AutoCAD Express NT
Springer-Vedag London Ltd.
Timothy McCarthy AutoCAD Express NT Covering Release 14, Springer
Dr Timothy McCarthy Department of Civil and Structural Engineering UMIST P.O. Box 88 Manchester M601QD British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data McCarthy, Timothy j. AutoCAD express N.T. : covering Release 14 1. AutoCAD (Computer file) I. Title 620'. 0042'0285'5369 ISBN 978-3-540-76155-6 ISBN 978-1-4471-0531-2 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-0531-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McCarthy, Tim, 1959- AutoCAD express NT: covering release 14/ Tim McCarthy p. cm. Includes index. 1. Computer graphics. 2. AutoCAD (computer file) 3. Microsoft Windows NT. 1. Til1e T3R5.M377651998 604.2'0285'5369--dc21 98-13200 Apart from any fair deal ing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permis sion in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the lerms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduclion outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. Timothy McCarthy 1999 Originally published by Springer-Verlag London in 1999 The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from lhe relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions thal may be made. Typesetting: Camera ready by author 69/3830-543210 Printed on acid-free paper
For Fiona and Sean
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to all those who helped me with this project. I am indebted to my colleagues in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at UMIST and in the Department of Civil Engineering at Stanford University. Smail Derouiche and Kirti Ruikar helped enormously with testing the exercises. Thanks also to my students from whom I have learned so much and to the Autodesk team in Guildford, UK and San Rafael, California. My special thanks to Grace, Fiona and Sean for everything. September 1998 Tim McCarthy Trademark acknowledgements AutoCAD and Autodesk are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. Postscript is a trademark of Adobe Systems. Windows, Windows NT and Microsoft are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. Hewlett-Packard is a trademark of Hewlett-Packard, Inc. Other trademarked names appear throughout the book. The use of such names is purely for editorial clarity and for the benefit of the trademark owner without any intention to infringe on those trademarks.
CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION.... What is AutoCAD?.... The aims of the AutoCAD Express. The Express route through AutoCAD Conventions used in the AutoCAD Express RETURN or ENTER?.... Presentation of user-auto CAD dialogue Control keys.... Menus.... Other conventions.. The Windows environment Windows' Desktop Window control.. Windows Explorer Windows hot-keys Summary.... 2 STARTING AUTOCAD Preparation........ The AutoCAD icon. Creating a drawing.... The drawing window. AutoCAD's menus.. Selecting tool bars... How about a bit of doodling? The tool boxes........ Setting up the drawing environment Drawing size.... Drawing lines.......... AutoCAD's command memory Linetypes and scales and colors Saving the drawing. Autosave setting Adding some text.. HELP!.... Context sensitive help 1 1 1 2 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 7 8 9 10 11 11 11 11 11 14 15 16 18 18 20 22 25 26 31 32 33 34 35
x Contents Finishing up.... A note on file security Summary.... 3 CURSOR AND DISPLAY CONTROL General.... Layers.... Cursor location.......... Rulers, grids and snapping. Two dimensional coordinate notation. Digital setsquares.. Snapping to objects.... ZOOM and PAN.... Keyboard toggles and transparent commands Finish for the time being. Summary.... 4 DRAWING AND EDITING General.... Opening a drawing file.... Rubbing out and OOPS... Object selection modes. Erasing some lines... Window selection.... OOPS! I didn't mean to rub that out. Crossing windows and polygons. The Balloon drawing environment Creating circles, arcs and ellipses Circles.... Many ways to draw an ARC. Rectangles and Ellipses Adding text..... Text styles... Style command Wide lines.... Aerial view.. Donuts and discs Shading with patterns Summary.... 36 37 37 39 39 40 47 48 50 53 55 61 68 70 70 71 71 72 74 74 74 76 76 78 83 83 83 85 86 90 92 94 95 101 102 103 107
Contents Xl 5 CONSTRUCTIVE EDITING General.... Drawing the arch....... Editing a polyline with PEDIT Moving objects.... Rotating objects..... Copying.... Altering objects' characteristics Enlarging objects... Stretching objects into shape Mirror image.......... Multiple copies using ARRAY. Rectangular arrays.... Circular arrays...... Rotated rectangular arrays Finishing up. Summary.... 6 SUPER-ENTITIES General... Making a block. Inserting blocks. Global blocks.. Making a library of useful symbols The kitchen sink Coloured blocks........ Edi ting a block........ Assigning text information to blocks Defining an attribute... Drawing the kitchen........ Assembling the fitted kitchen Editing attributes... A simple bill of materials... Hints on using blocks...... AutoCAD's inquiry commands Summary.... 7 ADVANCED DRAWING AND DIMENSIONING General.... A template for drawing a gland. Point and Divide Trimming entities. Dimensioning...... 109 109 111 114 116 118 120 122 126 127 129 130 131 133 134 136 138 139 139 140 143 145 146 147 149 151 154 154 160 164 165 168 170 171 171 173 173 173 175 181 183
xu Contents Dimension style... Editing dimensions. Standard dimension styles Drawing a pentagon... Wrapping up dimensions. Summary.... 8 ADDING DEPTH TO YOUR DRAWINGS WITH 3D CAD General.... Isometric projection.... The Express State Building in 2.5 dimensions Views and more views.... Multiple views.... Model space and paper space.. The Pyramids of Giza in glorious 3D. Making the faces solid...... Define your own coordinate system The all seeing eye......... A dynamic viewpoint on visualisation Getting things in perspective Two more pyramids.. AutoCAD's 3D box of tricks. Meshes.... Generated surfaces 3D objects. 3D solids Summary... 9 THE HARDCOPY - PRINTING AND PLOTTING General.... Printing and plotting.... Printers and plotters...... Plotting the GLAND drawing. Altering the plot parameters Scales and preview.. Saving a VIEW.... Multicolored plotting. Plotting a view... Postscript output... Plotting multiple viewports in paper space. A simple title block for EXP-GIZA Paper space....... Manipulating metaviews.... 186 193 194 195 197 199 201 201 202 208 212 214 215 218 222 224 229 236 239 241 242 243 245 248 248 250 253 253 254 254 254 256 257 259 261 262 263 265 265 268 269
Contents XUl Cross referencing drawing files. Dependent blocks... A note on XREF files The softcopy.... Safety first.... Copying to other Windows applications Object linking and embedding. Summary.... APPENDIX A: CONFIGURATION General.... AutoCAD Preferences Profiles.... Display.... Project file paths Customizing a toolbar SUBJECT INDEX 275 277 279 280 280 280 281 282 283 283 283 283 283 284 284 289