AutoCAD: Tips & Tricks

- [Instructor] Welcome to another tip and trick for AutoCAD. Now you may have noticed in my tips and tricks in the library, that we've started adding a number to each particular tip and trick. So you'll notice that each tip and trick has its own little number identifier. Now, the reason we've done that is to make it easier for you guys to obviously find the appropriate exercise file, to go with each particular tip and trick that comes up in the library. We're going to utilize that numbering system now to generate almost a series of tips and tricks. Now they are a series, but they also stand on their own as a tip and trick individually as well. Now, the reason we've done that is I want to take you through a simple project workflow. So as you follow along with each of these particular AutoCAD tips and tricks, you'll find they form a sort of series and you can follow them through and you end up with a finished project drawing at the end. Now to make your lives easier, each of the DWGs that we provide in the exercise files also have the same number that corresponds with each tips and tricks video. So you'll notice at the top of this particular DWG file, it's 223 project polylines circles.dwg. So you'll download that particular DWG file from the library to follow along with the 223 project tips and tricks video from the library as well. It just makes life that little bit easier and especially if we're going to follow this sort of series that I'm generating for you as well. Now, you don't have to follow the series religiously, at all whatsoever. They are all standalone tips and tricks, but if you do follow them as a series, you'll find that you end up with a finished drawing with all the dimensions, the title block, et cetera at the end. So let's jump into this particular AutoCAD tip and trick. And as you can see it's called 223 project polylines circles.dwg. And what we're going to do, we're going to generate a simple 2D gasket using some polylines, some circles, some construction lines and a few modify commands as well. And what we'll do is we'll build that up so that we've got a nice little 2D drawing of a gasket that we might want to potentially use in a project. Now, just before we start, I'm in AutoCAD 2021, however, the DWG files in the exercise files are saved back to the 2013 DWG file format. So you can use any version of AutoCAD from 2013 upwards to read these particular DWG files. So you can see we've got the DWG file there. Let's get into the video. You can see that I'm in the home tab on the ribbon, and in the layers panel using the objects layer. So make sure that the objects layer is current because we're going to be drawing objects. Also as well, if I click on that pull down again, you'll notice that the construction layer is frozen. Click on the snowflake and we'll thaw that layer out. So that gives us some nice construction lines to work with, you'll notice there. So if I just zoom in a little bit you can see we've got some nice intersections to work with. Now the reason I've done that is we're going to utilize those to generate our little 2D gasket. And then what we'll do is we'll freeze that layer again for clarity. So let's get going. Let's use the rectangle command over here on the drawer panel, click on the rectangle command. And I'm going to use my intersection here, make sure your object snaps are on for obvious reasons, intersection to intersection, like so. So there's the beginning of my 2D gasket there like so. Now I'm not going to switch off the construction layer just yet. I'm going to go over to the drawer panel again now, go to the circle command here and use center radius. And the center point for the circle for the first one is here. And you may find it's a midpoint on the side of your rectangle. Click there, I'm coming out and the radius will be 15 and then Enter to confirm like so. I'm going to do the same again on the mid point here, here, and here. What's the best way to do that? Well, if I select that circle there, do a right click, copy selection, I can utilize that mid point or center of the circle and just go to each of these mid points here and drop in a copy of that circle like so, and Enter to finish. So you can see now it's starting to look like a gasket already. Let's get some nice rounded corners on that rectangle. How might we do that? Let's utilize the Fillit command. I'll jump in to Fillit there on the modify panel, and it says, select first object. Quick right click and we're going to go to radius and we're going to set the Fillit radius to 30. Now these units are arbitrary, they could be millimeters, they could be something else. I work in a metric millimeters environment. So in my case, they are millimeters, but they might be another unit. You might use different units. It's entirely up to you. So 30 is there. Press Enter to confirm. And then I'm going to right click again. And I'm going to utilize a fantastic option in the Fillit command. I'm going to go to polyline and because my rectangle