Chapter One
Getting to Know AutoCAD
* Opening a new drawing
* Getting familiar with the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT graphics windows
* Modifying the display
* Displaying and arranging AutoCAD tools
Your introduction to AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT begins with a tour of the user interfaces of the two programs. In this chapter, you''ll also learn how to use some tools that help you control their appearance and how to find and start commands. For the material covered in this chapter, the two applications are almost identical in appearance. Therefore, as you tour AutoCAD, I''ll point out any differences between AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. In general, LT is a 2D program, so it doesn''t have most of the 3D features that come with AutoCAD, such as solids modeling and rendering. The AutoLISP programming language found in AutoCAD is also absent from LT, as is the Action Recorder. The other differences are minor. As mentioned in this book''s introduction, when I say AutoCAD, I mean both AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. I''ll also specifically refer to AutoCAD LT as LT throughout this chapter and the rest of the book. Starting AutoCAD is the first task at hand.
Starting AutoCAD
If you installed AutoCAD using the default settings for the location of the program files, start the program by choosing Start * Programs * Autodesk * AutoCAD 2009 * AutoCAD 2009 or by choosing Start * Programs * Autodesk * AutoCAD LT 2009 * AutoCAD LT 2009, depending on your program. (This command path might vary depending on the Windows scheme you are using.) You can also find and click the AutoCAD 2009 icon or the AutoCAD LT 2009 icon on your desktop.
Exploring the New Features Workshop
The New Features Workshop welcome screen opens when you first start AutoCAD and leads to several animated demonstrations and explanations of the new features included in the latest release of AutoCAD (see Figure 1.1). This is a quick and easy way to see how AutoCAD 2009 has improved over AutoCAD 2008 and which tools you can use to augment any skills you already have. Choosing Maybe Later on the left side of the dialog box causes it to reappear every time you start AutoCAD. Choosing the No, Don''t Show This To Me Again option dismisses the dialog box indefinitely. If you chose that option, you must then access the New Features Workshop through the Help option in the Menu Browser, the menu system that you access by clicking on the large red A in the top-left corner of the AutoCAD user interface.
Selecting the Yes radio button on the left side of the dialog box opens the New Features Workshop dialog box (see Figure 1.2). Here, you navigate and select the feature you want to investigate in the left pane and observe the selection in the right pane. The drop-down list in the upper-left corner provides access to the New Features Workshops for other Autodesk products installed on your system.
The Customer Involvement Program
Nearly all the latest releases of Autodesk products include the opportunity to participate in the customer involvement program (CIP). The CIP is designed to collect nonpersonal information about your Autodesk products and computer system to help the product programmers and developers design software that best meets their customers'' needs. If you haven''t yet agreed or declined to participate, when you first start AutoCAD, the Customer Involvement Program dialog box might prompt you to join.
Participation is strictly voluntary, and if you choose to participate, AutoCAD will periodically send a small file to Autodesk containing information such as your software name and version, the commands you use, and your system configuration information. An Internet connection is required, and you must ensure that your firewall settings don''t prevent the information from being transmitted.
Exploring the AutoCAD User Interface
After bypassing the initial dialog boxes that AutoCAD provides, the program opens to display the AutoCAD user interface, also called the graphics window. AutoCAD provides many methods for creating and editing objects, changing the view of a drawing, or executing AutoCAD file maintenance or other utilities. In LT, your screen looks similar to Figure 1.3. For AutoCAD, your monitor displays one of three workspaces:
* The 2D Drafting & Annotation workspace (shown in Figure 1.3)
* The AutoCAD Classic workspace
* For AutoCAD users only, the 3D Modeling workspace (see Figure 1.4)
You''ll be using the 2D Drafting and Annotation workspace for the first 15 chapters in this book. In the final two chapters, you''ll switch to the 3D Modeling workspace, but for now, you need to get your AutoCAD user interface to look like Figure 1.3.
NOTE The figures and graphics is this book show the drawing area of the AutoCAD user interface with a white background, but the default, and preferred, method is to use a black background to reduce eyestrain. The color choice in the book is simply for readability.
If your screen looks like Figure 1.4 or isn''t at all like Figure 1.3, you need to make a few changes:
1. Click the Workspace Switching button in the status bar and choose 2D Drafting & Annotation. Alternately, you can choose Tools * Workspaces * 2D Drafting & Annotation.
