IntroductionWelcome| 00:03 | Hi, I'm Jeff Bartels. Welcome to AutoCAD Essentials
2, Drawing Fundamentals. In this title,
| | 00:10 | we'll take our first steps into the world
of geometric construction. We'll start by
| | 00:14 | looking at some basic drawing tools,
focusingon how they're used, and what options are
| | 00:19 | available. Along the way, I'll be stressing
the fundamental usage of each command to ensure
| | 00:24 | we're creating accurate geometry.
Next, we'lltalk about setting and working with drawing
| | 00:29 | units. Once we're comfortable with the basic
tools and our drawing environment, we'll explore
| | 00:35 | some of the specialized drawing commands,
designed to save us time when creating more
| | 00:39 | complex shapes. Finally, we'll learn how to
make modifications to our geometry such that
| | 00:45 | we can incorporate several shapes together
into a final design.
| | 00:49 | At the end of the title, you'll have an opportunity
to put your skills to the test by reproducing
| | 00:54 | a small mechanical part using what you've
learned. When you're ready, follow me and
| | 00:58 | we'll get started.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you purchased the DVD or are a Premium
subscriber of the lynda.com, you'll have access
| | 00:05 | to the exercise files used in this title.
They will be in a folder called Exercise Files.
| | 00:11 | If you download them, place them on your
desktop. In there, you'll find up content
| | 00:15 | divided up into directories named after the
chapters where they're used. By placing the
| | 00:20 | exercise files on the desktop, you will be
able to access them the same way that I do
| | 00:24 | in the course.
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1. Creating Basic GeometryConstructing lines| 00:00 | In order to start drawing in AutoCAD,
the first fundamental skill we need to learn is
| | 00:04 | how to draw lines. So in this lesson,
we're going to take a look at the Line command.
| | 00:09 | Let me mention that I have already created
some geometry onscreen. This green rectangle
| | 00:14 | represents a sandbox, if you will. This is
to ensure that you and I are both drawing
| | 00:19 | within the same sized area in model space.
One more thing: in order to make sure that
| | 00:25 | what you see on your screen matches what you
see on my screen, take a look at the status
| | 00:29 | bar settings at the bottom of my interface.
Currently, I have all of these guys turned
| | 00:34 | off, with the exception of Grid and Transparency.
| | 00:38 | If you would, make sure that you're setting
match mine. To create a line, I'm going to
| | 00:42 | move up to the Draw panel in the Ribbon and
I'll click the icon. I can then look at the
| | 00:47 | command line. This is where AutoCAD tells
me what it needs to complete the command.
| | 00:52 | Looking at this I'm going to pick my first
point and then as I move my cursor, take a
| | 00:56 | look at the line segment. This is called the
rubber-band effect. I can pull this line out
| | 01:01 | and click to define the end point. From here,
I could click additional points onscreen.
| | 01:07 | And from this point, I could continue to click
additional points or take a look at the command
| | 01:12 | line. Notice there's some additional suboptions
down here between the brackets. Suboptions
| | 01:17 | are additional functions that can be accessed
within a running command. And there are three
| | 01:22 | ways to select a sub-option. I'm going to
show you all three methods and you can choose
| | 01:27 | your favorite. The first way to launch a suboption
is by typing the capitalized letter of the option.
| | 01:33 | For instance, if I wanted to back up one step
or undo, I'll type U and hit Enter. Another
| | 01:40 | way to access these options is by right-clicking.
You'll find them right in the middle of the
| | 01:44 | menu. I'll click Undo to back up one more segment.
Probably the easiest way to access a suboption
| | 01:50 | is by coming right down to the command line
and selecting it from here. These guys act
| | 01:54 | just like hyperlinks. I'm going to close my
shape by selecting Close. Now, I'd like to
| | 01:59 | create another line segment. To relaunch the
Line command, I could move up and select the
| | 02:04 | icon again or if I press my spacebar or Enter
key, I can relaunch the previous command.
| | 02:12 | I'm going to pick a few more points here
onscreen. And let's say that this particular
| | 02:17 | location represents the end of my geometry.
When I am finished with this geometry, I can
| | 02:22 | move up and press the Escape key to let AutoCAD
know I am finished with the command. Let's
| | 02:27 | launch the command one more time. I'm going
to pick my first point onscreen, and let's
| | 02:32 | say I'd like to create a line segment that
is ten units long. I'm going to pull my cursor
| | 02:37 | over here to the right and I'll type 10 and
press Enter. I just constructed a line segment
| | 02:42 | ten units long in the direction in which I
was pulling. I'm going to pull in this direction
| | 02:47 | and type 3 and hit Enter to create a line
segment 3 units long. Let's create one
| | 02:52 | 7 units long in this direction. Maybe
5 units long in this direction, and when
| | 02:59 | I'm finished, I'll come down and click Close.
| | 03:02 | As you can see, AutoCAD makes it fairly easy
to construct line work, and the line work that
| | 03:07 | we've created here is okay, but it's still
fairly abstract. In our next lesson, we'll
| | 03:12 | learn how to get even more control over the
Line command, such that we can create geometry
| | 03:16 | that has more dimensional value.
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| Locking angles using the Ortho and Polar modes| 00:00 | The first step towards creating accurate geometry
is knowing that you can enter linear measurements
| | 00:04 | as you draw. The next step is knowing how
to control the direction of your line work.
| | 00:10 | In this, lesson we'll explore the Ortho and
Polar mode settings. I'm going to start by
| | 00:14 | launching the Line command and I'll pick a
point onscreen, and let's say I'd like to
| | 00:19 | create a perfect square that measures
3 x 3. Well, I could pull to the right,
| | 00:25 | type 3, and hit Enter. And then I could
pull down and type 3 and hit Enter. But
| | 00:32 | you know what? I guarantee that the angles
at which I'm pulling these lines are not accurate.
| | 00:36 | This guy is not horizontal and this one is
definitely not vertical.
| | 00:39 | Tell you what, let's remove some of this line
work. To do that, I'll come back and click
| | 00:43 | Undo and Undo to back up where I started. Now,
I'm going to come down and turn on my Ortho
| | 00:49 | mode. To do that, I'll come down to the status
bar and click the Ortho mode icon. Note that
| | 00:55 | we can also toggle this tool by pressing F8.
When I do, you can see that this restricts
| | 01:01 | my cursor movement to 90-degree increments,
which is actually perfect. If I want to draw
| | 01:06 | a square now, I can simply pull to the right
and type 3 and hit Enter. I'll come down,
| | 01:11 | 3, and hit Enter. I'll come over, 3,
and then I'm going to come down and click
| | 01:17 | Close to close my shape. Knowing what we know
now, let's try and recreate the geometry on
| | 01:22 | the right side of the screen. I'm going to
press my spacebar to re-launch line. I'll
| | 01:26 | pick my starting point. I'm going to be starting
in the lower-right corner. I'll work my way around clockwise.
| | 01:32 | So, I'll pull to the left four units and hit
Enter. I'll come up 4.5, Enter. I'll come
| | 01:39 | over 2.25. And then it becomes a race to see
who gets this finished first, you or me. Let
| | 01:47 | me come over five. I'm going to come down
1.25. And I typed an incorrect measurement
| | 01:53 | there. That's all right, don't worry.
We can always come down and click Undo to take that
| | 01:57 | away. Let me correct that. That measurement
should have been 2.5. I'll come over one and
| | 02:04 | a quarter. And then I'll finish my shape
by clicking Close. As you can see, by restricting
| | 02:10 | the direction of our cursor to 90-degree increments,
it's very easy to create accurate geometry.
| | 02:15 | Now, what if you'd like to snap to additional
angles? Well, that's what the Polar Setting
| | 02:21 | is for. Let's take a look. I'm going to pan
my geometry over. I'll launch the Line command
| | 02:26 | again and pick a point onscreen. You can
see that the Ortho is still locked. I'm going
| | 02:31 | to come down and click the icon right next
to Ortho. This guy stands for Polar Tracking.
| | 02:36 | Note that we can also toggle this tool using
the F10 key. When I turn it on and move my
| | 02:41 | cursor, you'll see that polar allows us to
snap to 90-degree increments by default. So,
| | 02:47 | if I wanted to draw a line horizontal on my
screen, I could simply pull to the right and
| | 02:52 | type a distance like 5 and hit Enter.
Ican also draw to other angles if I wish. But
| | 02:58 | as long as I get close to an even 90,
I can snap to that direction.
| | 03:02 | I'm going to press Escape to finish my line.
Let's launch the command again. And let's
| | 03:08 | say I'd like to create a diamond shape that
measures 3 x 3. I'll start by picking
| | 03:13 | my first point onscreen and you can see the
90 is nice here, but really, I'd like to snap
| | 03:19 | to a different angle. Let's change our polar
angle. To do that, I'll come down and right-click
| | 03:25 | on the Polar icon and I will select a new
angle from this list. I'm going to choose
| | 03:30 | 45 and you can see that I now snap to every
45-degree increment. So to create my diamond,
| | 03:36 | I'll pull up and to the right. I'll type 3,
Enter. I'll come down to the right, 3, Enter.
| | 03:43 | We'll come over 3, and then I'll click
Close to finish my shape. Knowing what we
| | 03:48 | know now, let's see if we can re-create this
geometry. I'll start by relaunching the Line
| | 03:53 | command. I'll pick a point in the lower-right
corner and I will pull to the left five units.
| | 04:00 | I will come up ten units, making sure that
I am snapped to that angle when I hit Enter.
| | 04:06 | And you know, at this point you may be
wondering, can you take and jump back and forth
| | 04:09 | between Polar and Ortho? Sure you can. I can
come down and turn my ortho back on, and I
| | 04:15 | can come over five units. I can come down
1.23. At this point I need
| | 04:20 | a 45-degree angle. I'll come over and turn
my polar back on. We'll take care of this
| | 04:25 | distance, 2.5. I'll come down four. I'll come
over 2.5. Then when I'm finished, I'll click
| | 04:35 | Close. And since I'm finished creating geometry
for right now, I'm going to come down and
| | 04:39 | turn my polar mode back off. As you can see,
the Ortho and Polar modes allow us to control
| | 04:44 | the direction in which our line segments are
drawn, making it very easy to construct accurate
| | 04:49 | geometry.
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| Drawing circles| 00:00 | No matter how complicated a drawing looks,
it's essentially a collection of straight
| | 00:04 | lines and curves. Well, we've seen how to
create straight lines. In this lesson, we'll
| | 00:09 | learn how to draw some curves in the form
of circles. Specifically, we'll be looking
| | 00:13 | at the radius and diameter method of creating
circles. On my screen, I've got an example
| | 00:19 | of a circle. Let's take a second and talk
just a little bit about how circles are measured.
| | 00:24 | A circle's radius is the distance from the
center point to the edge of the circle, and
| | 00:30 | a circle's diameter is the distance from
one side of the circle to the other, where
| | 00:34 | that measurement passes through point.
| | 00:37 | It's essentially the width of the circle.
To draw a circle, I'll move up to the Draw
| | 00:40 | panel in the Ribbon and click the Circle icon.
I will then click to define the center point
| | 00:46 | of my circle. And as I pull away, notice I'm
getting the same rubber-band effect that we
| | 00:50 | get when we create a line segment.
I'm going to pull out a little bit. I'll click one more
| | 00:54 | time to define the circle's radius. Now this
circle is nice, but it has no real geometric
| | 01:00 | value. Let's create another circle, except
this time we'll base the circle on a real
| | 01:05 | measurement. I'm going to press my spacebar
to relaunch the command. I'll pick to define
| | 01:09 | my center point, and then I'm going to give
this circle a radius of three, and I'll press
| | 01:15 | Enter, all right? Let's say I'd like to create
another circle with the same radius.
| | 01:19 | Once again, I'll re-launch the command, I'll pick
a point onscreen, and take a look at the command line.
| | 01:25 | Notice this number inside these little carets.
This represents the default measurement for
| | 01:30 | the command. You'll see a number like this
in several AutoCAD commands. Essentially AutoCAD
| | 01:35 | remembers the previous value that you used
the last time you launched that command. So,
| | 01:39 | if I want to create another circle with a
radius of 3, all I have to do is press
| | 01:44 | Enter and accept that default value. Let's
create another circle, except this time we'll
| | 01:48 | create it using a diameter. I'm going to move
up and relaunch the command. I'll pick my
| | 01:53 | center point and then if we look at the command
line, notice there's a suboption right here
| | 01:58 | representing diameter.
| | 01:59 | I'll click to select that, and I'll give this
circle a diameter of 2, then I'll press Enter.
| | 02:05 | Now, if you were looking closely, you probably
noticed that the Circle icon has a flyout
| | 02:10 | underneath it. If I click this, it will open
up my Circle menu, showing me all of the different
| | 02:15 | ways that I can construct a circle. Actually,
there is only one circle command, the default
| | 02:20 | being Center Radius. The rest of these are
merely shortcuts to the suboptions within
| | 02:25 | that main command. For instance, if I wanted
to draw another circle using the diameter
| | 02:30 | method, I can simply choose Center Diameter,
pick my center point onscreen, and if you
| | 02:36 | look at the command line you can see the computer's
entered the D for diameter for me. Like I
| | 02:41 | said, it's a convenience, a shortcut if you
will. Let's create this circle with a diameter
| | 02:45 | of 1.5, and I'll press Enter.
| | 02:49 | So, be aware that these additional options
are here. Use them if you wish. Just note
| | 02:54 | that if you do select one of these shortcuts,
that guy will become the default the next
| | 02:58 | time you launch the Circle command from up
here. Now that we understand how the circle
| | 03:02 | command works, let's try it out. I'm going
to pan the drawing over. On my screen, I have
| | 03:08 | some example circles. Let's see if we can
recreate this geometry. I'll start with this
| | 03:13 | circle right here. Since this circle is asking
for a radius, I'm going to open the flyout
| | 03:18 | and choose this Center Radius method.
I'll click to define my center point, and the circle
| | 03:23 | has a radius of 2.5. Now, press Enter.
Next, we'll recreate this one. Take a look at this
| | 03:29 | icon that's being used in the dimension.
This is a standard symbol representing diameter.
| | 03:34 | So, to create this circle, I'll launch the
Circle command, pick my center point, I'm
| | 03:40 | going to use the diameter option, and I'll
give this a diameter of 2.25.
| | 03:45 | Finally, we'll create this circle.
Notice that it's dimension is conspicuously absent.
| | 03:51 | That's all right. We can get the dimension
ourselves. If I select this circle and come
| | 03:56 | over to my Properties palette, my palette
happens to be anchored to the left side of
| | 04:01 | the screen. If your Properties palette is
not visible, you can press Control+1 to toggle
| | 04:05 | its display. I will then come down to the
Geometry area, and I can see that this circle
| | 04:09 | has a radius of 4. So, I'll move my cursor
back into model space and I'll press Escape
| | 04:14 | to deselect the object. I'll launch the Circle
command one more time, pick my center point,
| | 04:20 | and give this circle a radius of four.
