AutoCAD 2015 and AutoCAD LT 2015 Bible
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By Ellen Finkelstein 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 you see:
Do you see how the handles are still on the corners of the rectangle? And if you open the Properties panel, you’ll see that AutoCAD still considers it a 2D polyline, not an ellipse.
Just to experiment, take the same rectangle and use the Fit option of the PEDIT command (instead of the Spline option). Whoa! You get a circle! But select it, and you’ll see that the handles are still on the corners of the rectangle and AutoCAD still thinks of it as a polyline, not as a circle.
Have you ever used these PEDIT options? In which situation?
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By Ellen Finkelstein 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 idea why. It does appear on the ribbon, though.
TTR (Tangent, Tangent, Radius)
Let’s say that you know your circle’s radius needs to be 120 inches, because you have a pre-made pool that you can buy that is 240 inches across (the diameter). You want to fit the pool between two paths that look like this.
Here are the steps to creating a circle that is tangent to the inside of the path:
- Choose Home tab> Draw panel> Circle drop-down> Tan, Tan, Radius.
- At the Specify point on object for first tangent of circle: prompt, click anywhere on the inside line of the vertical path.
- At the Specify point on object for second tangent of circle: prompt, click anywhere on the inside line of the horizontal path.
- At the Specify radius of circle <10′-0″>: prompt, type 120 and press Enter.
Add a few embellishments and you’ll get something like this.
Check out this exercise to Draw a circle with radius tangent to two objects
TTT (Tangent, Tangent, Tangent)
When you want to specify 3 sides of a circle tangent to a line, use Tangent, Tangent, Tangent.
Let’s say you have a triangular courtyard and want to fit a pond inside it. Here’s where Tangent, Tangent, Tangent can help you. Your courtyard looks like this.
Here are the steps:
- Choose Home tab> Draw panel> Circle drop-down> Tan, Tan, Tan
- At the Specify center point for circle or [3P/2P/Ttr (tan tan radius)]: _3p Specify first point on circle: prompt, click anywhere on the inside of one side of the courtyard.
- At the Specify second point on circle: _tan to prompt, click anywhere on the inside of a second side of the courtyard.
- At the Specify third point on circle: _tan to prompt, click anywhere on the inside of the third side of the courtyard.
From the prompts, I think you can see that Tan, Tan, Tan is a special case of the CIRCLE command’s 3P option.
Again, add a few finishing touches to get something like this.
Do you create tangent circles? In which situations are they useful for you?
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By Ellen Finkelstein 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 of the coordinate are as follows:
- Distance: Units in the XY plane from the last point
- Angle: Degrees from the X axis in the XY plane
- Second angle: Degrees from the XY plane along the Z axis
Spherical coordinates can be absolute or relative. You don’t need the @ symbol to make relative coordinates if Dynamic Input is on and set to the default option of relative coordinates.
Here you see a red line drawn from 8,5 to 6<40<20. Note that the length of the line is the same as the distance in the coordinate (unlike cylindrical coordinates).
Do you use spherical units? When do you find them useful?
By Ellen Finkelstein 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: Units in the XY plane from the last point
- Angle: Degrees from the X axis in the XY plane
- Second distance: Units along the Z axis
Here you see a red line drawn from 0,0 to 6<40,4.
Note that the line you draw using cylindrical coordinates is not either length that you specify in the coordinate. Instead, you’re defining the lengths of two sides of a triangle to draw the hypotenuse.
In my experience, cylindrical coordinates do not work very well with Dynamic Input turned on. In that case, click the Dynamic Input button on the status bar to turn off Dynamic Input.
Do you use cylindrical units? When do you find them useful?
By Ellen Finkelstein 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 save in model space, but you can save views on a layout, too.
When you travel, you like to see beautiful views like the one shown here. AutoCAD views have their own kind of beauty, because they help you draw and edit more quickly.
 Create a named view
To create and save a named view, follow these steps:
- Display the part of your drawing that you want to be able to return to. You’ll use the ZOOM and PAN features to do this.
- Choose View tab> Views panel> View Manager (the VIEW command) to open the View Manager dialog box.
- Click the New button to open the New View/Shot Properties dialog box.
- Type a name for the view in the View Name text box.
- The View Properties tab defaults to using the current display, but if you forgot to display the right part of your drawing before you started, choose Define Window. You immediately return to your drawing.
