and
| | 04:17 | click the X to close my preview.
| | 04:19 | The image frame system variable makes
it easy to control the appearance of the
| | 04:23 | borders around our images. Just
remember that your image is only selectable if
| | 04:27 | your border is visible on the screen.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Clipping images| 00:00 | At some point you might want to
crop an image that you've referenced.
| | 00:04 | While this could certainly be done in a
program like Photoshop, it's just as easy to
| | 00:08 | do in AutoCAD and our clipping boundary
is dynamic. In this lesson, we're going
| | 00:12 | to learn how to clip an image. If we
would like to work along with me,
| | 00:16 | this drawing is located in the Exercise
Files folder and this is drawing number four,
| | 00:20 | parking_lot.
| | 00:22 | On my screen I've got a civil
engineering example. This drawing is referred to
| | 00:26 | as a striping and signage plan. Let
me zoom in a little bit. A drawing like
| | 00:30 | this would be used to describe the
dimensions and pavement striping for a
| | 00:34 | proposed parking lot as well as the
location and descriptions of any signage.
| | 00:39 | Let me zoom in on the left side. As
you can see I've got a call-out that
| | 00:43 | identifies these four symbols as
reserved handicapped parking signs.
| | 00:48 | In addition to my description, I've
also included an image of the sign.
| | 00:52 | Let's zoom out. We'll pan over to the right
hand side. I've got another call-out over
| | 00:56 | here. This symbol represents a stop sign.
Now I've already created my call-out.
| | 01:02 | At this point, I'm ready to reference
my stop sign image and I want to practice
| | 01:06 | good form. Let's come up and click our
Layer control and we'll set our image
| | 01:10 | layer current.
| | 01:11 | Then I'm going to come over to my
Reference Manager. I'm going to right-click
| | 01:15 | in the middle of this pane and
select Attach Image. If we look inside the
| | 01:19 | Chapter 4 folder inside our Exercise
Files directory, I'm going to select the
| | 01:24 | stop_sign image and click Open. When
placing this guy I would like to specify
| | 01:30 | the insertion point and I'll also
specify the scale. I'm going to click OK.
| | 01:35 | Now I'm being very careful of my
running object snaps. In fact, I'm going to
| | 01:38 | turn those off momentarily. We'll place
our image right here and I'll click and
| | 01:44 | I'll drag it out to here. Don't worry
about size so much. We can always adjust
| | 01:48 | that later. Let me zoom in a little bit.
| | 01:51 | Now this image is perfect, except I
don't need all this stuff going on around
| | 01:55 | the outside. I only need the image of
the sign itself. So what I'm going to do
| | 02:00 | is clip this image. I'm going to do
that by selecting the image by its edge.
| | 02:05 | I'll right-click, I'll come down to the
Image menu and we'll select Clip. Then
| | 02:09 | we'll select New Boundary.
| | 02:11 | If we look at the command line we can
see we have two options, Polygonal and
| | 02:14 | Rectangular. Based on my shape, I'm
going to right-click and select Polygonal
| | 02:21 | and now I can start picking points to
define my clipping boundary. I'm going to
| | 02:25 | clip here and here, here. We don't
have to be perfect with these. Let me work
| | 02:32 | my way around. We'll get the last one
and when I'm finished, I'll right-click
| | 02:36 | and we'll select Enter.
| | 02:38 | Now here is the nice thing about
AutoCAD clipping boundaries. They're
| | 02:41 | completely dynamic. If I click this edge,
I can select this grip and I can pull
| | 02:46 | it out to here. I can pull this one down;
I can push this one up. Notice I can
| | 02:51 | make as many adjustments as I like. So
now I can come in and I can select these
| | 02:55 | grips and I can dial up the perfect
clipping boundary around my image.