I'm sure you'll agree that knowing what we know
| | 04:24 | now, it's safe to say that we can create just
about any circle that our design may require.
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| Activating the heads-up display| 00:00 | One of the negatives of the command line is
that it requires us to keep looking at the
| | 00:04 | bottom of the screen to find out what AutoCAD
wants us to do next. Fortunately, there's
| | 00:08 | a way to get AutoCAD to speak to us from the
cursor. In this lesson, we'll learn how to
| | 00:13 | use the heads-up display. We can activate
the heads-up display by coming down to the
| | 00:17 | status bar. It's the sixth one from the right
side. Officially, it's called Dynamic Input.
| | 00:23 | Now, we can also toggle this control by using
the F12 key. I'm going to turn it on, and
| | 00:29 | we don't notice anything immediately on the
screen. Let's launch the Line command. Notice
| | 00:34 | that AutoCAD is now speaking to us from the cursor.
| | 00:37 | In fact, if I click to start my line,
notice that we have some additional dimensional values
| | 00:42 | that we didn't have before. Here's how they
work. You can press your Tab key to jump back
| | 00:48 | and forth between the Length and the Angle
settings. Let's say I'd like to draw a square
| | 00:52 | that measures 10 x 10. I'll make sure that
my Length setting is active and I'll type
| | 00:58 | 10 and I'll hit the Tab key to jump to the
directional value. And it's pretty obvious
| | 01:03 | that I need to draw this in the 0-degree
direction. I have also included this small
| | 01:08 | compass to give you an idea of how the directions
work. I'm going to type 0 and hit Enter.
| | 01:14 | I will then enter another value of 10 and
hit Tab. I'm going to be drawing this in the
| | 01:19 | 90-degree direction, so I'll type 90 and hit
Enter. I will then enter my next length and
| | 01:26 | hit Tab. Make sure you don't hit Enter.
If you do hit Enter, you'll finish that line
| | 01:30 | segment, and that's not the end of the world.
| | 01:32 | Don't forget, you can always come down and
undo if you make a mistake. I'm going to be
| | 01:36 | drawing this segment in the 180-degree direction.
And to finish my shape, I'm going to use a
| | 01:42 | suboption. In this case, I'll type C for
Close and hit Enter. Note that the Heads-Up
| | 01:47 | Display tool allowed me to create accurate
geometry without the need for Polar or Ortho.
| | 01:52 | It's just another tool that I have at my disposal.
Now that we understand how the Heads-Up Display
| | 01:57 | tool works, let's try and use it in a practical
example. I'm going to pan the drawing over,
| | 02:03 | and let's see if we can
use the tool to recreate this geometry.
| | 02:07 | I'll start by launching the Line command and
I'm going to start in the upper-right corner
| | 02:12 | here. So, I'll move my cursor over and give
myself some room, and I'll click to set my
| | 02:17 | start point. My first measurement is five
units. I'll hit Tab. I'm drawing that in the
| | 02:23 | 90-degree direction. My next measurement is
3. I'll hit Tab. I'm drawing this in the
| | 02:29 | 180-degree direction. We'll go another distance
of 3 in the 90-degree direction. My next
| | 02:37 | measurement is 4. Remember to hit Tab to
jump between the values. This line is being
| | 02:42 | drawn in the 180-degree direction. My next
segment is 4.24, Tab, in the 135-degree direction,
| | 02:53 | Enter, and we are off to the races.
Can I get mine finished before you finish yours?
| | 03:00 | This guy is drawn in the 90-degree direction,
two more, 6.07, Tab, 22.5, Enter, and I'm
| | 03:12 | going to press C for Close.
| | 03:14 | Running the heads-up display also gives us
an additional feature we didn't have before.
| | 03:18 | For instance, if I select one of these lines
and hover over the end point, provided by heads-up
| | 03:24 | display is turned on, AutoCAD will give me
the length of that line and the angle at which
| | 03:28 | it was drawn. When I'm finished reviewing
my geometry, I can hit Escape to deselect
| | 03:32 | the object. As you can see, activating the
heads-up display not only allows AutoCAD
| | 03:37 | to speak to us from the cursor, it also provides
yet another tool we can use to construct and
| | 03:42 | verify our geometry. Before leaving this tutorial,
see if you can construct the same shape using
| | 03:47 | one of the other methods you've learned.
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2. Understanding Drawing UnitsDefining a unit of measure| 00:00 | AutoCAD is used by several disciplines to
create many different types of construction
| | 00:05 | drawings. For this reason, AutoCAD allows
us to draw using virtually any unit of measure
| | 00:09 | that we like, whether it be inches, millimeters,
feet, or something else entirely. In this
| | 00:15 | lesson, we're going to learn how to assign
a unit of measure to a drawing. As you can
| | 00:19 | see, I've just launched my AutoCAD and I'm
sitting in the default Drawing1 file.
| | 00:24 | I'd like to start by drawing a line, so I'll move
up and launch the Line command, I'll pick
| | 00:29 | a point onscreen and then I will pull to
the right. The angle isn't important right
| | 00:34 | now. I just liked to create a line that is
one unit long, so I'll type 1 and hit Enter.
| | 00:41 | When I'm finished, I'll press Escape.
I will then roll my mouse wheel forward. We'll zoom
| | 00:45 | in on this line a little bit. Now, my question
is, What unit of measure does this line represent?
| | 00:51 | Is this line one foot? Is it one mile?
Could it be one millimeter? Well, this line represents
| | 00:57 | whatever unit of measure I want it to represent.
All I have to do is let AutoCAD know the units
| | 01:03 | I'm using. To do that, I'll open the application
menu, I'll come down to Drawing Utilities,
| | 01:10 | and then I'll come over and select Units.
This brings up the Drawing Units dialog box,
| | 01:14 | and I can see right here the default unit
of measure that's assigned to this file.
| | 01:19 | So technically, this line represents one inch.
If I open the menu, you can see that there
| | 01:24 | are several other choices. The more popular
ones are up towards the top. I'm going to
| | 01:30 | change this to feet and when I do, you might
think that the length of this line changes;
| | 01:35 | it does not. You see, AutoCAD only recognizes units.
So this line still has a length of 1.
| | 01:41 | It's just that now this one represents one foot.
So whenever I'm working on a file, I can use
| | 01:47 | whatever unit of measure is convenient for
my drawing. That being said, there are some
| | 01:52 | standards. If you are a civil engineer or
a surveyor, your drawing will always be set
| | 01:57 | such that your units represent feet. If you're
an architect, your drawing will always be
| | 02:03 | set such that your units represent inches.
If you have any questions regarding what units
| | 02:08 | you should be using, check with your CAD manager
or with others who work in your industry to
| | 02:13 | determine which units are
common for your type of work.
| | 02:16 | Take a look just above the Units menu.
This says Units to scale inserted content. This
| | 02:22 | means that if I assign a unit of measure
to my drawing, in this case feet, and a consultant
| | 02:28 | that I'm working with is constructing a drawing
in millimeters, if I was to insert his drawing
| | 02:33 | into mine, AutoCAD will do the conversion
for me. It'll scale his geometry such that
| | 02:38 | it comes in proportionately sized in my file.
Once we're finished selecting a unit of measure,
| | 02:44 | we can then take a look at these two groups
at the top. These guys represent how AutoCAD
| | 02:48 | will report measurements to us if we query
our geometry. Using the current settings,
| | 02:53 | Auto CAD will report lengths using decimals
to a precision to four decimal spaces. It
| | 02:59 | will report angles using decimal degrees,
and it will report them to the even degree.
| | 03:05 | Note that in both cases, I can set my precision
all the way up to eight spaces to the right
| | 03:09 | of the decimal.
| | 03:10 | I'm going to change my angle precision to
two decimal spaces. And then I'll click OK
| | 03:15 | to dismiss this dialog box, and we'll try
it out. I'm going to select this line, and
| | 03:20 | then I'll come over to my Properties palette,
which is anchored to my interface. If yours
| | 03:25 | is not visible onscreen, you can press Ctrl+1
to toggle it's display. I will then grab
| | 03:30 | the slider and drag it down to the bottom.
And we can see the length of this line is
| | 03:35 | given in decimals, to four decimal spaces.
The angle is also given in decimal degrees
| | 03:40 | to two spaces. When I'm finished checking
this, I will move my cursor out into model
| | 03:45 | space, let that palette collapse, and then
I'll press Escape to deselect this object.
| | 03:50 | Let's return to the Units dialog box and look
at some of the other options we have available.
| | 03:55 | As far as angles are concerned, Decimal Degrees
is by far the most popular choice. If I open
| | 04:00 | the menu, you can see
that we have additional options.
| | 04:03 | If you are a surveyor, you might be interested
in having your angles reported in degrees,
| | 04:07 | minutes, seconds, or using surveyor units,
where the compass direction is also included.
| | 04:14 | If you have any questions about the other
options in this menu, come down and click
| | 04:17 | Help and AutoCAD will give you more information.
With respect to length type, we also have
| | 04:23 | additional options. By far, the most popular
are the Decimal and Architectural. If you
| | 04:29 | are an architect, you will always be using
the Architectural option because it will
| | 04:33 | report your lengths using fractional measurement.
When it comes to the other less common choices,
| | 04:38 | once again, come down and use the Help feature
to get more information. Let's close this
| | 04:43 | dialog box. And at this point, I'd like to
open a couple finished drawings and take
| | 04:48 | a look at the Units settings that we're used.
To do that, I'll click the Open icon. And
| | 04:53 | I'd like to open these first two drawings.
I'll do that by clicking the first one and
| | 04:58 | then I'll hold my Shift key and I'll select
the second one. I will then come down and
| | 05:03 | click Open to open both files in the interface.
Now in my case, the billiard balls drawing
| | 05:09 | ended up in front. If that did not occur on
your machine, you can always press Ctrl+
| | 05:14 | Tab to cycle through all of your open drawings.
| | 05:18 | Just continue to press Ctrl+Tab until
the billiard balls drawing is in front. Now
| | 05:22 | a standard American billiard ball measures
57 millimeters in diameter. We can see that
| | 05:27 | I have a dimension right here of 57. I'm going
to select this circle, I'll come over to my
| | 05:32 | Properties palette, and I can see right here
that in fact this circle has a diameter of
| | 05:37 | 57. So in this drawing, the units must represent
millimeters. I'm going to press Escape and
| | 05:44 | we'll verify that by opening the application
menu, come down to Drawing Utilities, and I'll
| | 05:50 | select Units. And we can see, yes, in fact,
the units in this drawing are set to millimeters.
| | 05:56 | Let's close this. I'll close the drawing
as well. I'm not going to save changes. In this
| | 06:01 | file, I have a standard billiard table.
The standard dimensions for a professional billiard
| | 06:06 | table measure 108 inches long by 54 inches
wide. As you can see, I have some dimensions
| | 06:12 | in this file. I'm going to select this line
that represents the length of the table. I'll
| | 06:18 | open my Properties palette, I'll drag down
to find the Length setting, and I can see
| | 06:24 | that this line measures 108 units long.
| | 06:27 | So in this drawing, each unit must represent
an inch. I'll press Escape. Once again, we'll
| | 06:32 | verify that by visiting the Units dialog box,
and yes, in fact, this drawing is set up as
| | 06:38 | inches. Once again, I'll close the dialog
box, and we'll close this drawing without
| | 06:42 | saving. So, no matter what unit of measure
you prefer to work in, whether it be inches,
| | 06:47 | feet, millimeters, or something else entirely,
it's nice to know that AutoCAD is flexible
| | 06:52 | enough to allow you to work using the units
of your choice.
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| Drawing in architectural units| 00:00 | In the event you are creating a drawing using
architectural measurements, it's important
| | 00:04 | to know that AutoCAD requires those dimensions
to be entered a specific way. In this lesson,
| | 00:10 | we're going to learn how to construct geometry
using architectural measurements. On my screen
| | 00:14 | I have a drawing that represents a floor plan.
This file is set up using the typical units
| | 00:19 | and settings common to architectural work.
We'll verify that. To do that, I'll open the
| | 00:25 | application menu, I'll come down to Drawing
Utilities, and I'll select Units. As you can
| | 00:30 | see, my units are set to inches and my length
type is set to Architectural so my measurements
| | 00:36 | will be reported using fractional units.
Let's close this.
| | 00:40 | Since this drawing is set up to be an architectural
drawing, we can construct our geometry using
| | 00:44 | feet and inches. Let's take a look at how
it works. I'm going to zoom in on this pair
| | 00:49 | of offices. I'll center this onscreen.
I would like to recreate the geometry of this
| | 00:56 | desk, file cabinet, and this desk lamp in the
room next door. We'll start with the desk.
| | 01:02 | I'm going to move up and launch the Line command,
and I will pick a point close to the corner
| | 01:08 | of the room. I will then come down and lock
my Ortho, and I'll pull to the right, and I'll
| | 01:14 | enter my measurement this way. Five feet--
I'm using the apostrophe symbol right next
| | 01:20 | to the Enter key--four inches. I'm using the
quote symbol also next to the Enter key. When
| | 01:26 | I'm finished, I'll hit Enter. And you can
see that AutoCAD recognizes the measurement
| | 01:30 | is in feet and inches. I will then
pull up and type 2'6," Enter.
| | 01:38 | I'll pull to the left, five feet, four inches, Enter.
And rather than entering the final dimension,
| | 01:45 | I'm going to come down and click Close to
finish the desk. As you can see, entering
| | 01:49 | your measurements using feet and inches is
pretty straightforward. The only time this
| | 01:54 | gets a little weird is when we have to enter
fractional inches. Here's how we do that.
| | 01:59 | I'm going to construct the file cabinet next.
I'll launch my Line command, I'll pick a point
| | 02:05 | right over here by the front of the desk,
and I'm going to draw this one clockwise,
| | 02:10 | so I'll pull up, and I'll type 2'3-1/4."
We have to put the dash between the whole and
| | 02:20 | the fractional inches;
| | 02:22 | otherwise, AutoCAD looks at this as being
31 fourths, which obviously isn't correct.
| | 02:27 | I'm going to press Enter to accept this value.
I will then pull to the right and type 1'8-3/4,"
| | 02:35 | Enter. I'll pull down, 2' 3-1/4", Enter.
And then I'll come down and click Close to finish
| | 02:48 | the file cabinet. At this point, you may be
wondering if there are any shortcuts when
| | 02:52 | it comes to entering architectural measurements.
Well, there is one. You do not have to use
| | 02:58 | the inch symbol when entering your measurements.
This is because the drawing units are set
| | 03:02 | to inches and that's what AutoCAD is expecting.
To demonstrate that, I'm going to create this
| | 03:07 | desk lamp. I'll do that by launching the Circle
command. I'll click to place my center point,
| | 03:13 | and then I will enter a radius of 6-5/16.
Enter. So if the inch symbol is left off,
| | 03:21 | AutoCAD assumes we're using inches.
As you can see, once you understand how AutoCAD likes
| | 03:26 | architectural measurements formatted, creating
geometry using feet and inches is quite easy.
