Lab 01 ED

Familiarization with AutoCAD Environment | 2
Getting Started
Go to Start > All Programs > Autodesk > AutoCAD 2012 – English
Open the AutoCAD software..
As we are going to work on a simple 2D drawing, so we need to switch our workspace to “Drafting &
Annotation” as shown in the screenshot given below..
If the drop down menu doesnot appear then you may switch your workspace by clicking on the “gear icon”
near the bottom right corner as shown below..
EL-225 ENGINEERING DRAWING

Tabs and Panels

The Tabs such as Home, Insert, Annotate, etc. have related “Panels”. We can add or remove panels and
tabs by right clicking on any tab, then going to “Show Tabs” or “Show Panels”, from here we can check or
uncheck any tab or panel to add or remove them temporarily from the interface. Each panel has specialized
functions and commands grouped together by the panel name.
For example, in Home Tab, we have a Draw panel that contains different types of objects to draw.
Model and Layout Tabs

Observe the screenshot below, here we are currently working in the “Model” space. Drawings are made
in the model space and when we need to switch to paper space to see the print layout we use Layouts. By
default we have 2 layouts “Layout1” and “Layout2” but we can add more. In the layouts we can export our
drawing to pdf and we can also print our drawing by scaling it according to any given paper size (Letter,
Legal, A0,A1,… A4, etc)
Useful Notes:
Before proceeding to our first CAD drawing, let’s have a look at some useful options.
Under Home tab, Draw panel take your cursor towards Line command, do not click on it and wait for the
description to appear. Many of the commands in panels have descriptions available with them, this will
help you in self learning.

The Command Line

Observe the screenshot above, under model and layouts, see Command Line.
Here we can type commands, even if a command option is unavailable in panels we can simply write that
command and execute it here. Observe the command line after issuing any command, it may ask for
further sub command or sub options to completely execute a command.
Command line also accepts short forms for commands for example the short form of line is simply “L”.
First AutoCAD drawing (Free hand)

We are going to make the following drawing using a simple line command.

Visual Reference
The method we just used to create the freehand sketch is known as the interactive method, where we use
the cursor to specify locations on the screen. This method is perhaps the fastest way to specify locations
on the screen. However, it is rather difficult to try to create a line of a specific length by watching the
displayed coordinates. It would be helpful to know what one inch or one meter looks like on the screen
while we are creating entities. AutoCAD 2012 provides us with many tools to aid the construction of our
designs. For example, the GRID and SNAP MODE options can be used to get a visual reference as to the
size of objects and learn to restrict the movement of the cursor to a set increment on the screen.
The GRID and SNAP MODE options can be turned ON or OFF through the Status Bar. The Status Bar area is
located at the bottom left of the AutoCAD drawing screen, next to the cursor coordinates.
The CAD Database and the User Coordinate System
Designs and drawings created in a CAD system are usually defined and stored using sets of points
in what is called world space. In most CAD systems, the world space is defined using a three-
dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. Three mutually perpendicular axes, usually referred to
as the X-, Y-, and Z-axes, define this system. The intersection of the three coordinate axes forms
a point called the origin. Any point in world space can then be defined as the distance from the
origin in the X-, Y- and Z directions.
In most CAD systems, the directions of the arrows shown on the axes identify the positive sides
of the coordinates.
The icon near the bottom left corner of the default AutoCAD graphics window shows the positive
X-direction and positive Y-direction of the coordinate system that is active. In AutoCAD, the
coordinate system that is used to create entities is called the user coordinate system (UCS). By
default, the user coordinate system is aligned to the world coordinate system (WCS). The world
coordinate system is a coordinate system used by AutoCAD as the basis for defining all objects
and other coordinate systems defined by the users. We can think of the origin of the world
coordinate system as a fixed point being used as a reference for all measurements.
UCS icon

Lab 01 ED

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Lab 01 ED

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Lab 01 ED

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Familiarization with AutoCAD Environment | 2

Open the AutoCAD software..

EL-225 ENGINEERING DRAWING

Tabs and Panels

Model and Layout Tabs

EL-225 ENGINEERING DRAWING

The Command Line

First AutoCAD drawing (Free hand)

EL-225 ENGINEERING DRAWING

EL-225 ENGINEERING DRAWING

You might also like

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.