Getting Started With AutoCAD

ENGR 2
Week #1 Laboratory
 Intent of Instruction
• It is pretty much accepted in the industry that
10% of the AutoCAD commands are used 90%
of the time. We will focus on such a subset.
• The intent of the course is NOT to turn you into a
well versed AutoCAD technician. You would
need more training for that to occur.
• In this course you will learn just enough
AutoCAD to communicate your ideas to a
draftsmen, prepare sketches for technical
documents, and some basic drafting.
 Overview
• Starting the Program
• Screen Layout
• Working With Toolbars
• The Command Line Box
• Starting A New Drawing
• Setting The Drawing Environment
 Starting the Program
• Locate and click on the AutoCAD icon or
use the Start Menu to find the program and
start it.
 Pull-down Menu Headings

Drawing Name
Standard Toolbar
Object Properties Toolbar
Optional Toolbar
Cursor Locations

Coordinate Display Status Line

 Working With Toolbars
• AutoCAD has quite few different predefined toolbars.
You can access them by right clicking on any visible
toolbar
• You can edit the toolbars to meet your own
preferences. You can explore this option on your own.
• Can grab and drag the toolbars to different locations on
the screen.
– Try inserting the “Modify” toolbar and drag it to one of the
side borders.
• You can find out what an icon does by letting your
cursor hover over the button.
 The Command Line Box
• There are two basic ways to input a command:
– The command line
– Clicking on a command icon. The command icons
will execute the appropriate text based command on
the command line
• Additionally some commands have a keyboard
shortcut option that normally involves the “cntrl”
or “alt” keys on the keyboard
• The command line box size can be changed to
show more or fewer command lines.
 Starting A New Drawing
• Either click on File>New then choose advanced setup.
• Click thru the various dialogues, leaving the settings
at default.
• On the last dialogue (area), set width to 11, length to
8.5 (standard paper size)
• Either click on the “Save” icon, type “_qsave” on the
command line, or press cntrl+s on the keyboard to
bring up the Save as menu.
• Select a subdirectory and enter a filename.
• Click on the “Save” button.
 Setting Up The Drawing
Environment
• This normally involves a couple of steps.
– Defining the units
– Defining drawing limits
– Setting grid and snap dimensions
– Using other Drafting Settings
• Note that you can redefine these items at
anytime.
 Defining Units
• Either type “units” on the command line or use
the pull-down menu for “format” and select
“units”
• For LENGTH units, select the type and precision.
• For ANGLE units, select the type, precision, and
direction of measure.
• The drag-and-drop scale is where you select the
unit system.
• Click on the “OK” button when done.
 Define Drawing Limits
• This defines the extent of the drawing in the units
of the object you are drawing. Since we are
drawing full scale, this should be big enough to
include all parts of your drawing.
• This can be changed later if you decide to go
larger with your drawing.
• Type “limits” on the command line or use the
“format” pull down menu and select “Drawing
Limits”
 Drawing Limits (continued)
• A prompt appears on the command line for you
to input the coordinates of the lower left corner
of the drawing limits. If the point is within the
current view, you can point and click on the
location of the lower limit. Otherwise, you can
type in the coordinate pair for the point.
• The next prompt asks for the upper right corner
coordinates. Again, you can either point and
click or type in the coordinate pair.
• (Use limits of 0,0 to 6.6, 6.6)
 Setting Grid and Snap
Dimensions
• Drawing accuracy is extremely important in
engineering graphics. Grid and Snap are two of
several commands that help us to ensure accuracy.
• An input window is available by using the “tools”
pull-down menu and selecting “Drafting Settings…”.
• You can also use the separate command line
commands “snap” and “grid”.
• Input the parameters that you want to start with.
• (Use a Grid of 0.2,and a Snap of 0.2)
 More Grid and Snap
• It is very common to change the settings
for grid and snap often when creating a
drawing.
• Grid and Snap (and other drafting settings)
can be enabled by clicking on the Status
Line buttons at the bottom of the
AutoCAD window. These also toggle on
and off with keyboard shortcuts.
 Coordinates
• At the bottom left of the AutoCAD is the
coordinate display.
• Move your cursor around the drawing area and
watch the coordinate change.
• Toggle “snap” on and off and watch the difference
in the way the coordinates change as you move the
cursor.
• Toggle three different coordinate modes with the
“f6” keyboard key.
– Turn off, Turn on with absolute, Turn on with relative
Let’s Draw Something!
 Basic Commands
• The “Draw” Toolbar • The “Modify”
– Lines Toolbar
– Polylines – Erase
– Circles – Copy
– Arcs – Move
– Offset
– Fillet
– Array
– Trim
– Extend
 Using the Help function
• AutoCAD has a good command reference in it’s
help function.
• This presentation will not duplicate that
reference. You should frequently refer to the
command reference as you learn the various
commands.
• Some practical pointers are added here that may
not be easily encountered in the command
reference.
 Start the Drawing
• Open AutoCAD or a new drawing
• Save the file as “Lab1a.dwg” in your student directory
• Set the length type to “decimal”, precision to “0.00”,
and the drag-and-drop scale to “inches”
• Set the limits to:
– Bottom left to 0,0
– Top Right to 6.6,6.6
• To set the view area to drawing limits:
– Enter “zoom” on the command line
– Enter “e” (for extents)
 Drawing Lines
• Either type “line” on the command line or click
on the line icon in the draw toolbar.
• Lines can be drawn by point and click.
– Can keep an eye on the coordinates display to make
sure that you get what you want.
• Lines can be specified by their end point
coordinates.
– Type in the coordinates on the command line
• Lines can be specified by their first point
coordinates, then by an distance and angle.
– Select starting point, type in “@distance<angle”
– Example: @5<45 would go 5 units at a 45 degree
angle
 Let’s Draw a Line
• Click the line icon (or enter “line” on the
command line)
• Draw a horizontal line whose left end
coordinate is 0,.5 and is 5 inches long.
• Continue the line so that the second
segment is starts at the end of the first line
and goes vertically up 1.5 inches.
 The Copy Command
• The copy command is used to make a
single duplicate of an entity or group of
entities.
• Click on copy icon in the modify menu and
follow the instructions on the command
line.
• Note that copy offsets may be independent
of the actual line.
 Selecting Objects
• AutoCAD has several ways to select objects.
– Click on each object that you want to select.
– Make a window that encloses all the objects that you
want to select.
• Click on the lower or upper LEFT corner of desired window
area
• Click on the opposite corner of the window area
– Make a boundary that selects every thing that is within
the boundary and that CROSSES the boundary.
• Click on the lower or upper RIGHT corner of desired window
area
• Click on the opposite corner of the window area
 More drawing
• Follow the instructor through the process
of creating the objects shown on the
handout. You will learn to use several
more draw and modify commands in the
process.
 Plotting your Drawing
• Select File>Plot
• Select Plot Device and choose HP laser
printer
• Select Plot Settings tab
• Under Plot Area, choose Limits
• Under Plot Scale, choose 1:1
• Under Plot Offset, choose Center
• Click Full Preview, then if OK,
R-click >Plot