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| Working with metric units| 00:00 | On my screen, I have an example of a metric
drawing. If I open the Units dialog box, you
| | 00:06 | can see that this drawing was created such
that each unit represents a millimeter.
| | 00:10 | Based on what we know now, you may think that working
in metric is as simple as choosing Metric
| | 00:15 | units from this list. It actually goes a little
bit beyond that. In this lesson, we're going
| | 00:21 | to learn how to configure AutoCAD to work
in a metric environment. I'm going to close
| | 00:26 | this drawing. I won't save changes. And I'd
like to create a new drawing. I'll do that
| | 00:31 | by clicking the New icon. And I'm going to
select the ACAD.dwt template. This is the
| | 00:37 | default template that's
used each time we launch AutoCAD.
| | 00:41 | It's important to understand that this template
represents an imperial working environment.
| | 00:46 | Sure, I could jump out here to my Units dialog
box and I could set this to millimeters;
| | 00:53 | however, this doesn't convert the entire drawing.
As an example--I'm going to accept this change--
| | 01:00 | I'll launch my Plot command, and you can see
that my paper size is still defaulting to
| | 01:05 | imperial measurements. Likewise, this drawing
is also using a line type file that is scaled
| | 01:10 | for imperial units. If you are committed to
working in a metric environment, you need
| | 01:15 | to start your drawings from a metric template.
As an example, I'm going to launch the New
| | 01:20 | command again. This time I'll select the ACAD
ISO template file. This template is set up
| | 01:26 | for metric usage. If I check the Units dialog
box, you can see that this guy is defaulting
| | 01:32 | to millimeters. Likewise, if I launch the
Plot command, you can see that my paper sizes
| | 01:38 | are defaulting to metric measurements.
And you'll have to take my word for it, the line type
| | 01:43 | file associated with this drawing is scaled
for metric measurement.
| | 01:47 | So, this is truly a metric environment.
Now in the event you're someone who frequently
| | 01:53 | does design work in metric, you may be wondering
if it's possible to set the ACAD ISO template
| | 01:58 | to be the default each time you launch AutoCAD.
And the answer is, yes, you can. All we have
| | 02:03 | to do is edit the user preferences. To do
that, I'll open the application menu and I'll
| | 02:07 | come down and select Options. I will then
select the Files tab. This is where we choose
| | 02:13 | the paths where AutoCAD should look for things.
I'm going to come down and click to open Template
| | 02:18 | Settings. And then I'll open Default
Template Filename for QNEW.
| | 02:23 | I'll click to Select The Setting and then
I'll come up and click Browse. This takes
| | 02:27 | me right to the Template Folder where I can
select the ACAD ISO template. I'll click Open.
| | 02:33 | I'll click Apply and OK. From now on,
the next time I launch AutoCAD, it will open using
| | 02:39 | the metric template. Let's test that.
I'll close the application. I'm not going to
| | 02:44 | save changes to these drawings. I will then
relaunch AutoCAD. And as a quick example, I'll
| | 02:49 | launch the Plot command, and you can see my
paper sizes are listed in millimeters. In
| | 02:54 | fact, each time I click the New button from
now on, it will create a new drawing based
| | 02:59 | on the ACAD ISO template. If the time comes
when you'd like to put things back the way
| | 03:03 | they were and return AutoCAD to an imperial
environment, simply return to Options, select
| | 03:10 | the Files tab, Open Template Settings, and
Default Template File Name for QNEW,
| | 03:17 | choose the Path, and select Remove, then click
Apply and OK. Since no path was given, AutoCAD
| | 03:25 | has no choice but to return to the original
setting of None. So, AutoCAD is once again
| | 03:30 | defaulting to an imperial drafting environment.
In the event you're someone who likes to work
| | 03:35 | in metric now and then, it's nice to know
that AutoCAD has a pre-made template ready
| | 03:39 | to go. If you're a hardcore metric user,
simply assign this template as your default and
| | 03:44 | you will always be working in a metric environment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Maintaining AccuracyUnderstanding the Cartesian coordinate system| 00:00 | AutoCAD is a vector-based application.
This means that all of the geometry that we see
| | 00:05 | in a drawing is tied to an underlying coordinate
system. This coordinate system allows AutoCAD
| | 00:10 | to know with a high degree of precision where
everything spatially exists in a file.
| | 00:15 | In this lesson, we're going to take a behind-the-scenes
look at model space to better understand how
| | 00:19 | AutoCAD manages our geometry. Generally speaking,
model space represents an infinitely large
| | 00:25 | grid, much like a sheet of graph paper.
We draw our geometry on this grid and AutoCAD
| | 00:31 | uses the grid to maintain the accuracy of
the file. It does this through the use of
| | 00:35 | baselines. The first is an
East-West baseline called the x axis.
| | 00:41 | The x axis is also a number line.
Everything to the right of zero is considered positive X.
| | 00:47 | Everything to the left of zero is considered
negative x. There is a second baseline that
| | 00:53 | runs North-South. It's called the y axis,
and it also represents a number line. Everything
| | 00:59 | above the x axis is considered positive y.
Everything below the x axis is considered
| | 01:05 | negative y. AutoCAD uses these intersecting
baselines to identify all points on the grid.
| | 01:12 | It does this through the use of coordinates,
and AutoCAD references coordinates using the
| | 01:16 | format x, y. The first coordinate we're going
to talk about is the location where the x
| | 01:22 | and y axis intersect. This point has a coordinate
value of 0,0. This location is also considered
| | 01:29 | the origin; all other coordinates are measured
from this point. For instance, if I pick a
| | 01:34 | point over here, this location would have
a coordinate value of 6,2. It's six units
| | 01:40 | in the x direction and two units in the y
direction. Let's try another. This point would
| | 01:46 | have a coordinate value of -4,5.
| | 01:49 | It's negative four units in the x direction
and five units in y. Remember, the format is
| | 01:54 | always x, y. We'll do one more.
How about this one? This point has a coordinate value
| | 02:00 | of 9,-3. Nine units in the x,
negative three units in the y. Knowing this, when I
| | 02:07 | create a line onscreen, AutoCAD views this
object as an entity that was drawn from coordinate
| | 02:12 | -8,-3 to a coordinate of -9,7.
Having these coordinates, AutoCAD can easily
| | 02:19 | calculate the length of the line and the direction
in which it was drawn. AutoCAD views all geometry
| | 02:25 | within the context of coordinates.
Let's return to model space.
| | 02:30 | As you can see, I'm sitting in the default
template file. I'm going to zoom out slightly,
| | 02:34 | and I'll pan the drawing up a little bit.
Notice the grid that we see onscreen. This
| | 02:39 | is a visual reminder of the underlying coordinate
system. In fact, you can easily identify the
| | 02:44 | location of the baselines. The x axis appears
red and the y axis appears green. Take a look
| | 02:51 | at this icon. This is called the UCS icon.
UCS stands for User Coordinate System, and
| | 02:57 | this icon identifies the direction of positive
x and positive y. Notice down here in the
| | 03:03 | lower-left corner of the screen. As I move
my cursor, you can see it's coordinate location
| | 03:07 | updating in real time. So, everything we create
is based on an underlying coordinate system.
| | 03:13 | At this point, you may be wondering if it's
possible to create geometry using coordinates.
| | 03:18 | The answer is yes you can, although we don't
do it very often. Let's try it.
| | 03:23 | Since we're going to be drafting using coordinates,
I'm going to make one quick change. I'm going
| | 03:28 | to come down and turn off the Dynamic Input.
Dynamic Input tends to take some liberties
| | 03:33 | with our coordinates, and I don't want to get
into that right now so we'll toggle that off
| | 03:37 | momentarily. I'm going to create a circle
first. I'll launch the command and rather
| | 03:42 | than picking my center point onscreen,
I'm going to enter the coordinate value 10,5,
| | 03:49 | and I'll press Enter. I will then create the
circle with a radius of 3. Then I'll press
| | 03:55 | Enter. Now, let's say I'd like to create another
circle, twenty units to the right of this
| | 04:02 | one. Well, using coordinates, that's very easy.
I'm going to press the spacebar to relaunch
| | 04:07 | the Circle command, and this circle's center
point would have a coordinate value of 30,5.
| | 04:14 | I'll press Enter, and then I'll press Enter
again to create a circle the same size as
| | 04:19 | the last one. Let's do one more thing.
| | 04:22 | Maybe I'd like to draw a line from the center
of this circle to the center of this one.
| | 04:26 | Once again, this is very easy because I know
those coordinates. I'm going to move up and
| | 04:31 | launch the Line command. I will start my line
at the coordinate 10,5. I'll press Enter,
| | 04:38 | and I'll draw this to coordinate 30,5. Enter.
When I'm finished, I'll press the Escape key.
| | 04:45 | As you can see, since this drawing is based
on an underlying coordinate system, AutoCAD
| | 04:49 | can easily maintain the accuracy of the line
work. And it allows us to create new geometry
| | 04:55 | with a high degree of precision.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Locking to geometry using object snaps| 00:00 | AutoCAD views all geometry within the context
of coordinates. This makes it very easy for
| | 00:05 | us to construct new geometry from any existing
line work. In this lesson, we're going to
| | 00:10 | use object snaps to lock on to specific points
of an existing object. On my screen, I have
| | 00:16 | two columns. The column on the right represents
finished drawings and the column on the left
| | 00:22 | represents some unfinished line work.
Our goal in this lesson is to make the geometry
| | 00:26 | on the left look like the geometry on the
right. Let's start at the top. I'm going to
| | 00:32 | hold my mouse wheel down, I'll center this
geometry, and then I'll roll the wheel forward
| | 00:37 | to zoom in.
| | 00:38 | To finish this drawing, I'll need to use the
Line command, and I'll have to draw a line from
| | 00:42 | the end point of the upper entity to the end point
of the lower one. All I need to know is what
| | 00:48 | coordinates those are. Fortunately, AutoCAD
will do all of the work for me. I'll start
| | 00:54 | by launching the Line command and when AutoCAD
asks for a point, I'll hold down my Shift
| | 00:59 | key and right-click. This brings up the
Object Snap menu. Object snaps allow us to snap to
| | 01:05 | specific coordinates on an object. I'm going
to select Endpoint and then I will place
| | 01:11 | my cursor on the object and click.
Notice that AutoCAD snapped right to that coordinate.
| | 01:17 | To finish this, I'll hold my Shift key and
right-click, I'll select Endpoint again, and
| | 01:21 | then I'll place my cursor on this entity.
And before I click to accept this point, notice
| | 01:27 | that I don't have to be right on it to get
the end point. So long as I am 50 percent of
| | 01:32 | the way or better on this line,
I can grab that right end,point.
| | 01:36 | As soon as I cross the middle of the line,
you can see if I click here, I'm going to
| | 01:40 | grab the other end point. So you don't have
to be right on the object snap to get it.
| | 01:45 | I'm going to click here to finish my segment
and then I'll press Escape. We have just seen
| | 01:49 | an example of the end point object snap.
I'm going to pan this up and we'll take a look
| | 01:54 | at this geometry. To finish this drawing,
I'm going to use the Circle command. And I
| | 02:00 | would like to construct my circle such that
the center point is at the--Shift+Right-Click--
| | 02:06 | midpoint of this object.
| | 02:08 | I'll put my cursor on the object.
Note that AutoCAD finds that location. I'll click to
| | 02:13 | accept it. Now, let's take care of the radius.
In this case I don't know what the radius
| | 02:17 | is, but I don't have to know. I can define
the radius by holding the Shift key and right-clicking.
| | 02:23 | I'll choose Endpoint and I'll snap to the
end point of this line. In this case, we've
| | 02:27 | seen an example of the midpoint object snap.
I'm going to pan this up further, and we'll
| | 02:32 | look at this example. This time I'm going
to use intersection. I'll launch my Line command.
| | 02:39 | And I'd like to draw a line from the intersection
of these two entities to the intersection
| | 02:42 | of these two. To do that, I'll hold my Shift
key, I'll choose Intersection, and I'll place
| | 02:48 | my cursor at the intersection. I'll click,
I will then hold my Shift key, select Intersection
| | 02:54 | again, and I'll place my cursor at the intersection
of these entities.
| | 02:58 | When I'm finished, I'll press the Escape key
to finish the line. To finish the geometry,
| | 03:02 | I'll launch the Circle command. And I would
like create the circle such that its center
| | 03:07 | point falls at the intersection of this line
extended and this one. Fortunately, when
| | 03:12 | using the intersection object snap, I don't
have to have a physical intersection. I can
| | 03:16 | hold my Shift key and right-click, I'll choose
Intersection, I will then click the first
| | 03:22 | object, and then I'll click the second object
and AutoCAD finds the intersection for me.
| | 03:27 | I will then define the radius by holding the
Shift key, right-click, I'll choose Endpoint,
| | 03:33 | and I'll draw my radius to the end point of
this line. This was an example of the intersection
| | 03:38 | object snap. I'll pan the drawing up further.
To finish this geometry, I'm going to use a
| | 03:43 | center object snap. I'll launch my Line command
and I'm going to draw my line from the--Shift+
| | 03:50 | Right-Click--center and then I will put my
cursor on the object.
| | 03:55 | Think of the cursor as being AutoCAD's eye.
When you put your eye on the object, AutoCAD
| | 04:00 | finds that object snap, you can click to accept
it. I will then draw this to the--Shift+Right-Click--
| | 04:06 | center of this object. When I'm finished,
I'll press Escape. To wrap up this drawing,
| | 04:11 | I'll launch the Circle command. And I'm going
to create the circle from the--Shift+Right-Click--
| | 04:18 | midpoint of this object, and I'll draw it
to the intersection of this object. This example
| | 04:25 | highlighted the center object snap. I'll pan
this up a little more. This time we're going
| | 04:30 | to talk about quadrant. Quadrants are associated
with circles. If I select this circle, we
| | 04:36 | can see that these little blue grips pop up
at the location of the quadrants. Generally
| | 04:40 | speaking, the quadrants are located at the
north, south, east, and west locations of a
| | 04:46 | circle. I'm going to press Escape to deselect
this object. I will then launch my Line command
| | 04:51 | and I'll draw my line from the--Shift+Right-Click--
quadrant, here. I'll draw this to the--Shift+
| | 04:58 | Right-Click--quadrant over here. I will then
go to the quadrant down here, to the quadrant
| | 05:07 | over here. I will then go to the center of
the circle, and when I'm finished I'll come
| | 05:13 | down and select Close to finish the shape.
This was an example of the quadrant object snap.
| | 05:19 | Let's pan this up. This time we'll look at
Perpendicular. Perpendicular allows us to
| | 05:24 | snap such that we create a 90-degree angle.
I'm going to start by launching the Line command,
| | 05:30 | and I'll start my line from the--Shift+Right-Click--
midpoint of this object, and I'll draw it
| | 05:38 | to the perpendicular of this object.
Once again, I'm putting my eye on the object.
| | 05:44 | I can click anywhere on this object I want and
AutoCAD's going to find that perpendicular
| | 05:48 | location. When I'm finished, I'll press Escape.
