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AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible

The most comprehensive AutoCAD book around!

A different way to create an ellipse or oval

The ELLIPSE command is the usual way to create an ellipse — or oval — but there’s a different way that may be more intuitive for you.

Here are the steps:

Draw a rectangle. Select the rectangle. Start the PEDIT command (polyline edit). Choose the Spline option.

Now, select the oval. This is what […]

Create a circle tangent to a line

Sometimes you want a circle to hug a line perfectly. You could try to eyeball it, but there’s a better way–the tangent options of the CIRCLE command. There are two, TTR and TTT. The TTT option is something of a secret, because it doesn’t appear as an option on the Command line. I have no […]

Use spherical coordinates in 3D AutoCAD drawings

Spherical coordinates are a way of specifying coordinates in 3D. Mostly, you use them with the LINE command. They’re good for finding a coordinate that you might use in a solid or surface. (I cover cylindrical coordinates, which are similar, here.)

Spherical coordinates have the format distance<angle<angle. An example would be 6<40<20. The 3 parts […]

Use cylindrical coordinates in 3D AutoCAD drawings

Cylindrical coordinates are a way of specifying coordinates in 3D. Mostly, you use them with the LINE command. They’re good for finding a coordinate that you might use in a solid or surface.

Cylindrical coordinates have the format distance<angle,distance. An example would be 6<40,4. The 3 parts of the coordinate are as follows:

First distance: […]

Create views in your AutoCAD drawing

Do you create large drawings? If so, you probably spend a lot of time panning and zooming. Named views, which are pre-saved displays of part of your drawing, can help! A view can show any area of your drawing at any zoom value.

For the purpose of this tip, I’ll stick to views that you […]

Hyperlink to views in your drawing

If you have a big drawing that you want to present to others, you’ll probably create views, but how about a menu to each view?

You can create hyperlinks to drawing views to easily navigate your drawing. Once you go to a view, you can use the View Previous feature to return to your menu […]

Control the shape of objects when you edit them – Keep an equilateral triangle equilateral

Let’s say that you have an equilateral triangle and you want to make sure that it stays that way, even if you grip edit a corner. Because without any restrains, you can just wreck it, like this:

Use Parametrics to control the shape of objects as you edit them

AutoCAD’s geometric parametric feature lets […]

Create shapes to insert over and over

In AutoCAD, you can create custom shapes using code that resides in a text file. You can insert a shape using the SHAPE command. Custom fonts (especially non-Roman ones) are often created using this shape feature.

Shapes vs blocks

Inserting a shape is similar to inserting a block, so let’s start with the difference between […]

Make an object’s layer the current layer

Let’s say you need to change the current layer, but aren’t sure which layer you want. But you know that you want the same layer as an existing object you’ve already drawn. That’s a pretty common scenario, right?

Enter Make Object’s Layer Current, also known as LAYMCUR.

This command has been around for a long […]

Easily share tool palettes with colleagues

Tool palettes can be a great place to store blocks, custom commands, and more. For example, in this post, I explain how to use tool palettes for blocks. And here I explain how to use tool palettes for user-defined hatches.

But what if you want to share them with others? You can share tool palettes […]