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Restrict Cursor Movement | 241
To turn on or turn off Ortho mode
■ On the status bar, click Ortho.
Note Turning on Ortho automatically turns off polar tracking.
Command line
ORTHO
Use Polar Tracking and PolarSnap
When you are creating or modifying objects, you can use polar tracking to
display temporary alignment paths defined by the polar angles you specify.
You can use PolarSnap™ to snap to specified distances along the alignment
path. For example, in the following illustration you draw a two-unit line
from point 1 to point 2, and then draw a two-unit line to point 3 at a 45-
degree angle to the line. If you turn on the 45-degree polar angle increment,
AutoCAD displays an alignment path and tooltip when your cursor crosses
the 0 or 45-degree angles. The alignment path and tooltip disappear when
you move the cursor away from the angle.
As you move your cursor, alignment paths and tooltips are displayed when
you move the cursor near polar angles. The default angle measurement is 90
degrees. Use the alignment path and tooltip to draw your object. You can use
polar tracking with Intersection and Apparent Intersection object snaps to
find where a polar alignment path intersects another object.
Note Ortho mode restricts the cursor to horizontal or vertical (orthogonal)
axes. Because you cannot have Ortho mode and polar tracking turned on at the
same time, AutoCAD turns polar tracking off when you turn on Ortho mode. If
you turn polar tracking back on, AutoCAD turns Ortho mode off. Similarly, if you
turn PolarSnap on, grid snap is turned off automatically.
Specify Polar Angles (Polar Tracking)
You can use polar tracking to track along polar angle increments of 90, 60,
45, 30, 22.5, 18, 15, 10, and 5 degrees, or you can specify other angles. The
following illustration shows the alignment paths displayed as you move your
cursor 90 degrees with the polar angle increment set to 30 degrees.
1
2
3
alignment path
polar: 1.5 <45
tooltip display of distance and angle