2. The 2D Drafting & Annotation workspace may display the tool palettes on the screen. If the palettes are displayed, you need to turn them off for now by clicking the X in the upper-right corner. Your workspace might have different palettes displayed than those shown in Figure 1.5. If other palettes are still visible, click the X in the upper-right or upper-left corner of each palette to close them.
3. The large area in the middle of the screen is called the drawing area. It might need adjusting. Enter visualstyles [??] to open the Visual Styles Manager, and then click the 2D Wireframe option (see Figure 1.6). Close the Visual Styles Manager.
4. Enter plan [??] and then world [??] or click the World option in the pop-up menu if it appears.
If dots appear in the drawing area, the grid is turned on.
5. Move the cursor to the left side of the status bar at the bottom of the screen, and click the Grid Display button so it''s in the off (unpushed) position and the dots disappear. Be sure all the other readout buttons except Dynamic Input are in their off (unpushed) positions. You can pause your cursor over each button to reveal its name in a tooltip.
Your screen should look similar enough to Figure 1.3 to continue.
Introducing the AutoCAD Graphics Window
At the top of the graphics window sit the Ribbon, the Quick Access toolbar to the left, and the InfoCenter and related tools on the right.
The title bar is analogous to the title bar in any Windows program. It contains the program name (AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT) and the title of the current drawing with its path, as long as any drawing other than the default Drawingn.dwg is open. Below the title bar is the Ribbon, where you''ll find most of the AutoCAD commands and tools needed to complete any drawing task. Related tasks are found under the different tabs, which are further segmented into panels containing similar tools.
To the far right of the title bar are the InfoCenter, Communications Center, Favorites, and Help buttons. You can enter a question in the field to the left of the InfoCenter button to quickly access information from the Help system through the InfoCenter''s drop-down panel. With the Communications Center, you can determine what type of information, such as software updates, product support, or RSS feeds, Autodesk sends directly to your system. With the Favorites tool, you can define a list of help or informational topics that can be quickly accessed whenever you need them. The Help button is a direct link to the AutoCAD help system.
The blank middle section of the screen is called the drawing area. Notice the movable crosshair cursor. The crosshairs on your cursor might extend completely across the screen. Later in this chapter, I will show you how to modify the length of the crosshairs as well as make a few other changes.
Notice the little box at the intersection of the two crosshair lines. This is one of several forms of the AutoCAD cursor. When you move the cursor off the drawing area, it changes to the standard Windows pointing arrow. As you begin using commands, it will take on other forms, depending on which step of a command you''re performing.
The icon with a double arrow in the lower-left corner of the drawing area is the UCS icon (UCS stands for user coordinate system). It indicates the positive direction for the x- and y-axes. You won''t need it for most of the chapters in this book, so you''ll learn how to turn it off in Chapter 3.
Below the drawing area is the Command window.
When you enter commands in addition to using the Ribbon or pop-up menus, the Command window is where you tell the program what to do and where the program tells you what''s happening. It''s an important area, and you''ll need to learn how it works in detail. Four lines of text should be visible. You''ll learn how to increase the number of visible lines later in this chapter in the section "Working in the Command Window." When the Dynamic Input feature is active, much of the Command window information is displayed at the cursor as well.
Below the Command window is the status bar.
On the left end of the status bar, you''ll see a coordinate readout window. In the middle are 10 buttons (LT has only 9) that activate various drawing modes. It''s important to learn about the coordinate system and most of these drawing aids (Snap Mode, Grid Display, Ortho Mode, Object Snap, etc) early on as you learn to draw in AutoCAD. They will help you create neat and accurate drawings. Polar Tracking and Object Snap Tracking are advanced drawing tools and will be introduced in Chapter 5. Dynamic UCS stands for Dynamic User Coordinate System; it''s used in 3D drawings. The Dynamic Input button is an on/off toggle that activates or suppresses the dynamic display of information next to the crosshair cursor when it''s in the drawing area. For now, keep it in the on (pushed) mode. The Show/Hide Lineweight button toggles the display of lineweights (discussed in Chapter 14) in the drawing area. When active, the Quick Properties tool displays the most common properties for the selected object(s) in a dialog box where they can be edited. If you prefer text-based buttons rather than icons, you can right-click on any of the tools mentioned here and uncheck the Use Icons option.