- At the Specify first corner: prompt, click one corner of the view you want to save. At the Specify opposite corner: prompt, click the diagonally opposite corner.
- Press Enter to return to the dialog box.
- Click OK.
- Back in the View Manager, if you want to move to the new view (and you didn’t display it at the beginning), click Set Current.
- Click OK.
Display a view
There are a couple of ways to display a view that you’ve saved.
The quickest is to use the View Controls in the upper-left corner of your drawing area. (I think this feature was introduced in AutoCAD 2012.) You just click the View control, then choose Custom Model Views and then the view that you want. as you see here.
Another way is to choose View tab, View panel and choose your view from the Views drop-down list, as you see here.
Do you use named views? Please share any tips!
By Ellen Finkelstein 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 of hyperlinks.
Here are the steps:
- Create your views, using the VIEW command.
- Create some text that refers to each view. You can only hyperlink an object, so you can’t hyperlink to a cell inside a table. I created a table and exploded it.
- Start the HYPERLINK command (Insert tab> Data panel> Hyperlink or Ctrl+K).
- At the Select objects: prompt, select the object or objects that you want to hyperlink. In our example, it would be some text that describes the view.
- Press Enter to end object selection. The Insert Hyperlink dialog box opens.
- In the left panel, click View of This Drawing.
- In the center panel, expand the location of the view, in this case Model, and choose the View from the list of existing views.
- Click OK to close the Insert Hyperlink dialog box.
To use your hyperlink, hover over the hyperlinked object until you see the hyperlink cursor. Then press Ctrl + click to go to the view you specified.
To return to your list of hyperlinks, choose View tab> Back or choose Zoom Previous from the Nav bar.
How could you use this technique? Leave a comment!
By Ellen Finkelstein 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 you place constrains on objects so you can control what happens when you edit them. For example, you can constrain a line to be:
- horizontal or vertical
- equal in length to another line
- parallel, perpendicular, or collinear to another line
For an equilateral triangle, you certainly want all the lines to be equal in length, since that’s the definition of an equilateral triangle. You might also want to maintain its bottom side horizontal (to the X axis).
The feature has a great shortcut, Autoconstrain, but it doesn’t always do everything that you want. Here are the steps to draw and constrain an equilaterial triangle with a horizontal bottom edge:
- Click the Ortho Mode button on the Status bar.
- Start the POLYGON command and set its sides to 3. (On the Home tab, in the Draw panel, you’ll probably see a rectangle for the RECTANG command. Click the down arrow to its right to find the POLYGON command.)
- Click to specify the center of the triangle.
- Choose either the Inscribed in Circle or Circumscribed about Circle option.
- Move the cursor up or down from the center (depending on the option you chose in the previous step) so one side is parallel to the X axis and click to specify the triangle’s size.
- Click the Parametric tab and choose Autoconstrain in the Geometric panel. At the prompt, select the triangle and press Enter to end the command. AutoCAD only adds a horizontal constraint to the bottom line.
- Again in the Geometric Panel, click the Equal button. Choose the Multiple option. Then select all 3 lines of the triangle and press Enter to end the GCEQUAL command.
- Turn off Ortho Mode.
- Select the triangle and click either of the 2 bottom grips. Try moving it. You’ll see that no matter what you do, you’ll always get an equilateral triangle with its bottom line horizontal. (You might need to choose Stretch Vertex from the options near the grip, depending on your release of AutoCAD.) The top grip will just move the triangle.
What else can you do with parametric constraints?
How do you use parametric constraints to help you when you edit drawings?
Here are 2 tips on keeping the integrity of a rectangle. I love these tips! Trying them out will teach you a lot about parametrics and dynamic blocks.
Want more productivity tips like this? You can draw and edit faster and easier with this easy to follow top 25 productivity tips every AutoCAD user should know.
By Ellen Finkelstein 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 shapes and blocks:
- Shapes are much harder to create, but I’m going to give you a great shortcut!
- Shapes are compiled into a format that conserves space, memory, and regeneration time
- You can simply insert them into a drawing, use them to create fonts, or add them to linetypes
- Shape files are support files. If you distribute a drawing, then be sure to include any font or shape files that the drawing uses
You wouldn’t use a shape for just one drawing. Instead, use shapes when you want to store them for use many times, especially many times in one drawing. That’s where their small size can make a difference.
