From the course: Learning AutoCAD for Mac 2019

Geometry of your geometry - AutoCAD for Mac Tutorial

From the course: Learning AutoCAD for Mac 2019

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Geometry of your geometry

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- [Instructor] We are almost ready to start drawing in AutoCAD, but first let's take a quick look at the common components or geometry we'll have, as it will be the information we use to both create and modify our geometry in the future. Here I have a line, a circle and a rectangle. If I select each of these by moving my mouse over each one of them and left clicking, we can tell they are selected, by the fact that they become kind of fuzzy, and we get these small blue boxes everywhere. These blue boxes are called grips, and they're the bounding information of our shapes. For example, our line has three grips, one at each of the endpoints, and one at the midpoint. Our circle has five, one at each of the four quadrant points and one at the center point. These grips are tied to the geometry of the shape and abide by the geometric rules of each shape. For example, the midpoint of a line is always equidistant between the endpoints. So if I move one of the endpoints, We can see the midpoint moves accordingly. If you move the midpoint itself, both of the endpoints, and therefore the entire line move. To move a grip, I place my cursor over it and left click, and then I can drag. If I drag one of the quadrants of my circle, we can see it actually change the radius of the circle. If I click and drag the center point, it actually moves the entire circle. As we work with drawing lines and moving objects, we're constantly asked for reference points, for which we can use the geometry of the objects already created. These objects can be referenced using what are called Object Snaps, which allow you to literally snap to the appropriate geometry of the objects. These can be typed in anytime AutoCAD ask for a point. They can also be accessed by holding down the Shift key on your keyboard and right clicking on your mouse. Here we see a list of all the Objects Snaps we have access to, including endpoint, mid point, center, perpendicular points and so on. I'm going to press Escape to get out of this window. And I'm going to go down to the status bar and find the Object Snap icon here, right click, and then click on settings. Here we have all of the drafting settings, including all of our Objects Snaps. Rather than specifying a singular Object Snap we want every time that we draw a shape, we can select these boxes and enable what are called running Objects Snaps that will always be looking for geometry, when AutoCAD asks for a point. Each Object Snap is represented by a different symbol. A square for endpoint, a triangle for midpoint and so on. Eventually you'll learn these by sight. These are the Object Snaps I have chosen for my way of drafting. However, you need to choose the ones that are most accurate and most used for the way that you will be drafting. Once you have yours selected, go ahead and press OK. Now, I'll start the line command here, and we can see that as I hover over my existing geometry, the different Objects Snap points are popping up. Again, if you're not sure which one is which, simply place your cursor and then hold it for a moment, and you'll see the tool tip actually pops up, and tells me exactly which Objects Snap it's referencing. If you ever find that AutoCAD can't seem to grab the right Object Snap point with the running Object Snaps, whether it just doesn't pop up, or there are too many too close to differentiate, you can still hold Shift and right click on your mouse and then choose the specific Object Snap that you're looking for. This is called an Object Snap override. This means AutoCAD will only recognize that singular snap point. In this case endpoint. Once I've made my choice, AutoCAD returns to the running Object Snap mode, and now it's again looking for all of the different Objects Snap types. The geometry of the objects we create, not only define the parameters of the shapes, but are also incredibly useful in modifying the shapes in the future or in creating new objects.

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