| | 03:02 | Since this image is still selected, I'm
going to right-click and go back to the
| | 03:06 | Image Clip menu. Now that I have a
clipped image, notice I can delete my
| | 03:11 | clipping boundary or I can turn the
clipping feature on or off. Let me hit
| | 03:15 | Escape to clear this menu and let's
back up and let's compare our stop sign
| | 03:20 | with our reserved parking sign. You
know what; I would like to make this a
| | 03:23 | little bit bigger.
| | 03:24 | Since images work just like any other
AutoCAD object, I'm going to move up and
| | 03:28 | select Scale. I'll window this guy and
right-click. I'll pick a point right in
| | 03:33 | the middle and we'll drag him up a
little bit bigger. Finally, I'll come up and
| | 03:38 | launch my Move command. We'll zoom in
and I'll select this guy from the edge
| | 03:43 | and right-click and we'll
move him down into position.
| | 03:46 | By clipping our images in AutoCAD,
we eliminate the need to have duplicate
| | 03:50 | copies of our image files. And if our
clipping boundary needs to change,
| | 03:54 | it's a simple matter of adjusting our grips.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling images to a measurable scale| 00:00 | Occasionally, you may want to
insert an image such that it plots to a
| | 00:03 | measurable scale. This happens
frequently when referencing aerial photographs
| | 00:08 | or maps. In this lesson, we're going
to learn how to insert an image into our
| | 00:12 | drawing such that it measures to a true size.
| | 00:14 | Now let me mention that there is no
special file for this session. In fact,
| | 00:19 | I've just launched my AutoCAD and
we're going to be working in the default
| | 00:22 | Drawing1 drawing. I would like to make
one change. Let's come up to our Tools
| | 00:26 | tab and click. I'm going to come
over to the Drawing Utilities panel,
| | 00:30 | and I'm going to click the Units icon.
| | 00:33 | Currently, this drawing is set such
that each unit equals an inch. That's fine.
| | 00:37 | I'm going to come up and click my
Type flyout, because I would like to use
| | 00:40 | Architectural measurements. Now that
I'm finished, I'm going to come down and
| | 00:44 | click OK.
| | 00:45 | At this point, I would like to
reference an image and see if we can scale it to
| | 00:49 | its true size. To do that I'm going to
go to the External References Manager.
| | 00:53 | Now mine happens to be anchored on my
interface. Let me move down into this
| | 00:57 | pane and I'll right-click and select
Attach Image. Then we'll navigate to the
| | 01:02 | Chapter 4 folder inside our Exercise
Files directory and I'm going to select
| | 01:07 | the football_field image and click Open.
| | 01:10 | When this guy comes in, I would like to
specify his insertion point. But as far
| | 01:15 | as scale, I'm going to uncheck this and
I'm going to type 300. Now this number
| | 01:20 | that I'm using has no real
significance, I just want the image to come in
| | 01:23 | really big. Let's click OK and then
I'll click to place this image on screen.
| | 01:28 | Let's do a Zoom Extents. The image
that we see was formerly a piece of paper
| | 01:34 | that was scanned and is obviously a
picture of a football field. Now this could
| | 01:38 | be anything. It could be an aerial
photo, it could be a scanned construction
| | 01:41 | drawing, it could be a detail. The
fact is that it's very easy to place your
| | 01:45 | image to a true size so long as you
know at least one dimension. Preferably a
| | 01:50 | longer dimension that spans most of your image.
| | 01:53 | In this case, my football field is
360 feet long. To scale this drawing
| | 01:58 | I'm going to create a line segment 360
feet long. Let me back up just a little bit.
| | 02:04 | We'll go to our Home tab. I'll launch
the Line command, I'll pick a point on
| | 02:09 | screen and I'm going to lock my Ortho
and then we'll pull it to right and
| | 02:13 | we'll type 360 feet and I'll hit Enter.