At the right side of the status bar are tools for controlling the appearance of annotation objects in AutoCAD, tools for navigating in the drawing area and controlling the display, and tools to control access to other drawings or features within the current drawing. The padlock icon controls which types of toolbars and windows are locked in their current positions on the screen. Leave it in the unlocked mode for now.
To conclude this quick introduction to the various parts of the graphics window, I need to mention a couple of items that might be visible on your screen. You might have scroll bars below and to the right of the drawing area; although these can be useful, they can take up precious space in the drawing area. They won''t be of any use while working your way through this book, so I suggest you remove them for now.
To remove these features temporarily, follow these steps:
1. Enter options [??] to open the Options dialog box (shown in Figure 1.7). It has 10 tabs (LT has only 8) across the top that act like tabs on file folders.
2. Click the Display tab, which is shown in Figure 1.8. Focus on the Window Elements section. If scroll bars are visible on the lower and right edges of the drawing area, the Display Scroll Bars In Drawing Window check box will be selected.
3. Click the check box to turn off the scroll bars. Also be sure the check boxes for Display Screen Menu and, in the Layout Elements section, Display Layout And Model Tabs are not selected. Don''t click the OK button yet.
Another display setting that you might want to change at this point controls the color of the cursor and the drawing area background. The illustrations in this book show a white background and black crosshair cursor, but you''re probably seeing the AutoCAD default, which features a black background and a white crosshair cursor. If you want to change the colors, follow these steps:
1. In the Window Elements area of the Display tab, click the Colors button to open the Drawing Window Colors dialog box (see Figure 1.9). In the upper-left corner of the dialog box, in the Context list box, 2D Model Space should be selected. If it''s not, select it.
NOTE The screen-captured images in this book are taken from AutoCAD sessions using the Dark Color Scheme. You can set the Color Scheme at the top of the Window Elements area and choose either the Light or Dark scheme.
2. Move to the Color drop-down list, which is in the upper-right corner. If your drawing area background is currently white, a square followed by the word White is displayed. Open the Color drop-down list, and select Black (or the background color you want). The drawing area will now be that color, and the cursor color will change to white, as shown in the Preview window below.
3. Click the Apply & Close button to close the Drawing Window Colors dialog box. The background and cursor colors change.
4. If you want to change the length of the lines of your crosshair cursor, go to the lower-right corner of the Display tab (the middle of the right side for LT), and move the slider to change the Crosshair Size setting. The crosshair length changes as a percentage of the drawing area.
5. Click OK to apply any remaining changes and close the Options dialog box.
TIP If you choose a color other than black as the drawing area background color, the color of the crosshair cursor remains the same as it was. To change the crosshair color, in the Drawing Window Colors dialog box, go to the Interface Element list box, and select Crosshairs. Then, select a color from the Color drop-down list.
Working in the Command Window
Just below the drawing area is the Command window. This window is separate from the drawing area and behaves like a Windows window-that is, you can drag it to a different place on the screen and resize it, although I don''t recommend you do this at first. If you currently have fewer than four lines of text in the window, you should increase the window''s vertical size. To do so, move the cursor to the horizontal boundary between the drawing area and the Command window until it changes to an up-and-down arrow broken by two parallel horizontal lines.
Hold down the left mouse button, drag the cursor up by approximately the amount that one or two lines of text would take up, and then release the mouse button. You should see more lines of text, but you might have to try this a few times to display exactly four lines. A horizontal line will separate the top two lines of text from the bottom line of text. When you close the program, AutoCAD will save the new settings. The next time you start AutoCAD, the Command window will display four lines of text.
The Command window is where you give information to AutoCAD and where AutoCAD prompts you for the next step in executing a command. It''s good practice to keep an eye on the Command window as you work on your drawing. Many errors can occur when you don''t check it frequently. If the Dynamic Input button on the status bar is in the on position, some of the information in the Command window will appear in the drawing area next to the cursor. I''ll cover this feature when you start drawing.
Before you begin to draw in the next chapter, take a close look at the Ribbon, Menu Browser, toolbars, and keyboard controls.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from AutoCAD 2009 and AutoCAD LT 2009by Jon McFarland Copyright © 2008 by Jon McFarland. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