What’s the shortcut?
Coding a shape is complex, but there’s a shortcut! It’s the MKSHAPE command, part of Express Tools. Here are the steps:
- Draw any object or set of objects that you want to turn into a shape.
- Go to Express Tools tab> Tools (expanded — click the down arrow)> Make Shape or simply type mkshape.
- The MKSHAPE – Select Shape File dialog box opens. Navigate to the location where you want your shape file to be. It should be in AutoCAD’s support file search path.
- In the File Name text box type a name for your shape file and click Save. (You can put more than one shape in a file, so instead of typing a new file name, you can select an existing shape file.)
- At the Enter name of the shape: prompt, type a name for the shape. I recommend making the shape and shape file the same unless you want more than one shape in a file.
- At the Enter resolution: prompt, press Enter to keep the default value or enter a new value. A higher resolution will give a more accurate representation but the size of the shape definition will be larger. Resolutions have to be divisible by 8 (the program will round off for you) and the largest value is 32,767. You can experiment with varying resolutions to find one that works for you. I would suggest a minimum of 240.
- At the Specify insertion base point: prompt, specify the insertion point. Use an object snap if possible.
- At the Select objects: prompt, select that objects for the shape and press Enter to end the selection process.
You see the following text on the command line:
- Determining geometry extents…Done.
- Building coord lists…Done.
- Formating coords…|Done.
- Writing new shape…Done.
- Compiling shape/font description file
- Compilation successful. Output file C:\AutoCAD Bible\wave1.shx contains 137 bytes.
- Shape “WAVE1” created.
- Use the SHAPE command to place shapes in your drawing.
Nothing else visible happens, but the MKSHAPE command creates a SHX file, which is the compiled format of the shape.
How to insert a shape
You use the SHAPE command to insert a shape that you have defined. You insert SHX files. Here are the steps:
- At the Enter shape name or [?]: prompt, enter the shape name or choose the ? option, then press Enter to list the available shapes. If the shape you want isn’t available, you’ll need to load it using the LOAD command, which I explain next.
- At the Specify insertion point: prompt, pick the point where you want the shape to go.
- At the Specify height <1.0000>: prompt, specify a height. It’s really a scale factor. Press Enter to accept the default.
- At the Specify rotation angle <0>: prompt, specify a rotation angle or press Enter to accept the default.
Shapes need to be loaded with the LOAD command. Type load and navigate to the SHX file that you want. Click Open.
Here you see a shape that I made from 2 arcs. Then, I inserted the shape at a height of .15 and arrayed it to fill the pool with water!
Once you create a shape, you can include it in a complex linetype using MKTYPE, another Express Tools command.
By Ellen Finkelstein 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 time, but I think that people don’t use it as often as they could.
If you start the command first, it works like this:
- Choose Home tab> Layers panel> Make Object’s Layer Current (the LAYMCUR command).
- At the Select object whose layer will become current: prompt, select the object.
You’ll see a message something like this: ELECTRIC is now the current layer.
If you select the object first, it works like this:
- Select the object.
- Choose Home tab> Layers panel> Make Object’s Layer Current (the LAYMCUR command).
That’s easy, isn’t it?
By Ellen Finkelstein 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 by exporting them to a file. Then others import the same file to access the tool palettes.
 Export a tool palette or group to a file
Follow these steps to export a tool palette (or group) to a file:
- Choose Manage tab> Customization panel> Tool Palettes (the CUSTOMIZE command) to open the Customize dialog box. Note that each tab in the Tool Palettes window is a separate tool palette.
- Right click a tool palette or group and choose Export from the menu. To export all palette groups, right-click a palette group and choose Export All.
- In the Export Palette or Export Group dialog box, choose a location for the file. A tool palette will be an XTP file and a palette group will be an XPG file.
- Click Save.
Import a tool palette or group from a file
If someone gives you a tool palette file (XTP or XPG), here are the steps to import it:
- Choose Manage tab> Customization panel> Tool Palettes (the CUSTOMIZE command) to open the Customize dialog box.
- Right-click any palette from the left side of the dialog box and choose Import.
- Select the XTP or XPG file and choose Open to display the tool palette.
Here you see the custom tool palette that I imported:
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