Then we'll hit Escape to get out of the command.
| | 02:21 | Now all I have to do is match my image
to this line using the Align command.
| | 02:26 | I'm going to come up to the Menu
Browser and click. We'll come down to the
| | 02:31 | Modify menu and then I'm going to come
over and grab the slider and we'll pull
| | 02:34 | it down. I'll select 3D Operations
and I'll click Align. The Align command
| | 02:40 | works by matching up points. Let's
select our image and right-click and the
| | 02:45 | first point I would like to match,
I'm going to zoom in right here.
| | 02:48 | Now there is no object snap here. I'm
just going to free-pick a point as close
| | 02:52 | to the corner as possible and then I'll
back up and I would like to match this
| | 02:56 | to the endpoint of this line. Let me
turn back on my running object snaps.
| | 03:02 | There we go. Now my second source
point is going to be right over here. Once
| | 03:08 | again, I'll click as close as I can
and then I'll back up and I would like to
| | 03:12 | match that to the endpoint of this line.
| | 03:15 | Finally, I'll hit Enter to continue
and would I like to scale my object based
| | 03:20 | on the alignment points? Yes, I would.
Now my image is set to its true size and
| | 03:26 | I don't need my line segment anymore,
so let's click Erase and I'll make a
| | 03:29 | window around that guy and we'll right-
click. Let's test this. I want to check
| | 03:34 | the length of this line.
It should come up 160 feet.
| | 03:38 | To do that I'm going to go to the
Tools tab and we'll select Distance. Let me
| | 03:43 | zoom in. Once again, there is no object
snaps. So I'll click right about here.
| | 03:47 | Then I'll back up. We'll pan to the
bottom of the drawing and I'll zoom in and
| | 03:54 | click right here. Notice over the
course of 160 feet, I'm off by less than an
| | 03:59 | inch and a half. That's not bad.
| | 04:03 | So as long as we know one dimension on
our image, we can use the Align command
| | 04:07 | to scale our image to its true size.
Let's detach this image. I'm going to go
| | 04:11 | back to the External Reference Manager;
we'll right-click and cut this guy loose.
| | 04:16 | Because I would like to bring in one more.
Let's look at a worst-case scenario.
| | 04:20 | I'm going to click. We'll select Attach
Image. This time we're going to select
| | 04:25 | the field_scale image and click Open.
I'm going to use the same procedure.
| | 04:29 | We'll select our point on screen and
I would like to bring this guy in at a
| | 04:33 | scale of 300 and I'll click OK.
| | 04:36 | I'm going to move my cursor down
here and I'll click to place this guy on
| | 04:40 | screen. This is another scanned image.
Once again, this could be anything. We
| | 04:45 | could just as easily do this with a
scanned map or an aerial photograph. In
| | 04:49 | this case, I have no measurements given,
but I know that this image was printed
| | 04:53 | on my paper at a scale of 1 inch = 40 feet.
| | 04:57 | Now I may not know the size of the
image on the paper, but I can find the size
| | 05:01 | of the paper. Watch this; I'm going to
select the edge of my image. We'll go to
| | 05:05 | the External Reference Manager. I'm
going to come down and select the name of
| | 05:09 | the reference and in the Details area
I'm going to pull down and I can see the
| | 05:13 | size of this is 8.5x11.
| | 05:16 | So I know the paper is 11 inches wide
and I know that every inch equals 40
| | 05:20 | feet. Let's bring up AutoCAD's
calculator. I'm going to hit Ctrl+8 and we'll
| | 05:25 | type 11x40 and hit Enter. All I have
to do is scale this image such that it's
| | 05:32 | 440 feet wide. Let's do that.
I'm going to close my calculator.
| | 05:36 | To size this, I'm going to click the
edge. I'm going to go to my Property
| | 05:40 | Changer, and notice I have a Width
setting right here. Let me select this and
| | 05:45 | I'll change it to 440 feet, Enter. Now
my image should be true size. Let's move
| | 05:52 | out and we'll hit Escape and then
we'll do a little test. Let me zoom in on
| | 05:56 | this corner. We'll launch the Distance
command again. We'll pick a point right
| | 06:02 | about here and we'll pan over. I'm
going to turn off my Ortho and I'll pick a
| | 06:10 | point right here. Notice over the
course of 360 feet, I'm only off by a 16th of
| | 06:16 | an inch. Once again, that's not bad.