Perpendicular is nice because we can even
| | 05:53 | use this in the other direction. I'm going
to press my spacebar to re-launch the Line
| | 05:57 | command and this time I'll select perpendicular
first. I'll click the object and as I pull
| | 06:03 | away, notice that I'm creating an entity that
is perpendicular to the object that I selected.
| | 06:09 | I'd like to draw this to the midpoint of this
entity and I'll press Escape. So this is an
| | 06:16 | example of the perpendicular object snap.
We'll look at one more. This time we're going
| | 06:21 | to talk about Tangent.
| | 06:22 | To finish this drawing, I'll need to create
a line segment that is tangent to this circle
| | 06:27 | and tangent to this one, and I'll need to do
that on both sides. So I'm going to launch
| | 06:31 | the Line command, I'll draw this from--Shift+
Right-Click--tangent to this circle to a point
| | 06:39 | tangent to this circle, and I'll press Escape.
I will then press my spacebar to relaunch
| | 06:45 | the Line command and I will draw my next line
tangent to this circle, to a point tangent
| | 06:53 | to this circle. When I'm finished,
I'll press Escape. So this is an example of the tangent
| | 06:58 | object snap. Whenever you're creating geometry
that is based on existing line work, it's
| | 07:03 | important to use object snaps. Using object
snaps is the best way to ensure the line work
| | 07:07 | you create is accurate.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Automating object snap selection| 00:00 | After jumping in and out of the Object Snap
menu several times, you may be wondering if
| | 00:04 | there's a faster way to select object snaps.
In this lesson, we'll look at how to set Running
| | 00:10 | Object Snaps. On my screen, I have some abstract
geometry. Let's say that all of these three-sided
| | 00:16 | objects represent unfinished squares.
To close up these shapes, I'll need to use the Line
| | 00:21 | command and I'll have to select a lot of end points.
I'll start by launching a line and then I
| | 00:27 | would like to create my line segment from
the--Shift, right-click to bring up the Object
| | 00:31 | Snap menu. I'll choose endpoint and I'll snap
to the endpoint of this line. I will then
| | 00:37 | Shift, right-click, choose endpoint, and I'll
snap to the endpoint of this line.
| | 00:42 | When I'm finished, I'll press Escape.
I'm sure you'll agree that opening the Object
| | 00:46 | Snap menu for every object snap can be a little
tedious. Instead, what I'm going to do is
| | 00:51 | pick a couple object snaps that I use frequently
and I'll set those as Running Object Snaps.
| | 00:57 | This way AutoCAD will always attempt to snap
to my most-used coordinates. To enable Running
| | 01:02 | Object Snaps, click the Object Snap icon in
the Status bar. Note that you can also toggle
| | 01:08 | this mode by pressing F3. Now that I've turned
the tool on, I'd like to take a look at the
| | 01:12 | current settings. To do that, I'll right-click
on the icon and choose Settings. Here I can
| | 01:19 | see a list of all of the available object
snaps. From here I will select two, maybe
| | 01:23 | three object snaps that I use regularly.
This way AutoCAD will automatically look for these
| | 01:28 | snaps without the need for the Object Snap
menu. Let me mention that I typically limit
| | 01:34 | my Running Object Snaps to three.
| | 01:36 | Choosing more than this can actually make
it difficult or confusing to select specific
| | 01:40 | object snaps onscreen. I'm going to choose
Endpoint, Midpoint, and Center as my favorites,
| | 01:47 | and I'm going to deselect all of the others.
When I'm finished, I'll come down and click
| | 01:52 | OK. Now that I've enabled my Running Objects
Snaps, I'm going to try and close these shapes
| | 01:58 | again. I'll launch the Line command, and as
I pass my cursor over the geometry, notice
| | 02:03 | that AutoCAD is looking for midpoints, endpoints,
center points, whichever coordinate happens
| | 02:08 | to be closest to my cursor. So to close this
shape, I will just click the endpoint of this line
| | 02:14 | and then I'll snap to the endpoint of this
line. When I'm finished I'll press Escape.
| | 02:18 | I will then press my spacebar to go back
into the Line command. I'll snap to this endpoint
| | 02:23 | and this one and I'll press Escape. As long
as I'm creating geometry, maybe I'd like to
| | 02:27 | create line segments that connect the centers
of all these circles. I'll launch the Line
| | 02:32 | command and then I can create this geometry
as fast as I can select the circles, because
| | 02:37 | AutoCAD is automatically looking for center
points. Now that we can understand how Running
| | 02:42 | Object Snaps can make us more efficient, let's
use them to recreate a small drawing.
| | 02:47 | I'm going to start by launching my Line command.
I'll start right over here to the lower-left
| | 02:51 | of the part. And I'm going to pull to the
left, I will toggle the Ortho mode on, and
| | 02:58 | I'm going to type a distance of 3.2.
| | 03:01 | I'll press Enter. I will then pull up a distance
of 1.5, Enter. I'll come back to the right.
| | 03:09 | 3.2 units, Enter, and then I'll come down
and choose Close to finish the shape. Next,
| | 03:15 | I'd like to create this vertical line that
divides the part. It looks like it falls right
| | 03:19 | in the middle of the geometry. So I'll launch
the Line command, and I will snap to the midpoint
| | 03:25 | of this line. Fortunately, I have a Running
Object Snap set from midpoint. I'll draw this
| | 03:30 | line to the midpoint of the other side.
Next, I'll create the remaining vertical lines.
| | 03:35 | It looks like these guys measure .2 units
apart. To construct this geometry, I'm going
| | 03:41 | to create my own object snaps. I'll do that
by launching the Circle command. I'll create
| | 03:46 | my circle from the endpoint of this line,
no Object Snap menu necessary, and I'll give
| | 03:52 | the circle a diameter of .2. Now I have intersections
that I can use to start each of my two lines.
| | 04:00 | I'll go back into the Line command.
| | 04:01 | I'll create the first line from the--Shift+
Right-Click--intersection. I do not have a
| | 04:07 | Running Object Snap for intersection.
I'll snap to that coordinate, and I'd like to draw
| | 04:11 | this line--Shift+Right-Click--perpendicular
to the other side. I'll press Escape when
| | 04:17 | finished. I will then press the spacebar to
relaunch the Line command. I will create this
| | 04:22 | one from the--Shift+Right-Click--intersection
of the other side, and I'll draw this perpendicular
| | 04:29 | to the opposite edge. Now, let's create the
circle on the left side. It looks like this
| | 04:34 | circle is centered within that shape, and it
looks like the circle has a radius of .15.
| | 04:39 | One way I can find the center of this area
is by launching the Line command, and I will
| | 04:45 | construct my line from the endpoint of the
upper-right corner to the end point of the
| | 04:49 | lower-left. I can then create a circle from
the midpoint of this line. I'll give this
| | 04:56 | circle a radius of .15. Let's do the same
thing on the other side. I'll launch the Line
| | 05:02 | command and I'll go from the lower-left to
the upper-right, and I'll press Escape. I will
| | 05:09 | then launch the Circle command, I'll draw
this from the midpoint of this line, and I'll
| | 05:14 | press Enter to create my
circle the same size as the last one.
| | 05:19 | Next, we'll create this circle in the upper-right
corner. I know a couple things about this
| | 05:23 | circle. One, it's center point must fall on
this diagonal line somewhere. And two, its
| | 05:30 | center measures .35 units away from the right edge.
Once again, I'm going to create my own
| | 05:36 | object snap. I'll do that by launching the
Circle command. I'll create a circle from
| | 05:40 | the upper-right corner, and I'll give this
a radius of .35. I will then launch the Line
| | 05:46 | command. I'll draw a line from the--Shift+
Right-Click--intersection of the circle and
| | 05:53 | the straight line, and I'll draw this--
Shift+Right-click--perpendicular to the opposite
| | 05:59 | edge. When I'm finished, I'll press Escape.
Where these two lines intersect, that must
| | 06:05 | be the location of the center of that circle.
I'll launch my Circle command and I'll draw
| | 06:11 | this to the intersection of those two lines.
And we'll give it a radius o f .15. All right,
| | 06:17 | one more circle left. Fortunately, I can use
my last circle to generate the location of
| | 06:22 | the next one. I'll do that by
launching the Circle command.
| | 06:26 | I will create a circle from the center of
this circle and I'd like its radius to pass
| | 06:31 | through the center of the last one. This intersection
represents the center of my final circle.
| | 06:38 | So, I'll press spacebar to relaunch the Circle
command, I'll create my circle from the intersection
| | 06:44 | of these two entities, and I will give this
circle a radius of .15. Finally, I'm going
| | 06:49 | to clean up some of the sketch geometry.
I'll do that by selecting each of the objects I'd
| | 06:54 | like to remove. And then I'll press the Delete
key to erase them. As you can see, Running
| | 07:00 | Object Snaps make us more efficient when selecting
coordinates in a drawing. Just remember that
| | 07:05 | for best results, limit your Running Object
Snaps to three and choose the rest as needed
| | 07:10 | from the traditional Object Snap menu.
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| Using temporary tracking| 00:00 | Using sketch lines can be an easy way to create
object snaps for building new line work. Unfortunately,
| | 00:06 | sketch lines have to be erased when they're
no longer needed. In this lesson, we're going
| | 00:10 | to look at temporary tracking, a tool that
allows us to create geometry without the need
| | 00:15 | for sketch lines. On my screen, I have a drawing
of a typical front door, and to the left of
| | 00:21 | it I have an unfinished drawing. Let me mention
that this is an architectural example, so
| | 00:25 | we will be entering our measurements using
feet and inches. The goal in this lesson is
| | 00:30 | to finish this drawing on the left by adding
the doorknob and the deadbolt using the provided dimensions.
| | 00:36 | Before we get started, I'd let to take care
of a little housekeeping. First, I'm going
| | 00:39 | to come down to the Status bar and I'm going
to turn my Dynamic Input back on, otherwise
| | 00:46 | known as the heads-up display. Now, we can
also toggle that using the F12 key. Also note
| | 00:51 | that I am using Running Objects Snaps and
I've currently selected endpoint, midpoint
| | 00:56 | and center. Finally, I'm going to zoom in
on the lower portion of the doors and I'll
| | 01:01 | center these onscreen. We'll place the doorknob
first. I know that the center of the doorknob
| | 01:07 | measures three feet above the bottom of the
door and two and a quarter inches from the
| | 01:12 | left edge. To find this point in the drawing,
I could come up and launch my Line command
| | 01:18 | and I could snap to the corner of the door.
I could lock my Ortho and pull this straight
| | 01:24 | up three feet, Enter. I could then pull to
the right a distance of 2-1/4 inches, Enter.
| | 01:33 | I'll press Escape when I'm done. And this endpoint
represents the center of this circle. Now,
| | 01:39 | there's nothing wrong with this method.
The only downside is I have to erase this geometry
| | 01:44 | when I'm finished. Let's take these out.
I'll do that by clicking each of these lines and
| | 01:49 | I'll press the Delete key. I will also come
down and turn my Ortho back off. Let's try
| | 01:54 | and place the doorknob using Temporary Tracking.
Using Temporary Tracking I, can simply show
| | 01:59 | AutoCAD how to get to the desired point.
I'll start by launching the Circle command and
| | 02:04 | when AutoCAD asks for the center point, I'll
type TK--this stands for Temporary Tracking--
| | 02:10 | and I'll press Enter.
| | 02:11 | Note that the Ortho is turned on automatically.
All I have to do now is give AutoCAD the directions.
| | 02:16 | So, I'll snap to the corner of the door.
I will then pull straight up. In the event you're
| | 02:21 | having difficulty pulling up using temporary
tracking, simply hover over the object snap
| | 02:26 | and then pull up. I'll come up three feet
and I'll press Enter. I will then pull to
| | 02:32 | the right, 2- 1/4 inches, Enter.
Now that I'm where I want to be, I'll hit Enter
| | 02:39 | to accept this location and then resume the
Circle command. This circle has a diameter.
| | 02:45 | I'll select the Diameter suboption and I'll
type 2-1/4 inches. As you can see, I was
| | 02:53 | able to place the doorknob without the need
for any sketch lines. Let's try and place
| | 02:58 | the deadbolt using temporary tracking. I know
it needs to be positioned to six inches above
| | 03:03 | the doorknob. Once again, I'll launch the Circle
command. At the center point prompt, I'll type TK and
| | 03:09 | press Enter. My first tracking point will
be the center of this circle. I'll pull straight
| | 03:14 | up and I'll type six inches. I will then press
Enter to accept this location and I'll give
| | 03:20 | this circle a diameter of 2-3/8 inches. When
it comes to locating points in space, consider
| | 03:29 | using temporary tracking. By simply giving
AutoCAD directions, you can easily place
| | 03:34 | geometry without the need for sketch lines.
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|
|
4. Using Specialized Drawing CommandsDrawing rectangles| 00:00 | At this point, you may think the only way
to create a rectangle is by drawing four individual
| | 00:04 | line segments. Fortunately, this is not the case.
In this lesson, we'll look at the Rectangle
| | 00:10 | command, a tool that creates rectangular shapes
in essentially two clicks. To launch the Rectangle
| | 00:16 | command, I'll click the icon in the Draw panel
of the Ribbon. Now, to create a rectangle,
| | 00:21 | AutoCAD really only wants to know the location
of the opposite corners. For instance, I'll
| | 00:27 | click to specify my first corner point and
then I'll pull this out. Notice I'm getting
| | 00:32 | the rubber-band effect. I will then click
again to finish the rectangle. As you can
| | 00:37 | see, the workflow for this tool is fairly
straightforward.
| | 00:41 | Knowing this, I'm going to pan the drawing
up. I would like to create another rectangle,
| | 00:46 | and this time we'll base it on
some real-world dimensions. Over here I have a drawing of
| | 00:51 | a standard, professional-sized pool table.
As you can see, it has a length of 108 inches
| | 00:56 | and a width of 54 inches. Note, this is also
an architectural example. To re-create this
| | 01:02 | shape, I will launch the Rectangle command.
I will click to set my first corner point
| | 01:07 | and then take a look at the command line.
Notice there's an option down here called
| | 01:11 | Dimensions. I'll click to select that option.
I can then enter the length of my rectangle.
| | 01:15 | This is the horizontal or east-west dimension.
I'll type 108 inches. Enter. I can then specify
| | 01:23 | the width. This is the north-south dimension.
I'll type 54 inches and press Enter. And notice
| | 01:29 | the command is still running. Remember, AutoCAD
is only interested in the coordinates of the
| | 01:33 | opposite corners. I've chosen the first corner,
and I've given the dimensions to get to the
| | 01:38 | opposite corner.
| | 01:40 | But that corner could be to the upper-right,
to the lower-right, lower-left, or upper-left.
| | 01:45 | So, I have to click one more time onscreen
to define the orientation of this rectangle.
| | 01:51 | Now that we're more familiar with how this
tool works, I'm going to pan the drawing up,
| | 01:57 | and I would like to use the tool to re-create
the geometry of this couch. I 'm going to
| | 02:02 | start by drawing the right leg. To do that,
I'll launch the Rectangle command. And I would
| | 02:07 | like the leg to be placed on the floor, so
let's take a look at another object snap as
| | 02:12 | long as we're at it.
| | 02:13 | I'm going to Shift+Right click to bring up
my Object Snap menu, and I'll chose Nearest.
| | 02:19 | Nearest allows me to snap to an object at
a point nearest my cursor. I'm going to click
| | 02:23 | right here. I will then access the Dimensions
option. And this leg has a length of two inches.
| | 02:30 | I'm going to leave off the inch symbol just
to go a little bit faster, and since it's
| | 02:33 | not necessary. And the leg has a width of 5.
