Chapter 1 AL Getting Familiar with AutoCAD RI If you are totally new to AutoCAD, you’ll want to read this chapter. It provides GH TE D MA TE an overview of AutoCAD’s layout and shows you what to expect when you start to use it. Even if you’ve had an AutoCAD class or used an older version of AutoCAD, you’ll find this chapter helpful because it covers the new AutoCAD interface. You’ll start by taking a tour of the AutoCAD window to become familiar with the menus and other components.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Understanding the AutoCAD Window Autodesk has redesigned AutoCAD 2010’s interface. If you’ve used a version prior to AutoCAD 2009, it will appear as though AutoCAD has completely changed. Don’t worry; the underlying program still behaves in much the same way as before. Through AutoCAD’s workspace feature, you can easily change AutoCAD’s interface to display the old, familiar toolbars that are seemingly missing from this latest version.
Understanding the AutoCAD Window Quick Access toolbar ■ 3 InfoCenter Figure 1.1 Application menu Ribbon Drawing area UCS Command window Status bar In some installations, you might see a Startup dialog box. If this happens to you, click Cancel, and AutoCAD will display the blank default document. 3. The default document appears to be an empty 2D space. You’ll also see a special tool palette, called the Ribbon, along the top, as shown in Figure 1.1.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD 3. On the Quick Access toolbar, click New. The Select Template dialog box appears (Figure 1.2). Figure 1.2 Opening the Select Template dialog box 4. Select acad3D.dwt from the list, and click Open. A new file, called Drawing2.dwg, appears. Notice that this drawing is in a 3D space (Figure 1.3). You’ll learn more about 3D modeling in Chapter 6. Click New in the Quick Access Toolbar. The Select Template dialog box appears. Figure 1.
Understanding the AutoCAD Window ■ 5 5. Click the Workspace Switching tool, and click 2D Drafting & Annotation in the Workspaces toolbar. You’ll be working in this workspace for most of this book. 6. Exit the 3D Drawing2.dwg file by clicking the Close icon in the upper-right corner of the drawing area. The Close icon looks like an X. Even though the default 2D file looks completely different from the new 3D file you created by using the acad3D.dwt template, they really are basically the same.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Figure 1.5 The Application menu Click the AutoCAD icon to open the Application menu. Drawing area In the middle of the AutoCAD window is the drawing area where you’ll do your actual drawing. You’ll learn more in the “Getting Familiar with the Drawing Area” section of this chapter. UCS icon The UCS icon is the L-shaped icon you see at the lower-left corner of the draw- ing area; you’ll learn more in the “Checking the UCS Icon” section.
Understanding the AutoCAD Window ■ 7 Another unique item in AutoCAD’s window is the set of tool palettes shown in Figure 1.6. You can use these palettes to keep your favorite tools and drawing components in one convenient place for quick access. The Properties palette shown on the left and the AutoCAD tool palettes shown on the right of Figure 1.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Co n t r o ll i n g t h e S tat u s B a r D i s p l ay To the far right of the status bar, you’ll see a down-pointing triangle, or arrow; click this arrow to open a menu that controls the display of the status bar. You can also just right-click in a blank area of the status bar to display this menu. You use this menu to turn the items in the status bar on or off. A check mark by an item indicates it is currently on.
Understanding the AutoCAD Window ■ 9 Figure 1.8 Tool name A tooltip showing the name of the tool, a brief tutoriallike graphic, and the command name associated with the tool Description/tutorial Keyboard command equivalent Context-sensitive help Finding Hidden Panels and Tools In the “Getting Familiar with the Drawing Area” section, you’ll start to work in the drawing area by drawing some lines.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Figure 1.10 Opening a flyout Click the triangular arrow to open the flyout menu. You might also notice that some of the tools have triangular arrows next to them. You can click these arrows to open flyout menus that contain options related to the tool with which they are associated. For example, you can click the triangle next to the Circle tool to open a flyout that offers different ways to draw a circle (Figure 1.10).
Understanding the AutoCAD Window ■ 11 While viewing the drawing list, you can hover your cursor over a drawing name to view a thumbnail of the drawing. You can also click the File View tool above the list to change the list from names to images (Figure 1.13). Getting Familiar with the Drawing Area As you might imagine, the drawing area in the middle of the AutoCAD window is the space where you’ll be spending a lot of time. It pays to get a feel for how it behaves early on.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Minimize Restore Down Close Finally, as with any window, you can expand the drawing area or contract it into a smaller window by clicking the Restore Down icon in the upper-right corner of the drawing area. When the drawing area is in the Restore Down position, it appears as a separate window within the AutoCAD window. You can then resize the window to any rectangular shape you need. This is helpful when you have multiple AutoCAD drawing files open.
Starting Commands The command window is a little like a chat window when you’re online. You “chat” with AutoCAD by responding to messages that appear in the command line. When AutoCAD asks for specific data, the command line allows you to enter data using the keyboard. It is also an area that provides information about your drawing when you request it. “ C h at t i n g ” w i t h Au t o C A D AutoCAD communicates its needs to you in messages in the command line.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD 3. Click a point roughly in the lower-left corner of the drawing area, as shown in Figure 1.14. Now as you move your cursor, you’ll see a rectangle follow the cursor with one corner fixed at the position you just selected. You’ll also see the following prompt in the command line: Specify other corner point or [Area/Dimensions/Rotation]: Figure 1.14 4. Click another point anywhere in the upper-right region of the drawing area.