| | 06:20 | So as long as you know one single
dimension or the scale in which your scanned
| | 06:23 | image was printed, you can place any
image into AutoCAD at its true size.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying transparency to images| 00:00 | You might think that all of the images
that we reference into AutoCAD have to
| | 00:03 | be rectangles. Not so, because
AutoCAD supports image transparency.
| | 00:08 | If you can create an image with transparent
pixels, you can display your images using
| | 00:12 | whatever boundary shape you like.
| | 00:15 | In this lesson, we are going to
learn how to work with images that use
| | 00:17 | transparency. If you would like to work
along with me, this drawing is located
| | 00:22 | in the exercise files folder, and this
is drawing number 6, transparent_image.
| | 00:26 | On my screen I have got a drawing of a
football field. Now, the only thing this
| | 00:30 | field is missing is a large logo right
here at the 50 yard line. I would like
| | 00:34 | to reference an image to use as my logo.
Before I do that, let's jump over to
| | 00:39 | Adobe Photoshop so I can show
you the image I'll be using.
| | 00:43 | The image I'll be referencing is
called Lynda_helmet.png. PNG stands of
| | 00:48 | Portable Network Graphic. One nice
thing about the PNG format is that it
| | 00:53 | supports transparency. This checkered
pattern around my image shows me that
| | 00:57 | these pixels are meant to be transparent.
| | 00:59 | Now, the PNG file extension is not the
only type that supports transparency.
| | 01:03 | Images that end in .tif or .gif
also support transparent pixels.
| | 01:09 | Let's flip back over to AutoCAD and
we'll place this image in our drawing.
| | 01:13 | Notice that I'm practicing good form. I
have created a layer for my images, and
| | 01:17 | that guy is set Current.
| | 01:18 | Let's come over to the References
Manager, and I'll right-click and select
| | 01:22 | Attach Image. From here we'll look
inside the Chapter 04 folder, inside our
| | 01:27 | exercise files directory, and we'll
come over and select Lynda_helmet,
| | 01:31 | and click Open.
| | 01:33 | When I drop this guy in the drawing, I
would like to specify my insertion point
| | 01:37 | and my Scale. Let's click OK. I have
got a whole bunch of endpoints here, so
| | 01:42 | I'm going to turn off my running object
snaps momentarily, and let's place the
| | 01:46 | image right here. Then
we'll scale it up to about here.
| | 01:51 | Let's zoom in a little bit. At this
point the image doesn't look that great.
| | 01:55 | Don't forget this image is meant
to be transparent. To turn on the
| | 01:58 | Transparency, I'll select the image
by the edge, and then I'll right-click.
| | 02:03 | We'll come down to the Image menu
and we'll select Transparency,
| | 02:06 | and then we'll turn it on.
| | 02:08 | Let's use the Move tool, and we'll
grab the image by the edge, right-click.
| | 02:12 | I'll back up a little bit, and we'll
pick it up from here. I'll turn off my
| | 02:18 | Horizontal and we'll center
this guy a little bit better.
| | 02:22 | Now that I'm finished, the only thing I
have to do is turn off my image frame.
| | 02:26 | To do that, I'm going to go to the Menu
Browser. We'll come down to the Modify
| | 02:30 | menu and select Object, then we'll
select Image. I'll click Frame and
| | 02:36 | we'll set this to 0.
| | 02:38 | Having transparent pixels means
that our images don't always have to be
| | 02:42 | rectangles. If you have the ability to
create transparent images, AutoCAD can
| | 02:47 | support that transparency in your drawings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | Well, I'm afraid our time together has
come to a close. Let me say that it has
| | 00:04 | been my privilege to work with you
these past couple of hours. Now is the time
| | 00:08 | for you to take your new drafting
skills and use them to advance your career in
| | 00:12 | production drafting. Good Luck!
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