is a polyline, I can do all of the corners at once, just click and there we go. We've got some nice curved fillited corners on our gasket like so. Now, last but not least, one thing we do need to do is obviously it's a gasket. So it's going to have a hole in the middle of it. It's not going to be solid like it looks at the moment. So we're going to utilize now the offset command here on the modify panel. And we're going to type in 15 as the offset and Enter. And then we select our fillited polyline rectangle here. We come inside, like so, to represent the direction of the offset and click once and then Enter to close the offset command. So you can see there's our gasket in place now. Now you'll notice we've got a construction line down here too. Now that particular construction line there is really important because what we need to do now is generate another rectangle. So we're going to go back up to rectangle now and I'm going to click here like so and drag this this way, like that. Now you'll notice. Can you see, we've got some values there? And what I want is I want to Tab to this value here and set it to five, like so, and then Tab again. That'll give that five thickness. And then when I come down here, can you see, I can line that in like so? So it's 305. Now, as soon as I Tab again, can you see that fixes it? And all I've got to do is basically make sure that I don't move. 'Cause as soon as I move, can you see it does that? So I Tab again and I go 300, like so, and then Tab. And it locks everything in, Enter to confirm. And there's my rectangle that is 300 by 5 depth. That's the thickness of our gasket. And it just gives us a little elevation there. Now, one problem we have is, hang on a moment, we've got those circles left and right sticking out as well. So potentially what we want to do there is add another little rectangle each side, so we can utilize a little bit of object snap tracking. So if I come up to rectangle again now and I use this corner of the rectangle here, the lower one, and then I come up to this point here, I've got an intersection. And as I come down, can you see, I can intersect? And there's my little rectangle indicating that outstand there of the circular part of the gasket. I'll do that the other side. Rectangle again, like so, come up of this corner here, click once there's the rectangle there, come up to the intersection, don't click on it, and just drag vertically down the tracking line until you get an intersection there with your object snap tracking and you want the intersection with the upper construction line, like that. So now you can see we've got a nice little elevation of that if we needed it. So the trick now is to go up to the layers here, click on the dropdown and we'll now freeze our construction layer. And now we've got a nice plan view and elevation of our gasket. All we need to do now is tidy this up and perhaps add some holes to the gasket, perhaps to put some screws or bolts through it. So let's do that with the circle command quickly. We'll come in here, center radius, and we just need to use the center snap now of these circles. So as I come out, it's going to be 7.5 units this time as the radius. And there's our circle there. And again, utilize copy. Don't worry about drawing lots more circles. Select the smallest circle, right click, copy selection. And then jump in there to the center snap and then it just hover over each of these circles, center, center, center and then Enter to finish. Last but not least, to make this obviously look like a sensible gasket, you're going to utilize the trim command. Now, one of the features of AutoCAD 2021 is it does a select all for trim by default now. It's not cutting edges by default anymore. Let me show you what I mean. If I go out to modify and click on trim here like so, and come into the drawing area and I can go over anything now can you see it all trims utilizing all of the intersections wherever I move the little pick box to? If I right click, I can select cutting edges there if I want to. So I'll just hit Escape a couple of times and go back to that trim command. And now I can be really selective. I can jump in here. I know that I don't need that bit there and I don't need that bit there or there or there or there. Can you see, I can individually jump in and just tidy everything as I go? It's really easy and quick now because I'm visually trimming rather than worrying about where the cutting edges are. And then I'll work my way around these ones. And it's really nice. I can zoom in real close if I wanted to, I don't need to, the pick box is pretty accurate as you can see, and I'll work my way around, just finish off this last one, tidy things up. And then it's just a case of pressing Enter to come out the trim command, job done. There's my elevation of my gasket. Obviously I'm not showing any hidden detail or center lines or anything, but you can see there that my gasket is now in place in the top view there, looking down in plan for my 2D gasket drawing.