AutoCAD: Tips & Tricks

- [Instructor] Welcome to another AutoCAD tip and trick. We're working in the latest version of AutoCAD at the moment which is AutoCAD 2021 and we've got a new drawing for you called New Garden_006.dwg. As usual, you can download it from the library to follow along with the tips and tricks video. You can see when you open the drawing it's a simple garden project. We've got some shrubs, some trees, we've got a path going across the top of the garden boundary there, and we've got some hard standing in the lower part of the boundary there where you can see the little hexagonal pots that are used for planting. Now, we're going to look at a new variable available in AutoCAD 2021, and it's a real time, REGENAUTO variable. I'll type it for you. So RT, real time. R-E-G-E-N, regen. And then auto. You can see the suggestion menu comes up so that you don't have to remember all of it all of the time. When you press enter, it'll prompt you, "Do you want that variable on or off?" So you'll notice at the moment, it's on, which is the default setting. So what it means is that the drawing will automatically regenerate when you do a real time zoom or a real time pan. So if I leave that on for the moment and press enter and then right click and go into panel zoom on the shortcut menu. So let's do zoom. So I'm now in real time zoom where the little magnifying glass is available. If I hold down the left hand mouse button and move up, I zoom in. And as you can see, it regenerates each time I release the mouse button. If I right click again on the shortcut menu now in the real time zoom command, I can go to real time pan. There's the little hand symbol, click the left hand mouse button, hold it down, and I'm now panning as I move the mouse. And you'll notice that it's very smooth. Now, I do have a good graphics card in my laptop as well, but everything is regenerating each time I move and release that left hand mouse button. I'll then just right click, go back to zoom original on the shortcut menu, takes a few seconds, right click and exit real time zoom, real time pan. Now, let's go back to that RTREGENAUTO variable. Let's press enter again. And this time I'll select off by typing off like so and enter. So this time, it's off. So let's do a real time zoom again. So right click, go to zoom on the shortcut menu, take the magnifying glass down to the bottom, left click and drag upwards, and I'm zooming in. Now, you can't really see the difference that much. That's because I've got a pretty good graphics card in my laptop already, but the trick is that I'm not regenerating automatically this time when I'm doing a real time zoom or a real time pan. So what I'll do is I'll just right click, zoom original, and then right click and exit the real time zoom. But the whole idea of this RTREGENAUTO is, if I switch it back on again by typing on and pressing enter, that it allows me to, obviously, regenerate automatically when I'm zooming and I'm panning. That can be a massive help on very big, complex drawings 'cause sometimes you do need to do that REGEN command, but it'll do it automatically if you set the RTREGENAUTO variable to on. So every time you do a zoom and a pan, it'll automatically regenerate the drawing for you.