I will then click onscreen to finish
| | 02:39 | the rectangle. Let's create the bench portion now.
I'm going to press my spacebar to go
| | 02:44 | back into the Rectangle command. I'll use
my Running Object Snap to grab the upper-right
| | 02:48 | corner. I'll choose the Dimensions option.
And this rectangle has a length of 72 and
| | 02:56 | a width of five, and I'll click onscreen
to finish the shape. I'll relaunch the command again.
| | 03:03 | I'll grab the upper-right corner of the bench.
We'll access the Dimensions option. And this
| | 03:08 | rectangle has the exact same dimensions as
the previous one, so I'm going to hit Enter
| | 03:14 | to accept six feet, which is also 72 inches.
I'll hit Enter again to accept five inches
| | 03:19 | for the width and I'll click onscreen when
I'm finished. I will then relaunch the command
| | 03:24 | again. We'll take care of the left leg.
I'll snap to this corner. This leg has a length
| | 03:31 | of two and a width of five, and I'll click
onscreen to finish the shape. Next, we'll
| | 03:39 | take care of the armrests. Let's go back into
the command. I'll snap to the corner of the
| | 03:45 | leg. The armrest has a length of five and
a width of twenty. I will do one more on the
| | 03:54 | other side. I am going to hit Enter to accept
the dimensions because they are the exact
| | 03:59 | same as the prior rectangle, and then I'll
click onscreen to finish the shape.
| | 04:03 | I know what you're thinking: these have round
tops. I will address that in just a second.
| | 04:09 | I'm going to relaunch the Rectangle command
and I'll start from the upper-right of this
| | 04:13 | cushion. This rectangle has a length of 36.
And I'm going to use the shorter width for
| | 04:18 | right now. I'll go with fourteen and I'll
hit Enter. I'll click onscreen when I'm finished.
| | 04:24 | And for the final rectangle, I don't even
need dimensions because I have access to the
| | 04:28 | object snaps. I can start at this corner and
I can end at this corner. Now, let's take
| | 04:33 | care of the rounded tops. Notice if I hover
over the objects that I've created, these
| | 04:39 | are not rectangles. They're called poly lines.
A poly line is a multi-segmented line. Since
| | 04:44 | this is a poly line, it has some special options.
If I click to select it, notice I see a series
| | 04:50 | of these blue handles. These are called grips,
and we'll talk about grips another day. But
| | 04:55 | for right now, if you hover over this grip
at the top-middle, notice AutoCAD gives us
| | 05:01 | access to some additional tools. I'm going
to select Convert To Arc to convert this
| | 05:07 | segment into an arc. I would then like to
pull this straight up two inches. So I'm
| | 05:12 | going to lock my Ortho. I'll pull this up,
type two, and hit Enter.
| | 05:18 | I will then do the same thing for the other side.
When I'm finished, I'll press Escape
| | 05:22 | to deselect the objects. I'm sure you'll agree,
using the Rectangle command is much faster
| | 05:27 | than drawing individual line segments.
Now that you're familiar with this command, take
| | 05:32 | a closer look at some of the additional tools
hidden beneath the grips. You'll be surprised
| | 05:36 | at what you can do.
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| Drawing polygons| 00:00 | Another convenience tool AutoCAD gives us
is the Polygon command. Polygon allow us to
| | 00:06 | create equilateral shapes having as many
sides as we desire. In this lesson, we'll explore
| | 00:11 | the workflow behind the Polygon command.
On my screen, I've created some polygon examples.
| | 00:17 | It's important to note that every polygon
that we create is based on an imaginary circle.
| | 00:22 | If I pan this up, you can see how a circle
could be associated with each of these shapes.
| | 00:27 | In fact, the way we draw polygons is very
similar to creating a circle. First, we tell
| | 00:33 | AutoCAD how many sides the polygon has, then
we specify the center point, followed by the
| | 00:38 | radius. Now, there is one other thing that
AutoCAD needs. It will need to know if the
| | 00:44 | polygon is inscribed or circumscribed.
In other words, does the polygon fall on the
| | 00:49 | inside or the outside of the imaginary circle?
The way to know which method to use depends
| | 00:55 | on how your polygon was dimensioned.
If it was dimensioned from point to point, it's
| | 00:59 | an inscribed polygon, because it falls on the
inside of the circle, and this dimension represents
| | 01:05 | the circle's diameter. If the polygon is
dimensioned from face to face, it's circumscribed because
| | 01:11 | the polygon falls on the outside of the
imaginary circle, and this dimension also represents
| | 01:16 | this circle's diameter. Knowing this,
I'd like to create some polygons. I'm going to
| | 01:21 | pan the drawing up, and let's see if we can
re-create the general geometry of the stop
| | 01:27 | sign. To launch the Polygon command, we can
find it up here in the Draw panel. It actually
| | 01:32 | shares the same menu as the rectangle command.
Now, for the number of sides, I'm going to
| | 01:37 | choose 8. I'll be creating the large octagon
first. I'll press Enter. I will then click
| | 01:43 | onscreen to specify the center of the polygon.
Now, is this polygon inscribed or circumscribed?
| | 01:50 | Well, since it's dimensioned from face to face,
this is circumscribed. It falls on the outside
| | 01:56 | of the imaginary circle. I'll choose
circumscribed. And then what is the radius of the circle?
| | 02:01 | Well, I can see the diameter is 30, so the
radius must be 15. Next, I'd like to create
| | 02:06 | the smaller octagon. To do that, I will
relaunch the Polygon command. It becomes the default
| | 02:12 | up here in the Draw panel. I will accept 8
for the number of sides. Now, I need to specify
| | 02:18 | the center. Here's an interesting fact:
even though this polygon was created from an imaginary
| | 02:23 | circle, the polygon itself has no center point.
So, I'm going to press Escape and cancel this
| | 02:29 | command momentarily. A really quick way to
find the center of this polygon would be to
| | 02:34 | launch the Line command and then use my
running object snap to snap to the opposite corners.
| | 02:40 | I'll press Escape when I'm finished.
My new polygon will be created from the midpoint
| | 02:44 | of this line. I'll launch polygon again.
I'll accept 8. I will then use my running object
| | 02:50 | snap to snap to the middle of this line.
This polygon is also going to be circumscribed.
| | 02:56 | And what is the radius of the circle?
Well, the larger one had a radius of 15 and I can
| | 03:01 | see the smaller one has a radius that's 1
unit less than that, so I'll type 14 and hit
| | 03:06 | Enter. Now that I'm finished with this line
segment, I'll select it and press Delete.
| | 03:11 | Finally, let's create the carriage bolt geometry
that holds the sign to the pole. To view these
| | 03:16 | dimensions, I'm going to click to the lower
left and then I'll pull up and click again
| | 03:21 | to create a window selection. Once I've
selected that geometry, I'll click the top hot spot
| | 03:26 | on the view cube. This will focus my
attention on that area. I will then press Escape to
| | 03:31 | deselect the objects. It looks like the
carriage bolt is a hexagon. It also looks like it's
| | 03:36 | dimensioned from point to point so this one
is inscribed. We can also see that the center
| | 03:42 | of this polygon falls 3 units below the
middle of the top of the sign. Now that I know the
| | 03:48 | dimensions, I'd like to restore my previous
view. I could do that by rolling my mouse
| | 03:52 | wheel backwards. Another way would be to
come over to this navigation bar. Notice there
| | 03:57 | is a Zoom tool here. If I click the flyout
right beneath the tool, I can select Zoom
| | 04:03 | Previous to go back to my previous view.
To create the first carriage bolt, I'll launch
| | 04:07 | the polygon command. It has 6 sides.
To find the center of the polygon, I'm going to use
| | 04:13 | temporary tracking. I'll type TK and
hit Enter. My first tracking point will be the middle
| | 04:19 | of the top of the sign. I will then pull
straight down 3 units and hit Enter. Now that I'm where
| | 04:25 | I want to be, I'll hit Enter again to resume
the Polygon command. This polygon is inscribed.
| | 04:31 | And what is the radius of the circle?
Well, the diameter is obviously 1 so the radius
| | 04:35 | must be .5. To create the final carriage bolt,
I will press the spacebar to relaunch the
| | 04:41 | polygon command. I will hit Enter to accept
the number of sides. I'm going to use TK to
| | 04:46 | find the center point. I will snap to the
middle of the bottom of the sign and pull
| | 04:51 | straight up 3 units. I will then hit Enter
to return the Polygon command. This polygon
| | 04:59 | is also inscribed and has a radius of .5.
As you can see, once you understand the difference
| | 05:05 | between an inscribed and a circumscribed polygon,
creating these shapes is as easy as drawing a circle.
| | 05:16 |
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| Creating an ellipse| 00:00 | Another fundamental shape we need to create
from time to time is the ellipse. An ellipse
| | 00:05 | is similar to a circle except that it has
two different diameters. In this lesson, we'll
| | 00:10 | explore how to use the Ellipse command.
On my screen, I have an example of an ellipse.
| | 00:16 | Note that an ellipse is defined using a major
and minor axis. Generally speaking, these
| | 00:22 | dimensions represent the two differing diameters.
If an ellipse is drawn from the center, these
| | 00:27 | measurements are considered the Major and
Minor radius. Now, there are essentially two
| | 00:33 | methods of drawing an ellipse. The method
you choose depends on where you want to start
| | 00:37 | from. Do you want to start drawing from the
center or do you want to start from the
| | 00:42 | endpoint of the major axis?
| | 00:45 | Let's pan the drawing over a little bit.
The Ellipse command can be found in the Draw panel
| | 00:49 | of the Ribbon. If you open the flyout,
you can see the two creation methods: Center and
| | 00:55 | Axis End. Let's see if we can recreate this
existing ellipse using the Center method.
| | 01:01 | I'll click to define the center point. I will
then lock my ortho. I'll do that by pressing
| | 01:07 | F8. I will then pull to the left. And since
I'm drawing this from the center, I will be
| | 01:12 | entering the Major radius. In this case, the
Major axis measures 96 inches, so the Major
| | 01:18 | radius must be 48 inches. This is an architectural
example. I will then pull up or down and
| | 01:26 | define the Minor radius. In this case the
Minor radius must be 24, because the Minor
| | 01:31 | axis measures 48. Now that we have a general
understanding of how to use this tool, let's
| | 01:37 | try it out in a practical example. I'm going
to zoom out, and we'll pan the drawing up,
| | 01:44 | and I'll center this geometry on the screen.
| | 01:47 | Down here I've got an architectural example.
This is a drawing of a small public restroom.
| | 01:53 | I'll start by zooming in on the northwest corner,
and I'll pan this down a little. Over here,
| | 02:00 | I need to create an ellipse to finish this
toilet symbol. In this situation, I'm going
| | 02:04 | to create the ellipse by using the Axis End
option. So I will open the menu, choose Axis
| | 02:10 | End. I would like to start the ellipse from
the midpoint of the tank. And since my ortho
| | 02:16 | is locked, I will pull to the right and enter
my Major axis dimension. I'll type 21, press
| | 02:24 | Enter. Then since I am pulling this from the
center point, I will enter the Minor radius dimension.
| | 02:30 | That would be nine, since the Minor axis measures
eighteen. Let's pan the drawing over, and
| | 02:36 | I'll zoom in a little bit closer. Over here,
I need to create one more ellipse to finish
| | 02:41 | the basins in this countertop. In this situation,
I'm going to create the ellipse using the
| | 02:46 | Center option. To specify the center of the
ellipse, I'm going to use temporary tracking,
| | 02:51 | so I'll type TK and press Enter. I will then
snap to the front corner of the counter, and
| | 02:58 | I'll pull to the right a distance of 8-3/4",
Enter. I will then pull down 14-1/4", Enter.
| | 03:11 | Now that I'm where I want to be, I'll hit
Enter again to resume the Ellipse command.
| | 03:16 | And since I'm drawing this from the center,
I'll be using the Major and Minor radius.
| | 03:20 | I'll start by pulling down a distance of ten,
since the Major axis is twenty, and then I'll
| | 03:26 | pull to the right or left a distance of seven
since the Minor axis measures fourteen.
| | 03:33 | Now that I'm finished, I'll zoom out and center
this geometry onscreen. Back in the paper-
| | 03:38 | and-pencil days, drawing an ellipse was not
easy. It usually involved sifting through
| | 03:42 | a stack of plastic templates to find the right
size. Now that we're constructing our geometry
| | 03:47 | in a virtual environment, it's nice to know
that we can create elliptical shapes as fast
| | 03:52 | as we can enter the dimensions.
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| Applying hatch patterns| 00:00 | As the amount of geometry in a drawing increases,
it becomes difficult to tell the objects apart.
| | 00:06 | One great way to visually organize a drawing
is through the use of Hatch. When used properly,
| | 00:11 | Hatch can simplify the appearance of a drawing,
help identify objects, or create visual interest.
| | 00:18 | In this lesson, we'll look at how to apply
hatch patterns to a drawing. On my screen,
| | 00:22 | I have some abstract geometry. We'll use this
line work to explore the options of the Hatch
| | 00:27 | command. Let me also mention that this drawing
represents an architectural example. I'd like
| | 00:33 | to start by applying some hatch to this square.
The Hatch command can be found in the Draw
| | 00:38 | panel. When I click the icon, watch the Ribbon.
| | 00:42 | Notice that all of the Hatch settings can
be found in this context-sensitive Ribbon
| | 00:46 | tab. At this point, if you place the cursor
inside a closed shape, you'll see a preview
| | 00:52 | of the current settings. To change the hatch
pattern, click to open the Hatch panel and
| | 00:58 | you can select from any of the several patterns
that are installed with AutoCAD. In fact as
| | 01:04 | I drag this down, notice that AutoCAD is also
capable of creating gradient-fill hatch. I'm
| | 01:09 | going to drag this back up and I'll select
ANSI35 for my pattern. I will then hover inside
| | 01:17 | the square and see if it makes a difference.
In this case it does not. This is obviously
| | 01:21 | a scale issue. The pattern is too small to
see onscreen. To change the scale, I'll come
| | 01:27 | up to the Scale box, I'll click the value,
and I'll change this to 30. The higher the
| | 01:32 | number the larger our hatch will appear on
screen. I will then press Tab to accept the value,
| | 01:38 | and I'll try and hover inside the square again.
This looks much better. Notice that in addition
| | 01:44 | to adjusting the scale, we can also change
the hatch pattern's angle, its transparency,
| | 01:50 | its color. We can even apply a background
color if we wish. I'm going to open the menu
| | 01:56 | again. I'll set this back the way this was.
