AutoCAD: Tips & Tricks

- Welcome to another AutoCAD tip and trick. We're going to have a look at some of the cooler tools available now in AutoCAD. And one of those is these parametric constraints, you have two types, you have geometric and dimensional. Now I'm going to look at some geometric stuff this time around in this particular tip and trick. So we've got a drawing for you, it's called Clamp_CONSTRAINTS 1 as you can see at the top of the screen there, as usual, you can download it from the library to follow along with this tip and trick video.

Now, I'm going to look in the Parametric tab, in the ribbon, in AutoCAD and here's the geometric panel there. We're going to have a look at this command here, AutoConstrain. Now, this is a fantastic command if you've got an object that just needs general geometric constraints applied to it. Then you can edit them afterwards, it's kind of a cover all kind of constraints command. So you click on AutoConstrain and it prompts you to select your objects.

Now you'll notice on the command line, it says Settings so I can right click, go to settings if I want to. This will take me into the constraint settings dialogue box. Now I don't want to get into too much depth here because I'm going to create another tip and trick about all of this later on. But the idea being is your constraints settings apply to any objects you select so you'll notice, all of them apply. So just make sure that they all apply in the AutoConstrain tab like that. The equals will be blanked out because we can't do equals at the moment until we've put some Auto Constraints in.

So click on OK there, and then just select everything. So, this is just a weird little clamp shape that I've drawn for you in the drawing and it's just a group of lines, arcs and circles at the moment. So when I click for that second corner of the crossing window selection, obviously I've selected everything, it's highlighted, press Enter and you'll see all these weird and wonderful little symbols appear. These are your constraints that have been applied by the AutoConstrain command. How lovely is that? AutoCAD has put all those constraints in there, for me.

I don't have to think about it too much. So you'll notice that there are things like, there's a perpendicular corner here. You'll notice there's a horizontal constraint there. You'll notice that that arc is tangential. And it's basically applied everything there that you kind of need or that it can find in this particular drawing. So for example, I might want this particular corner here to also be perpendicular. So I can go to the geometric panel here, there's the perpendicular constraint, it constrains two lines or polyline segments.

So I can select that, there's the first object, there's the second object. Soon as I do that, can you see, look, there's another constraint there, perpendicular. And that corner now will always be at 90 degrees. So you can see how these constraints work. Now, I don't want to get into too much depth here, I just wanted to show you the AutoConstraint command and how those constraints appear, those geometric constraints I hasten to add in your drawing. There's a whole load of other tips and tricks I'm going to create for you that will have all of these different constraint settings and what to do with them and how to mess around with them.

So keep an eye out on the tips and tricks for the constraints tips and tricks, search for them in the library perhaps and what you'll find is there will be a whole load of tips and tricks about these, kind of following a theme. So, that's Auto Constrain and Geometric Constraints for you keep an eye out for those other tips and tricks.