by Paul Richard and Jim Fitzgerald

Chapter 3 – Controlling the Drawing Display

• Zoom in and out of a drawing

• Pan around a drawing

• Create and restore named views

• Split the drawing display into multiple viewports

• Refresh the drawing display

• Toggle all of the toolbars and palettes off and on

• Make arcs and circles appear smoother

• Increase drawing display regeneration speed by turning off text and solid filled areas

The AutoCAD drawing display window is like a camera lens. You control what’s displayed in your drawing by zooming in to get a closer look and by zooming out to see the big picture, similar to a camera.

All of the Zoom tools can be displayed by selecting the Zoom Extents tool to display the Zoom flyout menu

Frequently Used Zoom Tools

•Zoom Extents•Zoom Window• Zoom Previous•Zoom Realtime• Zoom All

Other Zoom Tools• Zoom Dynamic• Zoom Scale• Zoom In• Zoom Out• Zoom Center• Using the Mouse Wheel to Zoom

• The Pan Realtime Tool

• The New and Original Pan

• Realtime mouse pointer

• Using the Scroll Bars

• Using the Middle Mouse Button

• Panning and Zooming Transparently

• Combine zoom and pan commands

There are two distinctly different types of viewports in AutoCAD: floating and tiled

The term tiled is used because model space viewports must abut each other with no space between them and no overlapping edges

Both model space and paper space viewports are created using the same tool.

If you are in model space, tiled viewports are created. If you are in paper space, floating viewports are created.

To split your drawing display screen up into multiple tiled viewports, switch to model space and select the Viewports tool.

The Viewports dialog box

The Viewports dialog box provides a number of different viewportconfigurations that vary between one and four total viewports. Selecting a configuration on the left previews it in the Preview pane on the right.

2D application of tiled viewports

The viewport setup shown allows you to coordinate fourdifferent areas of a drawing at the same time.

It is possible to save a tiled viewport configuration with a user-defined name so that it can be recalled later.

Saving a viewport configuration requires that you type in a name when you create the viewports in the Viewports dialog box

The Clean Screen toggle temporarily turns off the ribbon and any toolbarsand palettes so that you have more room to draw because sometimes the screen can get a bit cluttered.

The CLEANSCREENON command turns the ribbon, toolbars, and palettes off, and the CLEANSCREENOFF command turns them back on.

• Redraw

• Regen

• The Clean Screen Toggle

• Controlling Arc and Circle Smoothness

• Turning Text Display On and Off

• QTEXTMODE

Turning Fills On and Off

There are a number of AutoCAD settings that can be used to control the resolution of drawing objects on your screen, and in turn, enhance your computer’s performance when regenerating the drawing display.

Display Tab

Display Settings

Text is one of the most resource-intensive object types in an AutoCAD drawing because of its detail. If you have a large drawing with lots of, regenerating a drawing can become a time-consuming task.

Text Boundary Frames Off

Text Boundary Frames On

To turn off text display in a drawing, select the Show text boundary frame only check box on the Display tab of the Options dialog box

Like text, hatch patterns and solid filled areas are also very resource-intensive. Many hatched and/or solid filled areas in a drawing can significantly increase the time it takes to regenerate the drawing display.

Fortunately, you can turn off hatch patterns and solid fills by deselecting(unchecking) the Apply solid fill check box on the Display tab of theOptions dialog box

NOTEThe Apply solid fill setting can also be controlled via the FILLMODE system variable. Setting FILLMODE = 0 turns off hatching, solid fills, gradient fills, and wide polylines. Setting FILLMODE = 1 turns hatching, solid fills, gradient fills, and wide polylines back on in a drawing. This FILLMODE setting is saved with the drawing.

NOTEThe Apply solid fill setting can also be controlled via the FILLMODE system variable. Setting FILLMODE = 0 turns off hatching, solid fills, gradient fills, and wide polylines. Setting FILLMODE = 1 turns hatching, solid fills, gradient fills, and wide polylines back on in a drawing. This FILLMODE setting is saved with the drawing.

by Paul Richard and Jim Fitzgerald

Chapter 4 - Basic Drawing Commands

• Create a New Drawing• Establish the Drawing Units• Set the Drawing Limits• Create Lines, Arcs and Circles• Create Ellipses and Elliptical Arcs• Create Point Objects and Control their Size and appearance• Measure and Divide using Point Objects

• Templates

• Units

• Linear Units

• Angular Units

• Setting the drawing area

The first step in setting up your drawing is to set the drawing units

NOTEYou can enter feet (‘) and inches (“) only when drawing units are set to either Architectural or Engineering. If you try to enter either unit designation when drawing units are set to anything else, AutoCAD will reject the entry and display the following ambiguous message at the command line:Point or option keyword required.If you are using dynamic input, a bright red border is displayed around the distance input box, and you are forced to reenter a valid input value.

NOTEYou can enter feet (‘) and inches (“) only when drawing units are set to either Architectural or Engineering. If you try to enter either unit designation when drawing units are set to anything else, AutoCAD will reject the entry and display the following ambiguous message at the command line:Point or option keyword required.If you are using dynamic input, a bright red border is displayed around the distance input box, and you are forced to reenter a valid input value.

• Undo

• Close

The Close option will draw a line segment from the last specified point to the point specified at the start of the line command

• Drawing With Cartesian Coordinates

• Absolute vs. Relative Coordinate Entry

• Polar Coordinates

• Direct Distance Entry

Polar CoordinatesPolar coordinates use distance and direction to specify locations. Forexample, if you specify a location of 2<0, 2 is the distance, < is the angleindicator, and 0 is the direction in degrees. The coordinate 2<0 tellsAutoCAD to measure 2 units in the 0° direction from the origin (0,0).

• Center Radius

• Center Diameter

• 2 Point

• 3 Point

• Tangent Tangent Radius

How arcs are defined

• The ARC Command

• 3-Point Arc

• Arc Options

When drawing an ellipse, once you specify the major axis (by picking either a center and major radius or two points on the major axis), you’ll have a Rotation option available

• Drawing a Point

• PDMODE

• Point Styles

PDMODE

PDMODE values and their associated point styles.