When I'm finished with my settings, I'll click
| | 02:01 | inside the square to choose the hatch area,
and then I'll press Enter to accept the hatch.
| | 02:07 | By default, the hatch you create is associative
to the geometry. So, if I click this Poly
| | 02:12 | line and then click to select one of these
grips and then click again to move it over
| | 02:17 | here, you can see the hatch
goes along for the ride.
| | 02:21 | I'll press Escape to deselect this.
Likewise, by default, hatch is created using the pick
| | 02:26 | point method. For instance, if I launch the
Hatch command again and attempt to hatch this
| | 02:32 | square, you can see these diagonal lines are
getting in the way. This is because AutoCAD's
| | 02:37 | looking for an internal point. Instead, I'm
going to come up to the Boundaries panel and
| | 02:42 | I'll choose Select Boundary Objects.
Now, I'll select the object I'd like to hatch and
| | 02:48 | AutoCAD hatches that object only.
When I'm finished, I'll press Enter. Let's look at
| | 02:53 | one more thing, hatch origin. Maybe I'd like
to hatch this square such that it looks like
| | 02:58 | a brick wall. To do that, I'll launch the
Hatch command. I'll open the Hatch Pattern
| | 03:04 | panel and I'll drag this down. Notice that
some of the hatch patterns have an AR prefix.
| | 03:11 | AR means that this pattern is prescaled for
architectural use.
| | 03:15 | I'm going to choose AR Brick Standard for
the pattern. And since this pattern is already
| | 03:20 | pre-scaled, I'm going to change the Scale
setting from 30--note that it's remembering
| | 03:25 | the previous value--I'll knock this down to
1, I'll press Tab to accept the value, and
| | 03:30 | then I will hover inside this shape.
This looks pretty good. I'm going to click once
| | 03:36 | to accept the hatch area, but I'm not going
to hit Enter to finish the hatch just yet.
| | 03:40 | Instead, I'm going to zoom in on the lower-left
corner. Notice that the bottom course of bricks
| | 03:45 | doesn't look correct. This is because all
hatch patterns are applied using the 0,
| | 03:49 | 0 coordinate as the origin. I'm going to
back up and we'll center this geometry onscreen.
| | 03:57 | Rather than having the hatch tied to
0,0, I'd rather come up and click Set Origin
| | 04:03 | and then assign the lower-left corner of the
square as the origin of this pattern. When
| | 04:08 | I'm finished, I'll press Enter
to accept the hatch.
| | 04:11 | And you can see this brick pattern looks
more like you would expect real bricks to look.
| | 04:16 | Now that we have an understanding of how the
Hatch command works, let's try and use it
| | 04:20 | in a practical example. I'm going to zoom
out and I'll pan the drawing up. On my screen,
| | 04:26 | I've drawn a small floor plan, and I would
like to apply some hatch to the interior of
| | 04:31 | these walls to help them carry a little more
weight in the drawing. To do that, I'll launch
| | 04:36 | the Hatch command. I will select a pattern.
I'm going to drag up and choose ANSI31 this
| | 04:43 | time. I'll hover and take a look.
This pattern is a little small so I'll come up and change
| | 04:49 | my Scale setting to, we'll try 30. I'll press
Tab and then I'll hover again. Maybe we'll
| | 04:57 | go a little bit smaller. I'll click the Scale
value again and I'll change it to fifteen.
| | 05:02 | I'll press Tab. This looks much better.
I'll click to select the area and then I'll press
| | 05:08 | Enter to create the hatch. So, in the event
that you'd like to add some visual interest
| | 05:13 | to a drawing, try incorporating some hatch
patterns. With all of the settings available,
| | 05:18 | you're only limited by your creativity.
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|
|
5. Making Primary ModificationsRevising geometry using the Properties palette| 00:00 | A lot of times, as you're learning AutoCAD,
your first impulse can be to erase your mistakes
| | 00:05 | and start over. Sometimes though, it can be
easier to correct the geometry you already
| | 00:09 | have onscreen rather than create new geometry.
In this lesson, we'll look at how we can use
| | 00:14 | the Properties palette to make corrections
to a drawing. On my screen, I have a pair
| | 00:19 | of gaskets. The one on the right represents
correct geometry and the one on the left requires
| | 00:25 | some modifications. Our goal in this lesson
is to make the drawing we see on the left
| | 00:30 | look like the drawing that's on the right.
To make these corrections. I'll be using the Properties palette.
| | 00:36 | My Properties palette is currently anchored
to the interface. If yours is not, you can
| | 00:40 | always press Ctrl+1 to bring the pallet
up onscreen. I'll be using the pallet frequently
| | 00:46 | in this lesson, so I'm going to click the
Auto Hide button to keep the pallet docked
| | 00:50 | to the interface. I will then zoom out a little
bit and we'll center this geometry onscreen.
| | 00:57 | Let's start by correcting one of the holes.
If I look at the correct version on the right,
| | 01:02 | I can see that all of these circles have a
radius of 10. To correct a circle, I will
| | 01:07 | select it. And if I come over to the Properties
palette, I can see that AutoCAD has found
| | 01:11 | a circle. Just below, I can see all the settings
that are associated with this geometry.
| | 01:17 | It's important to note that I can adjust any property
that I like so long as that property is not
| | 01:21 | grayed out. Since I cannot see all of the
properties, I'm going to click on the slider,
| | 01:27 | I'll drag this down, and I'm going to change
the radius to 10. Press Enter and then I'll
| | 01:34 | press Escape when I'm finished. That circle
is now correct. Next, I'd like to fix the ellipse.
| | 01:41 | Looking at the correct version, I can see
that it should have a major axis of 300 and
| | 01:46 | a minor axis of 120. So I'll select the ellipse.
We can see that AutoCAD recognizes what that
| | 01:53 | geometry is. If I drag the slider down,
we can also see that an ellipse has several more
| | 01:59 | settings than a circle does. As I look through
this, it not appear that I have a measurement
| | 02:04 | for the major and minor axes.
| | 02:06 | I do, however, have a setting for the major
and minor radius. So I'm going to change the
| | 02:12 | major radius to 150, which is half of 300,
and then I'll press Enter. Then I will set
| | 02:19 | the minor radius. This should be half of 120.
That answer is obviously 60. Notice that when
| | 02:26 | we're in this field, we get access to a calculator.
If you don't want to do the math in your head,
| | 02:31 | click the Calculator button. You can then
click the More button to see the traditional
| | 02:36 | calculator tools. I'm going to type 120/2,
equals. I can then click Apply to apply that
| | 02:46 | value to the setting. And I'll press Escape
when I'm finished. As you can see, these corrections
| | 02:51 | are fairly easy. One thing you may be thinking
is, you know, it's kind of tedious though.
| | 02:55 | I've got to click each of
these items one at a time.
| | 02:59 | Actually, we don't. Using the Properties palette,
we don't have to be that specific with our
| | 03:03 | selection. If I click in the upper-left and
then click again to make a window around this
| | 03:08 | geometry, I can see that AutoCAD has found
eleven items. If I open this menu, you'll
| | 03:14 | see that AutoCAD has also itemized the list.
I'd like to fix all of the circles, so I'll
| | 03:20 | select Circle. I will then come down to the
Radius setting and I'll change this to 10.
| | 03:26 | When I'm finished, I'll press Escape. Take a look
at the correct version of the label on the
| | 03:31 | right side. We haven't even talked about text
to this point, but now that we know how the
| | 03:37 | Properties palette works, you'll see that
correcting this text is very intuitive.
| | 03:42 | I'll start by selecting the label. I will then
come over to the palette and I can see that
| | 03:47 | this text have a height of 15 and a rotation
of angle of 0. I'll press Escape to deselect.
| | 03:54 | I will then select the other text object and
I give it a height of 15 and a rotation
| | 04:01 | angle of 0. When I'm finished I'll press
Escape. Finally, to put the Properties palette
| | 04:07 | back into a collapsed anchored, state,
I'll move up to the title bar and click the Minimize
| | 04:13 | button. As you can see, the Properties palette
is probably the most useful palettes you have
| | 04:17 | in the interface. Using this palette,
you can easily revise many of the items in a drawing
| | 04:22 | without having to erase them and start over.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Moving and copying elements| 00:00 | Probably the most fundamental editing tools
we have in AutoCAD are Move and Copy. In this
| | 00:06 | lesson, we'll explore the workflow behind
both of these commands. On my screen, I have
| | 00:10 | some abstract geometry. I have a circle whose
center is currently located at the upper-left
| | 00:16 | corner of this rectangle. Let's say I'd like
to move this circle such that its center falls
| | 00:21 | at the upper-right corner of the rectangle.
To do that, I'll launch the Move command.
| | 00:26 | Move is considered a Modify tool, so we can
find it in the Modify panel. The icon is right
| | 00:32 | here. After launching the command, I will
select the object I'd like to move and press
| | 00:37 | Enter. Now Specified base point, where do I
want to pick it up from?
| | 00:42 | I'm going to use a Running Object Snap and
I'll pick it up from the center of the object.
| | 00:47 | Finally, Specify second point, where do I
want to put it down? I'm going to use another
| | 00:53 | Running Objects Snap. I'll place it to the
endpoint at the upper-right corner of the
| | 00:57 | rectangle. Let's move it one more time.
Maybe I'd like to position it such that its center
| | 01:02 | falls at the midpoint of this upper-line.
Once again, I'll launch Move, I will select
| | 01:08 | the object or objects I'd like to move, and
press Enter. I'll pick it up from the center,
| | 01:15 | and I'll place it to the midpoint of this
line. Once again, I'm using a Running Object
| | 01:19 | Snap. I'm going to zoom out. I'll pan the
drawing down a little. It's important to note
| | 01:26 | that we don't always have to use an object
snap as the destination point of our move;
| | 01:31 | we can also move our objects using measurements.
As an example, I'll launch the Move command.
| | 01:37 | I'll select my circle and press Enter.
I'd like to pick it up from the center.
| | 01:42 | Let's say I'd like to move it ten inches straight
up, moving away from this rectangle. I'm going
| | 01:48 | to lock my ortho first. I will then pull in
the direction I want to move and type ten
| | 01:54 | inches. This is an architectural example.
Then I'll press Enter. Now, let's take a look
| | 02:00 | at Copy. You'll find that the workflow for
Copy is identical to Move, except that we get to
| | 02:05 | keep our original object. The Copy command
is found right beneath the Move command.
| | 02:12 | After launching the command I will select the object
I want to copy and press Enter.
| | 02:16 | I would like to pick this up from the center
of the circle. Let's turn the ortho back off.
| | 02:23 | And I'd like to create a copy at the upper-left
corner of the rectangle. Note that Copy defaults
| | 02:28 | to a multiple option. Meaning, I could create
another copy at the upper-right corner, the lower-right,
| | 02:34 | and the lower-left. When I'm finished creating
copies, I can press Enter or the Escape key.
| | 02:41 | Now that we understand the workflow behind
these two commands, let's try and use Move
| | 02:46 | and Copy in a practical example.
I'm going to zoom out. I'll pan the drawing over.
| | 02:53 | Over here I have an example of a floor plan.
I'm going to zoom in on the south side. I'm currently
| | 02:59 | working on these restrooms. Both of these
rooms have the same measurements, by the way.
| | 03:05 | Let's zoom in a little bit closer. I'd like
to start by moving this toilet symbol such
| | 03:10 | that the right edge is ten
inches away from the wall.
| | 03:15 | To do that, I'm going to create an object
snap from my destination point. I'll launch
| | 03:19 | the Circle command and I'll create a circle
from the corner of the room with a radius
| | 03:25 | of ten inches. I will then move the toilet
symbol. Enter. I'll move it from the upper-right
| | 03:33 | corner to the intersection. I'll Shift+Right-Click
to bring up the Object Snap menu, and I'll
| | 03:41 | place this to the intersection of the circle
and the wall. When I'm finished, I'll select
| | 03:46 | my circle and I'll press Delete. At this point,
you may be wondering, could we have also used
| | 03:51 | temporary tracking to find that same point?
Yes, we could have. Now that I have the configuration
| | 03:57 | of these fixtures the way I like them,
I'd like to copy them into the other room, so
| | 04:02 | I'll launch the Copy command. I will then
create a window selection around these objects,
| | 04:08 | and press Enter. Now where do I want to pick
them up from? Well, it's not going to do me
| | 04:13 | much good to pick a point on the objects themselves.
| | 04:16 | Instead, I'm going to pick them up from the
upper-left corner of the room. This point
| | 04:21 | is common to both rooms. So I can place them
to the upper-left corner of the other room.
| | 04:28 | When I'm finished, I'll press Escape.
Remember that you don't always have to pick an object
| | 04:32 | up from the object itself. Using points that
are common between two locations can be the
| | 04:37 | most powerful way to use Move and Copy.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rotating elements| 00:00 | Another fundamental skill we need when using
AutoCAD is the ability to rotate our objects.
| | 00:05 | In this lesson, we'll explore the workflow
behind the Rotate command. On my screen, I
| | 00:10 | have some geometry that represents an arrow.
Currently the arrow is pointing straight up
| | 00:15 | or in the north direction. I would like to
rotate this such that the arrow points to
| | 00:20 | the east. This would involve a 90-degree rotation.
To rotate the geometry, I will use the Rotate
| | 00:26 | command. Rotate can be found in the Modify
panel of the Ribbon. Once I launch the command,
| | 00:31 | I will then select the object or objects that
I'd like to rotate, and I'll press Enter.
| | 00:37 | Then I will specify the base point.
| | 00:39 | The base point represents the point of rotation.
I'm going to choose the midpoint of the lower end
| | 00:45 | of the arrow. I'm using a running object snap
to grab this location. Now, as I move my cursor,
| | 00:52 | you can see that if I wanted to, I could
free-pick a point onscreen to define the rotation.
| | 00:57 | Instead, I'm going to type in a rotation angle.
Here's the trick: if you want to rotate your
| | 01:03 | objects in a clockwise direction use a negative
angle. Since I want to rotate this arrow 90
| | 01:10 | degrees clockwise, I'll type -90,
and press Enter. Let's rotate the arrow one
| | 01:17 | more time. This time I'd like it to be positioned
such that it's pointing in a northeast direction.
| | 01:22 | This would be a 45-degree rotation. I'll launch
the Rotate command. I'll select my geometry
| | 01:30 | and press Enter. I will rotate it around the
midpoint of the end. I will then type 45 and
| | 01:37 | press Enter. I'm using a positive angle because
I'm rotating in a counterclockwise direction.
| | 01:43 | Let's pan this up. I like to try one more
thing. Maybe we need to create double arrows,
| | 01:49 | arrows that point in both directions.
This will involve not only a rotation but a copy.
| | 01:54 | Fortunately, I can do both within the Rotate
command. I'll launch Rotate and select my
| | 02:01 | geometry and press Enter. I will then grab
my base point. And take a look at the command
| | 02:07 | line: notice there's a Copy option available.