Starting Commands ■ 15 Next, try deleting the rectangle you just drew: 1. Place the cursor on top of the rectangle, but don’t do anything yet. Notice that as you pass the cursor over the rectangle, it is highlighted. In a crowded drawing, this highlighting can help you determine exactly what will be selected when you click an object. 2. With the cursor on the rectangle and the rectangle highlighted, click the rectangle. The rectangle is selected, and the Quick Properties dialog box opens.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Starting a Drawing What you do to start a new drawing in AutoCAD is a little different from what you do in other programs, so let’s create a new file to see how it’s done: 1. From the Application menu, choose File ➔ Close to close the current file. When the message box appears asking you to save changes, click No. Notice that the toolbars disappear and that the AutoCAD drawing window appears blank when no drawings are open. 2.
Starting a Drawing S w i tc h i n g B e t w e e n O p e n D r aw i n g s a n d t h e M o d e l a n d L ayo u t V i e w s As with most Windows programs, you can have several drawings open at one time. AutoCAD offers the Quick View Drawings tool in the status bar, with which you can easily navigate among multiple drawings. When you click the Quick View Drawings tool, you will see a row of drawing preview panels just above the status bar. These panels show the contents of the currently open drawings.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Next, try drawing a couple of objects just to get comfortable with drawing in AutoCAD. In the following exercise, you’ll draw a rectangle; then you’ll add a circle: 1. Click the Rectangle tool in the Draw panel. Remember that you can use the tooltips to help you locate a tool. You can also type Rec↵. 2. Click a point in the lower left of the drawing area, as shown in Figure 1.16. Don’t worry about the exact location. You’re just practicing right now.
Panning and Zooming to Adjust Your View W h e n Yo u N e e d t o U n d o The AutoCAD User Group International (AUGI) has conducted a survey to identify the most commonly used features in AutoCAD. The group found that the Undo feature and the Esc key were at the top of the list. Everyone makes mistakes, and it would be impossible to get any work done if it weren’t for these two features. But Undo and the Esc key are just two of a set of features you can use to reverse something you have done.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Try the following exercise to see how the Zoom tool works: 1. Click the magnifying glass icon in the View tab’s Navigate panel to open the Zoom flyout. 2. Select Window from the Zoom flyout (Figure 1.17). 3. Click the first point indicated in Figure 1.18. You don’t have to be too accurate. 4. Click the second point indicated in Figure 1.18. The area you selected expands to fill the drawing area. Notice that the transition to the zoomed view is smooth.
Panning and Zooming to Adjust Your View Several other Zoom- and Pan-related commands exist, but those you’ve just tried are the ones you’ll use 90 percent of the time. You can try the other Zoom and Pan options that you saw in the magnifying glass icon flyout in the Utilities panel.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Acc u r at e Pa n n i n g Realtime Pan is a great tool for quickly getting around in a drawing, but sometimes you need to pan in an exact distance and direction. A version of the Pan command lets you “nudge” your view to an accurate distance. Type -pan↵ and you’ll see the following prompt: Specify base point or displacement: This is the prompt you’ll see for the Move or Copy command, though in this case you’re not affecting the objects in your drawing.
Understanding the Layout View ■ 23 Another way to look at paper space layouts is to think of them as a drawing mock-up area. Using a paper space layout, you can set up multiple views of the drawing you create in model space. You can also add a title to your drawing and include borders or other graphic design features. Since paper space layouts are labeled with the “layout” prefix, as in Layout1, I’ll just use the term layout in this book. Try the following exercise to see firsthand how layouts work: 1.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD In step 3, your entire drawing disappeared when you deleted the outer rectangle. This is because that rectangle is really a viewport into the drawing you created in model space. When you are in a layout view, a viewport acts like a window into your drawing. By default, AutoCAD creates a single viewport to show your drawing, but you can have multiple viewports of various sizes, each displaying different parts of your drawing.
Understanding How Command Options Work Understanding How Command Options Work Nearly every AutoCAD command offers a set of options shown at the command-line prompt. These options let you alter the behavior of a command to suit your current drawing. To see how command options work, and to get a feel for the drawing process in general, in this exercise you’ll draw an arc and then place it exactly in the inside corner of the rectangle: 1. Click the Arc tool in the Draw panel.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD If you point directly to the right, you’ll see that the rubber-banding line snaps to an exact horizontal orientation, and you’ll see a tooltip appear at the cursor. This is a feature called polar tracking vector, and it helps you draw in exact horizontal and vertical directions, much like a T square and a triangle. The tooltip shows your cursor’s location relative to the center point you just selected.
Getting Help ■ 27 Figure 1.21 The AutoCAD 2010 Help window 4. Expand the Commands list, and then click the item labeled C near the top of the command listing. The panel to the right changes to display a list of command names that start with the letter C. 5. Look down the list, and click Copy. A description of the Copy command appears. You also have the Concept, Procedure, and Quick Reference tabs along the top of the panel on the right.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD In this example, the list that is returned is quite large. You can use Boolean AND, OR, NEAR, and NOT in conjunction with other keywords to help filter your searches. Once you’ve found the topic you’re looking for, select it from the Select Topic list, and then click the Display button to display the topic information. The Index tab lets you find specific topics in the AutoCAD Help system by entering a word in a list box.
Getting Help Staying Informed with the InfoCenter Nearly every major Windows program is somehow linked to the Internet to offer the latest news and updates for software. AutoCAD provides the InfoCenter, which appears as a bar in the upper-right corner of the AutoCAD window. The InfoCenter provides a way to stay informed about the latest software updates and support issues for AutoCAD. Enter a keyword or phrase in the input box and then click the binoculars icon to get a list of sources for your query.
■ Chapter 1: Getting Familiar with AutoCAD Summary AutoCAD is a rare example of a program that has successfully made the transition from a text-based DOS program to a fully Windows-compliant one. The trick to using AutoCAD is in learning how to use it to input exact distances and directions. Once you’ve mastered the input methods AutoCAD offers, you’re well on your way to producing accurate drawings.
