AutoCAD for Windows Express

AutoCAD for Windows Express

Tim McCarthy AutoCAD for Windows Express With 195 Figures Springer-Verlag London Berlin Heidelberg New York Paris Tokyo Hong Kong Barcelona Budapest

Timothy J. McCarthy, PhD Lecturer, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, UMIST, P.O. Box 88, Manchester M60 lqd, UK ISBN-13: 978-3-540-19865-9 DOl: 10: 978-1-4471-2084-1 e-isbn-13: 978-1-4471-2084-1 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Apart from any fair dealing 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 permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. \!l Springer-Verlag London Limited 1994 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 that may be made. Typesetting: Camera ready by author, using 1i\TEX. 69/3830-543210 Printed on acid-free paper

To Grace and Fiona

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. My thanks go to Adel Nasser for his patient assistance with LaTeX and to David Walls and David Riley for support with the hardware. Thanks also to my students from whom I have learned so much and to the Autodesk team in Guildford. My special thanks to Grace and Fiona for everything. April 1994 Tim McCarthy Trademark acknowledgements ADI, AME, AutoCAD, Autodesk and DXF are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. Postscript is a trademark of Adobe Systems. MS-DOS, Windows and Microsoft are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. Hewlett-Packard is a trademark of Hewlett-Packard, Inc.

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-autocad dialogue Control keys.... Menus.... Other conventions.. The Windows environment Program Manager Window control.. Window cleaning Windows hot-keys 2 STARTING AUTOCAD Preparation........ Starting AutoCAD for DOS The AutoCAD for Windows icon Creating a drawing....... The drawing window... The File pull-down menu Drawing identification AutoCAD's menus... Menu preferences..... How about a bit of doodling? The tool box......... Setting up the drawing environment Drawing size.... Drawing lines.......... AutoCAD's command memory Linetypes and scales and colors Saving the drawing. Adding some text. HELP!.... 1 1 1 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 6 7 7 9 9 9 9 10 10 12 12 13 14 15 17 17 19 21 23 26 30 31 32

x Contents Help - DOS Extender version Context sensitive help 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.... Rubbing out and OOPS.. Entity 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.. Centered text Wide lines... Aerial view Solid objects Shading with patterns Summary.... 34 34 35 36 36 39 39 40 47 47 49 52 55 60 67 69 69 71 71 73 73 74 75 75 77 82 83 83 84 86 90 92 93 95 101 102 104 108

Contents xi 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...... N on orthogonal 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........ Editing 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.... Drawing a gland.... Point and Divide Trimming entities. Dimensioning...... 111 111 113 116 118 121 123 124 130 132 134 135 136 137 138 140 143 145 145 146 149 152 153 154 156 158 161 161 168 172 174 177 179 179 180 181 181 181 182 187 190

xu Contents Dimension style......... Editing dimensions.... Standard dimension variable settings 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 AutoCAD's 3D box of tricks. Meshes.... Generated surfaces 3D objects. AME... Summary... 9 THE HARDCOPY - PRINTING AND PLOTTING General.... Printing and plotting. Printers.... Plotters.... Plotting the GLAND drawing. Altering the plot parameters Scales and preview.. Saving a VIEW.... Multicolored plotting. Plotting a view. Postscript output... Plotting to a file... Plotting multiple viewports in paper space. A simple title block for EXP-GIZA Paper space............... 192 202 204 205 208 211 213 213 214 219 222 225 225 230 232 235 240 248 253 255 256 259 262 262 262 265 265 266 266 266 266 267 269 271 274 275 275 276 278 278 282

Contents Xlll Manipulating metaviews.... Cross referencing drawing files. Dependent blocks... A note on XREF files. Printing from Windows... Windows system printer The soft copy...... Safety first.... Copying to other Windows applications Object linking and embedding. Summary.... APPENDIX A: CONFIGURATION General.... The DOS environment. Configuring AutoCAD Altering devices. Summary.... APPENDIX B: LINETYPES AND HATCH PATTERNS General.... Linetype definition... Hatch pattern defintiion Summary... SUBJECT INDEX 283 290 291 292 292 294 296 296 297 298 299 301 301 301 302 304 308 309 309 309 309 310 311