I'm going to select Copy and then I will enter
| | 02:13 | a rotation angle of 180 and press Enter.
Now that we understand how the Rotate command
| | 02:20 | works, let's try and use
it in a practical example.
| | 02:23 | I'm going to zoom out, and I'll pan my drawing
over. On my screen I have an example of a
| | 02:29 | proposed architectural floor plan. I'll start
by zooming in on the conference room area.
| | 02:35 | Currently, the way these table and chairs are
positioned, they are a little bit close to
| | 02:39 | this door swing. I'd like to rotate this geometry
a little, just to move this furniture a little
| | 02:44 | farther away from the door. So, I'll launch
the Rotate command. I'm going to create a
| | 02:49 | window-selection around this geometry and
I'll press Enter. I would like to use the
| | 02:55 | center of the ellipse as my rotation point.
And since this is furniture, I don't need a really
| | 03:01 | specific rotation angle. I'm simply going
to pull this in a clockwise direction and
| | 03:06 | click onscreen to define the angle of my
rotation. This looks like it'll work much
| | 03:12 | better. I'm going to
pan the drawing down a little.
| | 03:16 | In this area of the floor plan I'm adding
furniture. Let's say that I'd like to add
| | 03:20 | one of these desks and chairs to this
northernmost empty room. I'll start by launching the
| | 03:26 | Copy command and I'll grab the desk and chair,
and I'll press Enter and I'll copy it from
| | 03:32 | the upper-right corner of this room to the
upper-right corner of this room. And I'll
| | 03:37 | press Enter when I'm finished. Now in this
orientation, the desk isn't going to work
| | 03:40 | very well because it's conflicting with my door.
Let's rotate this geometry such that
| | 03:46 | the desk faces the south wall.
I'll launch the Rotate command, I'll grab the desk and
| | 03:52 | chair, and press Enter. For my base point,
I'll select any end point on the desk and
| | 03:58 | I'll rotate this negative 90 degrees because
I'm rotating clockwise. I will then launch
| | 04:04 | the Move command and I'll move the chair and
the desk from the lower-right end point of
| | 04:10 | the desk to the lower-right
end point of the room.
| | 04:14 | This works much better. In fact, I'm going
to copy this geometry into the next room down.
| | 04:20 | I'll copy both of these objects from the lower-right
corner of this room to the lower-right corner
| | 04:25 | of this room. Finally, it looks like we have
enough room to add a pair of file cabinets
| | 04:30 | to this office. So, I'll launch the Copy command,
and I'll grab these two cabinets and press
| | 04:36 | Enter. I would like to copy them from the
lower-right corner of this geometry, and I'll
| | 04:41 | place it to the lower-left corner of the office.
I'll press Enter when I'm finished. Let's zoom
| | 04:47 | in a little bit closer. The only thing I have
left to do is rotate this geometry 90 degrees.
| | 04:53 | I'll launch Rotate, I'll select each of these
objects and press Enter. I'll grab the lower-left
| | 04:58 | corner of the room as my point of rotation.
At this point, I could enter my rotation angle
| | 05:04 | of -90. Let's look at another way
we can rotate these. In the event you're doing
| | 05:09 | a lot of 90-degree rotations, it's not a bad
idea to come down and turn on your ortho.
| | 05:14 | Remember that Ortho restricts your movement
to 90-degree increments. So, to rotate this
| | 05:20 | geometry 90 degrees, I can simply pull straight
down and click. When I'm finished doing 90-
| | 05:25 | degree rotations, I can always come back down
and turn the ortho back off.
| | 05:30 | Now that you understand the basics of the
Rotate command, don't stop here. See if you
| | 05:34 | can use the tool to design a better furniture
layout for this floor plan.
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| Trimming and extending geometry| 00:00 | Making a change to one object can often require
the modification of other geometry in a drawing.
| | 00:06 | Fortunately, AutoCAD has some tools to help
us clean up line work after making changes.
| | 00:11 | In this lesson, we'll look at the Trim and
Extend commands. On my screen, I have a simple
| | 00:16 | drawing. Let's make a change.
I'm going to select this circle, and I'll come over to
| | 00:22 | the Properties palette and I'll change its
radius from 1.5 to 2.5. When I'm finished,
| | 00:29 | I'll press Escape. Now, I've got a problem.
These lines that used to meet the edge of
| | 00:35 | the circle now cross over. I'd like to trim
these back to meet the new circle edge.
| | 00:41 | To do this, I'll use the Trim command.
| | 00:43 | Trim can be found in the Modify panel--the
icon's right here. After launching the command,
| | 00:49 | I will select my cutting object, or objects,
and press Enter, I can then select the objects
| | 00:55 | I'd like to trim. And notice how they get
pulled back to meet that cutting object.
| | 01:00 | When I'm finished, I'll press Enter. So when using
Trim, we use one object to cut another.
| | 01:07 | Let's work in the other direction. I'm going to
select this circle again. I'll come over to
| | 01:13 | Properties, and I'm going to change its radius
back to 1.5. Now I've got the exact opposite
| | 01:19 | problem. I need to project these lines out
to meet the new circle edge. We'll do this
| | 01:25 | using the Extend command. Extend can also
be found in the Modified panel. In fact, it
| | 01:31 | shares the same menu as Trim. I'll launch
Extend and I will then select my Boundary
| | 01:37 | Edge and press Enter. Then I will select each
object I would like to extend to meet that boundary.
| | 01:45 | When I'm finished, I'll press Enter.
As you can see, the workflow behind Trim and Extend
| | 01:50 | is identical. In fact, these commands are
so similar that if you launch one of them,
| | 01:55 | you can access the other by simply holding
down the Shift key. Let's take a look.
| | 02:00 | I'm going to zoom out, and I'll pan the drawing
over. I'd like to convert this geometry into
| | 02:06 | the shape of a ladder. To do that, I will
obviously have to trim off some of the line
| | 02:11 | work and extend some of the others. I'm going
to start using the Trim command. I'll create
| | 02:18 | a crossing window to select these vertical
lines--these will represent my cutting edges--
| | 02:25 | and I'll press Enter.
| | 02:26 | I can then select each of the objects I'd
like to trim. Now, I could do that one at
| | 02:31 | a time, or I could use a crossing window to
select those objects. Once I'm finished trimming,
| | 02:36 | this is where we would typically launch the
Extend command. Take a look at the cursor
| | 02:40 | though. It says, "Select object to trim or
shift-select to extend." If I'm in the Trim
| | 02:46 | command and hold down my Shift key, Trim converts
to Extend and my cutting edges become boundary
| | 02:53 | edges. When I'm finished, I'll press Enter.
Now that we understand the basic workflow
| | 02:58 | behind Trim and Extend, let's try and use
these commands in a practical example.
| | 03:04 | I'm going to zoom out, I'll pan the drawing over
again. On my screen, I have a double window
| | 03:11 | with an arched top. Let's say that I'd like
to convert this geometry into a single window
| | 03:17 | with more of a Gothic top.
| | 03:19 | I'll start by deleting the geometry that I
don't need. I'm going to click in this right-
| | 03:24 | side window, and I'll create a crossing selection,
to select these dividers. I'll press Delete
| | 03:30 | to remove them. I will then select the top
inside edge and the bottom inside edge.
| | 03:37 | I will also select this geometry on the right
side and press Delete, I'll zoom in a little.
| | 03:43 | Now, I'd like to extend this outside edge
up and down to meet the top and bottom edge
| | 03:49 | of the window. I'll launch the Extend command
to do that. I'll select the top and bottom
| | 03:55 | edge of the window as my boundary edges and
press Enter. I will then click either end
| | 04:00 | of this line to project the geometry out to
meet those edges. When I'm finished, I'll
| | 04:06 | press Enter. Now I can use my revised line
work to trim off the top and bottom edge.
| | 04:13 | Let's launch the Trim command. I'll select
the right side of the window and press Enter.
| | 04:18 | I will use this right side to
trim off the top and the bottom.
| | 04:23 | Let's pan the drawing down. And it doesn't
look like I'm going to need these radial dividers
| | 04:28 | any more, so I'll use a crossing window to
select these, and I'll press Delete. It looks
| | 04:34 | like the top left side of my Gothic window
is in good shape. I would like to copy this
| | 04:40 | geometry on the right over to create the top
right side of the window. So, I'll launch
| | 04:45 | the Copy command. I'll use a crossing window
to select the geometry and press Enter.
| | 04:51 | I'll pick it up from the endpoint of the large
arc, and I'll place it to the upper-right
| | 04:55 | corner of the window. When I'm finished,
I'll press Enter. Finally, I have to do a lot of
| | 05:01 | trimming. I'll move up and launch the Trim
command. And rather than going in and trying
| | 05:06 | to pick each individual cutting edge that
I need, take a look at the cursor. AutoCAD's
| | 05:11 | saying, "Select cutting objects or <select
all>." If I press Enter, everything becomes
| | 05:17 | a cutting object. So I can go through and
quickly remove the objects I don't need, either
| | 05:23 | by clicking them one at a time or by using
a crossing window. Zoom in a little closer.
| | 05:30 | I'll take off this piece, and this one, and
this one. Fortunately, every object is able
| | 05:35 | to be used as a cutting object.
| | 05:37 | And you don't have to worry about making a
mistake, like I just did. If you look at the
| | 05:43 | command line, you'll find an Undo option down
here. If you click that, it will restore the
| | 05:47 | last object that you trimmed. Now that I'm
finished, I'll press Enter. As you can see,
| | 05:54 | using the Trim and Extend commands, we don't
always have to create new line work. We can
| | 05:58 | use existing geometry to help develop our
final design.
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| Creating offsets| 00:00 | Believe it or not, AutoCAD gives us several
different ways to copy geometry. In this lesson,
| | 00:05 | we're going to look at the Offset command.
Offset is special because it creates a copy
| | 00:09 | that is parallel to the original object.
On my screen, I have a few shapes. I'd like to
| | 00:15 | start by offsetting this circle. To do that,
I'll use the Offset command. Offset can be
| | 00:20 | found in the Modify panel of the Ribbon.
After launching the command, I will specify my offset
| | 00:25 | distance. I'm going to type 2 and press
Enter. I will then select the object that
| | 00:31 | I'd like to offset. And as you can see,
if I place my cursor to the inside or the outside
| | 00:36 | of the original object, AutoCAD is showing
me a preview of my offset copy.
| | 00:41 | To create my copy to the outside, I will click
to the outside of the original object.
| | 00:46 | When I'm finished, I'll press Enter. Next we'll
create an offset of this poly line. I'll move
| | 00:52 | up and launch the Offset command. I'm going
to use a distance of three this time. I will
| | 00:57 | then select the object and I'll click to
the outside. And notice I'm still in the command.
| | 01:03 | As a courtesy, AutoCAD defaults to a multiple
option, such that we can create as many offsets
| | 01:08 | as we like. If I wanted, I could come down
and click the original object again and create
| | 01:13 | an offset to the inside. In fact, I'm not
even restricted to the original object.
| | 01:17 | I could offset this line to the right, and then
its copy to the right, and then its copy to
| | 01:23 | the right, and so on. When I'm finished,
I can press Escape or Enter, or I can even come
| | 01:29 | down and click Exit to finish the command.
Now that we understand the basics of the offset
| | 01:35 | command, let's try and use it in a practical example.
| | 01:38 | I'm going to zoom out. I'll pan the drawing
over. On my screen, I have some geometry that
| | 01:45 | represents a proposed parking lot.
This is a civil engineering example so each unit in
| | 01:51 | this drawing represents one foot. I'm going
to zoom in a little bit closer. I would like
| | 01:56 | to finish the parking stalls in the middle
of this lot. Nothing says parallel copies
| | 02:01 | like parking-lot striping. Now a typical parking
stall measure eighteen feet deep by nine feet
| | 02:07 | wide. I'm going to start by launching the
Offset command. I'll enter a distance of eighteen
| | 02:12 | feet, and then I'll select this middle line
and I'll offset it to the north.
| | 02:17 | I'll select the middle line again and I'll
offset it to the south. When I'm finished,
| | 02:21 | I'll press Enter. This geometry represents
the depth of my stalls. I'm going to zoom
| | 02:27 | in a little bit closer. Remember that a parking
stall should measure nine feet wide. So I'm
| | 02:33 | going to select this middle line, and I'll
come over to the Properties palette, and if
| | 02:37 | I drag down, I can see that it has a length
of 81 feet. This is actually very good. 81
| | 02:43 | is perfectly divisible by 9. I should be
able to fit nine stalls across this distance.
| | 02:49 | I'm going to press Escape to deselect the
line, and to create the geometry of my first
| | 02:53 | stall, I'll use the Circle command.
I'll draw a circle at the endpoint of the line, and
| | 02:59 | I'll give it a radius of nine feet. This intersection
represents the width of the first stall.
| | 03:06 | To draw my first stripe, I'll launch the Line
command, and I'll draw the line from the intersection.
| | 03:11 | I'll Shift+Right-Click to bring up the Object
Snap menu because I don't have a Running Object
| | 03:16 | Snap set for intersection. I'll grab the intersection
of the circle and the middle line, and I will
| | 03:22 | draw this to a point--Shift+Right-Click--
perpendicular to my first offset. When I'm
| | 03:28 | finished, I'll press Escape. Now, I can simply
offset this parking stripe in nine-foot increments.
| | 03:35 | I'll launch the Offset command, I'll use a
distance of nine, and press Enter. I will then
| | 03:41 | offset this line to the left, I'll offset
its copy to the left, and its copy to the
| | 03:46 | left, and this can get tedious. We'll do it
one more time. I'm going to grab this copy
| | 03:52 | and before I click to place the new line,
take a look at the command line. Notice there's
| | 03:56 | a Multiple option down here. This is very
helpful if we have to create several offsets.
| | 04:02 | I'm going to choose Multiple. Now, each time
I click to the left of the original, I can
| | 04:07 | create a copy. Once I have as many copies
as I need, I can press Enter and then Escape
| | 04:13 | to exit the command. To finish the striping
on the south side, I could go through the
| | 04:18 | same offset process or I could launch the
Extend command. I would then chose the southern
| | 04:24 | offset as my boundary edge and press Enter.
I could then create a crossing window to select
| | 04:31 | my stripes and project those to the boundary
edge. When I'm finished, I'll press Enter.
| | 04:37 | At this point, my geometry is complete so
I can select each of my offsets and the circle,
| | 04:42 | and I'll press Delete to remove them from
the drawing. Let's look at one more way the
| | 04:47 | Offset command can be very helpful as we draw.
I'm going to zoom out. I'll pan down here
| | 04:53 | to the southeast. Near the southeast exit,
I've got a stop sign. Let's say that I need
| | 04:59 | to place that stop sign 33 feet from the center
of the route and exactly three feet from the
| | 05:05 | back of curve. To find that location, I can
use the Offset command. I'll launch Offset,
| | 05:12 | and I'll use a distance of 33 feet. I'll select
the center of the road and I'll offset that
| | 05:18 | to the west. I'll press Enter when I'm finished.
| | 05:21 | I will then launch the Offset command again.
