- [Instructor] Let's look at two other tools that create polylines, namely the rectangle tool and the polygon tool. I'm going to go over to the draw tools, and select rectangle. Right off the bat, I'm given a whole bunch of different options, to change the width, thickness, or the elevation of my rectangle. For right now, I'm just going to go ahead and click my first point and then drag my cursor out, and select my second point. I want to go back in the command, so I'm going to press return and pick my first point. I want to look at all the options that I get, only after I've selected my first point.
These include, an area, specifying the dimensions, like length and width. Or changing the rotation angle of my rectangle. I'm going to type in A for area and press return. I'm going to give this rectangle a size of 50 units for the area. Now AutoCAD needs one side, in order to calculate this rectangle. Either the length or the width. I'm going to go ahead and select length, and give it a length of 15 and press return. AutoCAD has drawn the rectangle after doing all of the math, so I have my rectangle with an area of 50, and one side at 15 units.
Some of the other options that I had were, thickness. Now thickness is a 3D that we're going to ignore for right now. But width, we're already familiar with, from our previous video with polylines. The other options were pretty self-explanatory. Including dimensions, that allow me to specify specific dimensions for the length and the width. Similar to entering the values into the dynamic input fields. And also changing the rotation. Which allows me to rotate the rectangle by an angle that I specify. Keep in mind if you do enter a rotation angle, it becomes the default angle for all future rectangles, until you set it back to zero.
The last tool I want to look at, is the polygon tool. It's found here, underneath of the rectangle tool. The first thing I'm asked is the number of sides I want my polygon to have. I can enter any number from 3 to 1,024. I'm going to enter six. So I can draw a hexagon. Now I'm asked for the center of the polygon. I want to use the center of the circle that I have over here, which has a radius of five. I'm going to type in cen and press return.
This let's AutoCAD know that I'm looking for the center of an object. In this case I'll select the circle, and now I'm asked if I want to inscribe the polygon inside a circle, or circumscribe it about a circle. This may seem a bit odd, but essentially, you're being asked which dimension you know, the distance from the center of the polygon to one of its vertices, or from the center to the midpoint of one of the flat sides. For now, I'm going to choose c for circumscribed, press return. And I'm going to give it the same radius of five, and press return.
So, I want to see what the difference is with the other polygon tool. So I'm going to hit return to get back in the polygon command. I'll hit return to accept six. I'm going to type in cen again to get the center point of my circle, and now I'll select my circle. And this time I'm going to choose inscribed inside a circle. For the radius, I want to use the same exact radius of five, and press return. So, now we can see the difference between circumscribed and inscribed. Both have the same radius, but one is the dimension from the center of the polygon to one of the vertices, and the other is from the center of the polygon, to one of the flat sides.
Using the polyline, rectangle, and polygon tools, we can easily create a multitude of shapes as polylines, and let AutoCAD do all the math for us.
Author
Released
1/31/2019- Navigating the interface
- Accessing the palettes, tabs, and menus
- Managing files
- Configuring new drawings
- Zooming, panning, and working with views
- Working with geometry
- Modifying geometry
- Creating and managing layers
- Creating advanced objects, including dynamic blocks
- Creating layouts
- Adding annotations
- Plotting
- Working in 3D
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
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Introduction
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AutoCAD versions1m 56s
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1. The Interface
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Components of the interface3m 14s
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Accessing the palettes2m 54s
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Command-line overview2m 11s
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Drawing tabs1m 10s
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Layout tabs1m 1s
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Tool bar1m 28s
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Use the Help menu1m 21s
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Right-click menu2m 26s
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2. File Management
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File types basics2m 33s
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Opening files1m 26s
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Saving files2m 31s
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Configuring a new drawing1m 16s
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Templates2m 13s
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Drawing units3m 55s
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3. Navigation
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Zoom commands3m 22s
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Panning1m 43s
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Regenerating and redrawing1m 34s
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Views3m 24s
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4. Basic Geometry
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Geometry of your geometry2m 18s
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Absolute coordinate entry3m 33s
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Relative coordinate entry3m 15s
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Polar coordinate entry3m 22s
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Lines2m 48s
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Circles and arcs4m 1s
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Polylines2m 45s
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Polygons and rectangles3m 38s
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Ellipses2m 25s
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Splines2m 5s
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Points1m 20s
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5. Geometry Tools
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Grid and snap2m 49s
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Ortho and polar2m 5s
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Object snap4m 41s
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Object snap tracking1m 51s
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Measuring tools3m 14s
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Divide1m 42s
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6. Modifying Geometry
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Selection methods5m 10s
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Quick select2m 4s
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Move2m 43s
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Copy3m 41s
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Rotate2m 32s
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Scale2m 25s
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Stretch3m 34s
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Trim and extend2m 59s
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Offset3m 13s
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Mirror2m 10s
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Array4m 13s
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Polyline editing4m 25s
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Join and break3m 5s
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Fillet and chamfer3m 43s
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Properties palette2m 27s
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7. Layers
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Object properties2m 10s
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Layer basics2m 52s
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Creating layer5m 38s
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Layer tools2m 40s
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Advanced layer tools2m 15s
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Layer states3m 24s
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8. Advanced Objects
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Hatch basics3m 13s
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Using gradients1m 49s
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Groups1m 56s
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Blocks1m 35s
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Creating blocks2m 39s
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Updating blocks3m 37s
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Dynamic blocks2m 7s
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Dynamic blocks practice5m 40s
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External references4m 3s
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Binding external references2m 53s
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Underlaying images4m 16s
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Underlaying PDFs4m 17s
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9. Layouts
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Creating layouts1m 50s
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Viewport basics3m 49s
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Locking viewports1m 27s
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Viewport layers1m 55s
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10. Annotations
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Text styles1m 58s
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Single-line text2m 41s
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Multi-line text2m 33s
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Dimension styles4m 9s
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Linear dimensions3m 29s
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Aligned dimensions2m 27s
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Special dimensions1m 46s
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Dimension tool1m 48s
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Leaders2m 29s
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Dimension overrides3m 7s
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Annotation scaling2m 41s
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Page setups4m 1s
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Plot styles2m 6s
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Plot dialog1m 25s
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Batch publishing2m 4s
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Pack and go1m 47s
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Sheet sets overview4m 36s
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Creating tags1m 13s
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Plotting a project1m 29s
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13. 3D Basics
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Views in 3D2m 47s
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Visual styles2m 41s
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Solid primitives2m 1s
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2D to 3D tools4m 12s
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Modifying 3D objects7m 10s
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14. Advanced Tools
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Drawing recovery1m 42s
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Auditing a drawing1m 10s
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Purge1m 12s
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Conclusion
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Next steps36s
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Video: Polygons and rectangles