Autocad user interface

From TOI-Pedia

Interface

At the faculty of Archtitecture, we're currently using Autodesk AutoCAD. We recommend to tweak some of the interface settings.

See: Starting with Autocad 2009.

Starting with Autodesk Map 3D covers how to change Autodesk Map 3D 2006 to a basic AutoCAD interface. This version of AutoCAD is also being used by some students.

The AutoCAD interface (2009) looks something like this:


AutoCAD 2009 Interface.jpg


Navigation

Now that we've set up AutoCAD it's time to learn about the basics of navigation. For 2D drawings, we only need 2 navigation utilities: panning and zooming.


AutoCAD navigation.jpg


  • Panning (moving up, down, left or right) is done by pressing and holding the middle mouse button (MMB) and moving the mouse in the desired direction.
  • To zoom, simply use the scroll wheel on the mouse.


There are more options for zooming. We're covering two particular interesting options here:


AutoCAD navigation zoom.jpg


To access these zoom options, you can use the zoom icon AutoCAD zoom pulldown.png. The black triangle means that multiple icons are accessible by holding your LMB: AutoCAD zoom flyout.png

Alternatively, you can use the zoom command by typing z on the commandline.


  • AutoCAD zoom window.png Zoom Window (z,w) enables you to LMB drag a window to zoom in on.
  • AutoCAD zoom extents.png Zoom Extents (z,e) zooms out, displaying everything that is in your Model Space.


When you use the navigation controls, you might notice that you can't zoom out any further than a certain point when using your scroll wheel. This could mean that you can't see you’re entire drawing.

To resolve this problem go to View > Regen

Regen.jpg

Or type re in the command line

Or you could use the Zoom extents command.


Selecting objects

You can selecting objects by clicking each object one by one with your left mouse button (LMB) (you don't need to use the shift-key)

You can also LMB drag a window to select multiple object's in one go. There are two methods of doing this:

  • LMB dragging the window from left to right:

    Links rechts1.jpg Links rechts2.jpg Links rechts3.jpg

    As you can see, we've selected the uppermost objects, a line and a rectangle. AutoCAD did not select the lower rectangle, even though the selection box did touch it. This is because we dragged from left to right. AutoCAD then only selects objects that are fully surrounded by the selection box. Objects that are just partially surrounded, like the lowest rectangle, do not get selected.
  • LMB dragging the window from right to left:

    Rechts links1.jpg Rechts links2.jpg Rechts links3.jpg

    All objects that touch the selection box are selected: In this example, we've selected both the rectangles and the uppermost line, even though the uppermost rectangle was not fully surrounded by the selection box.

Deselecting

  • To deselect an object, press and hold the shift-key and click on the object you want to deselect.
  • To deselect all objects at once, press Esc

The same principle applies to deselecting multiple objects with drag selection:

  • LMB dragging from left to right will only deselect objects that are fully surrounded by the selection box.
  • LMB dragging right to left will deselect all the object that are touched by the selection box.


Command bar

The Command bar displays the recent history of commands and shows options for active commands. There is an input line where you can enter commands.

It is important to pay attention to this bar, as AutoCAD will often give you options and directions for the tool you're using.

For example: When working with the Polyline tool, the command bar would look like this:

Command bar.jpg

The upper bar tells us our command history: 'Command: _pline' shows us that we're using the Polyline tool right now.

We've already selected a start point and right now AutoCAD is waiting for us to give the coordinates of the next point.

The Command bar also tells us our options: [Arc/Halfwidth/Length/Undo/Width] Now we can ether select the location for the next point by clicking in the view screen, or we could select one of these options. For instance, if we would like to Undo our last action we would type 'u' in the command line and close by pressing enter.

Pay attention to the command bar as it can help you to make better use of the tools AutoCAD has to offer.




Personal tools
Actions
Navigation
Tools