I'll use a distance of three feet. Enter.
| | 05:27 | I will then Offset the back of curve to the
South. When I'm finished, I'll press Escape.
| | 05:33 | The intersection of these two offsets shows
me the exact location where to place the stop
| | 05:38 | sign. Let's finish the drawing by launching
the Move command. I'll grab the Stop sign
| | 05:43 | geometry and press Enter. I'll pick this up
from the center of the pole, and I'll place
| | 05:48 | this to the--Shift+Right-Click--intersection
of the offsets. Finally, I can select each
| | 05:55 | of the Offset entities and press Delete.
I'm sure you'll agree that Offset is one of the
| | 06:00 | most versatile tools that we have. Not only
does it create parallel copies, it is also
| | 06:05 | one of the quickest ways
to locate points in space.
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| Erasing elements| 00:00 | As your design changes, you'll no doubt have
to erase the objects that are no longer necessary.
| | 00:06 | In this lesson, we'll look at some ways to
remove unwanted geometry from a drawing.
| | 00:10 | On my screen, I have some geometry that represents
a chest of drawers. Let's make some changes
| | 00:16 | to this design that require the deletion of
some geometry. I'll start by converting this
| | 00:21 | from a 6-drawer cabinet to a 3-drawer cabinet.
One way to delete unwanted entities is by
| | 00:27 | selecting them first. I'm going to select
this dividing geometry down the middle.
| | 00:32 | I will also select the drawer geometry on the
right side. To remove these, I'll press the
| | 00:38 | Delete key on my keyboard. This workflow is
similar to how the Delete key is used in most
| | 00:43 | other Windows-based applications.
| | 00:46 | To finish the drawing, I'm going to launch
the Extend command. I'll select the inside
| | 00:51 | edge of the cabinet as my boundary edge and
I'll press Enter. I will then create a crossing
| | 00:57 | window to select the drawer geometry and project
that over to meet the boundary edge.
| | 01:03 | When I'm finished, I'll press Enter. In addition
to using the Delete key, AutoCAD also has a
| | 01:08 | dedicated Erase command. Let's make another
change to this geometry such that we can
| | 01:13 | look at how the Erase tool works. This time
I'll change this from a 3-drawer cabinet to
| | 01:19 | a 2-drawer cabinet. To do that, I'll launch
the Move command, and I'll select the geometry
| | 01:24 | at the top of the cabinet and press Enter.
And I'd like to pick this up from the top
| | 01:29 | of the top drawer and I'll place this to the
top of the second drawer down. I will then
| | 01:36 | zoom in. I'll launch the Trim command and
I'll grab the bottom edge of the top.
| | 01:43 | This represents my cutting edge.
Then I'll press Enter.
| | 01:46 | I will then create a crossing window to select
these vertical lines and trim them off.
| | 01:52 | When I'm finished, I'll press Enter. Now, I can
simply erase the geometry I no longer need.
| | 01:58 | To do that, I'll move up to the Modify panel
and launch the Erase command. I will then
| | 02:03 | make a window-selection to grab the geometry
I'd like to erase and I'll press Enter.
| | 02:09 | When I'm finished, I'll zoom out and center the
geometry onscreen. It's nice to know that
| | 02:14 | when it comes to erasing entities, not only
does AutoCAD have a dedicated Erase tool,
| | 02:19 | it also allows us to delete entities using
the same workflow accepted by most other applications.
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| Undoing and redoing actions| 00:00 | If you ask most people what their favorite
command is, Undo is usually the answer.
| | 00:05 | Let's face it, we all make mistakes and when we
do, Undo is a perfect way to put things back
| | 00:09 | the way they were. In this lesson, we'll look
at the workflow behind the Undo command.
| | 00:14 | On my screen, I have some geometry that represents
a small chest of drawers. Now to look at Undo,
| | 00:21 | we first have to something, so I'm going
to make some changes to this geometry.
| | 00:26 | I'm going to convert this from a six-drawer cabinet
to a three-drawer cabinet. I'll start by selecting
| | 00:31 | the geometry I no longer need, and then I'll
press Delete to remove it.
| | 00:36 | I will then launch the Extend command,
I'll grab the inside right edge as my boundary
| | 00:42 | object, and I'll press Enter. I will then
create a crossing window to select the drawer
| | 00:47 | geometry and project it over to meet that
edge. When I'm finished, I'll press Enter.
| | 00:53 | Let's do one more thing. I'd like to remove
the legs from this cabinet. For that, I'll
| | 00:58 | launch the Trim command. And I'll select the
bottom edge as my cutting object and I'll
| | 01:03 | press Enter. I will then create a crossing
window to select this vertical line work and
| | 01:09 | trim it off. I'll press Enter when I'm finished.
Finally, I'll select the geometry that's no
| | 01:14 | longer needed and I'll press Delete to remove
it from the file. Now, let's simulate an error.
| | 01:22 | I'm going to select the hardware on the right
side and I'll press Delete. I didn't mean
| | 01:26 | to do that. I'd like to put that hardware
back. To do that, I'll use the Undo command.
| | 01:32 | Undo can be found in the Quick Access Toolbar.
The icon looks like a backwards-facing arrow.
| | 01:37 | Before I click this, notice that there is
also a forward-facing arrow that is currently
| | 01:41 | grayed out. We'll talk about that in one second.
To launch Undo, I'll click the icon. Note
| | 01:47 | you can also launch undo by using the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+Z. And when I do, AutoCAD
| | 01:53 | backs me up in time one step, and my hard
work comes right back. Also note that since
| | 01:58 | I've launched Undo, the forward-facing arrow
is now active. This icon represents Redo.
| | 02:05 | Redo allows me to move forward in time one
step. So if I click this icon, the hardware
| | 02:10 | goes away again. It's important to note that
a Redo can only follow an Undo.
| | 02:16 | To restore my hardware, I will once again
click the Undo button. And when you use Undo,
| | 02:21 | usually you'll probably click it one time.
It is important to note that you can click
| | 02:25 | it as many times as you want and back up
to the point where you originally opened the
| | 02:29 | file. Notice that each time I click the icon,
I can back up one step. To go a little faster,
| | 02:36 | open this menu and then you can select the
specific command that represents how far you'd
| | 02:40 | like to go back. In this case, I'll go back
to where I first opened the drawing. I'm sure
| | 02:46 | you'll agree that Undo is a command that you
can't live without. In its purest sense, Undo
| | 02:50 | is a tool that protects us from ourselves.
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| Challenge: creating a small part| 00:00 | This lesson is going to work a little different
than the others. You see, in this lesson, you're
| | 00:04 | going to show me what you can do. On the screen,
we have a small mechanical part. What I'd
| | 00:09 | like you to do is take the skills
you've learned so far and re-create this geometry
| | 00:13 | using the provided information. This example
will give you a great opportunity to put the
| | 00:18 | various tools we've looked at together to
complete a small project. When you're finished,
| | 00:23 | move on to the next video and you can watch
how I approached the creation of this same
| | 00:28 | object. Take a little time at this part, see
what you can do, and when you're ready,
| | 00:32 | I'll see you on the other side.
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| Demo: creating a small part| 00:00 | Before I start drawing this part, let me emphasize
that there is no right or wrong way to construct
| | 00:05 | this drawing. The most important thing is
that we accurately reproduce the geometry.
| | 00:10 | That being said, this is how I would approach
the creation of this part. I'm going to start
| | 00:15 | by panning the drawing over and give myself
a little bit of room on the left side. I will
| | 00:21 | start the drawing by recreating the center
line. To do that, I'll launch the Line command.
| | 00:27 | I'll pick a point onscreen and then I'm going
to lock my ortho. And I'll pull to the left.
| | 00:33 | Distance really isn't that important right
now. I'll click to finish my line and then
| | 00:37 | I'll press Escape.
| | 00:39 | I will then launch the Line command again.
I'll click above the first line and pull straight
| | 00:44 | down. I'll click and then I'll press Escape
when I'm finished. I have just created an
| | 00:49 | object snap that I'm going to use to start
building this part from. This intersection
| | 00:54 | represents the center of this circle.
And, like any good set of plans, this drawing is
| | 00:59 | missing a dimension. That's all right.
Based on what we know now, I could select this circle
| | 01:05 | and come over to the Properties palette and
I can see that it has a radius of 1.15.
| | 01:11 | I'm going to press Escape to deselect the object.
I will then launch the Circle command.
| | 01:16 | I'll create my circle from the--Shift+Right-Click--
intersection of these two lines, and I'll give
| | 01:23 | it a radius of 1.15. I will then launch the
Trim command, I'll use this vertical line
| | 01:30 | as my cutting object, then I'll press Enter.
And I'll trim off the left side of the circle.
| | 01:36 | When I'm finished, I'll press Escape.
| | 01:38 | Next, I'm going to find the centers of these
circles. I'll do that using the Offset command.
| | 01:44 | I'll launch offset. And my first distance is
going to be 3.25. I will offset this front
| | 01:51 | edge to the back. I'll launch the Offset command
again. We'll go a distance of 1.5, and I'll
| | 02:00 | offset this line one more time. When I'm finished,
I'll press Escape. These intersections represent
| | 02:07 | the centers of these circles. Let's go back
to the Circle command. I'll create a circle
| | 02:12 | at the intersection of these lines. And these
circles must have a diameter of 1 because
| | 02:19 | the width of the slot measures one.
So, I'll access the Diameter suboption.
| | 02:24 | I'll type 1 and press Enter. Now, I could
create another circle at this intersection.
| | 02:30 | I could also create that circle using the
Copy command. I'll launch Copy, I'll select
| | 02:35 | my last circle, and press Enter. I'd like to
copy it from the center of the object.
| | 02:40 | And my ortho is locked. I'll pull to the right
and enter a distance of 1.5. When I'm finished,
| | 02:47 | I'll press Escape. Next, I'd like to finish
the slot geometry. I'm going to do that using
| | 02:52 | the Offset command. It looks like if I offset
the center line up and down a distance of
| | 02:58 | 0.5, I can create the top and bottom edge
of the slot. So, I'll launch the Offset command,
| | 03:04 | I'll use the distance of 0.5, and I'll offset
my center line up and down, and I'll press
| | 03:11 | Escape when I'm finished. Now it's time to
go back to the Trim command and clean up my geometry.
| | 03:17 | I'll select both of these vertical lines as
my cutting objects and I'll press Enter.
| | 03:22 | Then I'll trim off this piece in this one, this
piece in this one, and then I'll trim off
| | 03:27 | the insides of the circles. When I'm finished
I'll press Escape. Next, I'm going to create
| | 03:33 | this circle at the end of the part. It looks
like it has a radius of 1. We'll go back
| | 03:38 | into the Circle command. I'll create a circle
at the center of this one. I'll give it a
| | 03:44 | radius of 1 and I'll press Enter. Next, I'm
going to use the same offset trick to create
| | 03:50 | this top edge and bottom edge of the part.
I'll launch the Offset command, and my offset
| | 03:56 | distance must be 1 since the radius of the
circle is 1. I'll offset the center line
| | 04:02 | down and up, and I'll press Escape when I'm
finished. Let's trim up a little bit more
| | 04:08 | geometry. I'll launch the Trim command.
We'll grab this vertical line as the cutting object
| | 04:14 | and I'll press Enter.
| | 04:15 | And I'll trim off this piece and this piece
and the left side of this circle. Next, I'm
| | 04:21 | going to focus on the very top and very bottom
edge of the part. Once again, another job
| | 04:27 | for offset. It looks like two units is going
to work. I'll launch the Offset command, 2
| | 04:33 | units. I'll offset the center line up and
down. I'd like to find this corner next.
| | 04:42 | I am going to use offset again. We'll off set
this front edge back 1.5 to find this intersection.
| | 04:48 | So, I'll launch this Offset command.
I'll use a distance of 1.5, and I'll press Escape
| | 04:55 | when I'm finished. To create this angular
line, I'm going to use Polar Tracking.
| | 05:01 | I'll come down and right-click on the icon, and
I'm going to choose the 30-degree increment
| | 05:06 | option. I will then click the icon to toggle
that feature on. I'll launch the Line command
| | 05:12 | and I'll create a line from the intersection
of these two lines. I'll snap to the 60-degree
| | 05:18 | angle, and I'll click and draw my line a little
bit longer than what I need. When I'm finished,
| | 05:23 | I'll press Escape. I will then press the spacebar
to go right back into the Line command.
| | 05:29 | I'll create another line from the intersection
down below, and I'll draw this at a 60-degree
| | 05:34 | angle coming up, and I'll click Escape when
I'm finished.
| | 05:38 | Let's trim up some more geometry. I'm going
to use these two objects and these two objects
| | 05:43 | as cutting edges and I'll press Enter.
I'll trim off these two ends and these two ends.
| | 05:51 | When I'm finished, I'll press Escape. Finally,
I'm going to take care of these chamfers.
| | 05:57 | Looks like they're the same measurement, 0.5
in either direction from the corner. To create
| | 06:02 | this geometry, I'm going to use a circle.
I'll draw my circle at the intersection at
| | 06:08 | the front corner and I'll give this a radius
of 0.5. I'll create one more at the top-left
| | 06:15 | corner of the part. Then I'll press Enter to accept
the default radius. Finally, I'll draw a line
| | 06:22 | from the intersection of the circle in the
front edge to the intersection of the circle
| | 06:27 | in the top edge, and I'll do the same thing
down below. When I'm finished, I'll press
| | 06:38 | Escape. Now, I'm going to eliminate much of
the geometry that I don't need. I'll grab
| | 06:43 | both of these circles, I'll grab these vertical
lines and my center line, and I'll press Delete.
| | 06:50 | Finally, I can use the Trim command to clean
up the rest. I'll select all this geometry
| | 06:56 | in the front as cutting objects, and I'll
press Enter. And I'll trim off this piece
| | 07:01 | and this one, this piece and this one,
this piece and this one, and I'll grab this last
| | 07:08 | piece inside the arc. Notice I do have two
additional pieces I have to erase. Fortunately,
| | 07:14 | there is an Erase suboption inside the Trim
command. I'll select that and I'll grab these
| | 07:19 | last two entities and I'll press Enter when
I'm finished. Finally, I'll press Escape to
| | 07:24 | exit the command. And my part is now complete.
If you got the part finished, congratulations!
| | 07:30 | You're doing very well. If you struggled,
try drawing the part again using the techniques
| | 07:35 | I used in this lesson. The more practice you
get, the easier the job becomes.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | Well, we've reached to the end of the title.
Let me say it's been a pleasure working with you!
| | 00:04 | At this point, you should be comfortable
making basic modifications to existing drawings,
| | 00:09 | or creating some of your own geometry from
scratch. Don't stop here. Take your skills
| | 00:14 | even farther by viewing the next title in
the series, Auto CAD Essentials 3.
| | 00:19 | In this title, we'll learn to use layers to organize
and colorize a drawing. We'll also learn some
| | 00:25 | faster ways to take measurements and calculate
areas, not to mention exploring even more
| | 00:30 | powerful ways to
edit our geometry. See you there!
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