Hello there! Welcome to this video! Let's see all you need to start quickly
and easily with Autodesk AutoCAD 2016!
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AutoCAD is one of the best softwares used for CAD designs and architectural
projects, in both 2D and 3D.
When you open it, you will be directed to the Start tab, divided in two
sections. In Learn you find tips and tutorials to discover AutoCAD. In
Create you manage new and old projects made, or open sample ones available.
You can open projects done through Open Files... or create new ones going
to Start Drawing, or simply clicking on the plus tab on top.
Let's see the workspace. We will use the default one that AutoCAD uses.
On top you have a full list of tools and buttons ready to use to work. Then
you have the main workspace where you draw, and, more at the bottom, you
have the Command Line and some quick buttons that set important drawing
settings. If you need more room, you can click on the small icon above to
reduce all panels sizes.
Let's see how to draw objects. All the main important tools are inside the
Home section. Moreover, if you hover on a button for some time, a detailed
explanation will appear, showing you green numbered steps to follow or
guided interactive videos.
There are also buttons that do include more than one feature inside. These
do show a white arrow close to them, so that you can decide which feature
to use. You can use Line or Polyline to draw simple segments. Use Escape
key to stop drawing. Use Circle to draw a circle, fixing two points by
clicking on the workspace. 3-Point Arc draws an Arc by fixing three points
instead. AutoCAD always shows you a raw preview of what you are doing:
the object is created when you finish the last step.
Inside the white arrow, you can change the way to draw arcs or circles.
So if you choose Start, Center, Angle Arc, you fix two points and then the
angle to draw an Arc, instead of fixing three points as before.
You can also draw Polygons and Ellipses, check the smaller icons.
Depending on what you choose, you will need to fix points, angles or
lengths, so do hover buttons if you need some help at drawing each object.
The buttons in the bottom right corner are used to adjust all your drawing
off the grid on your workspace. Use SNAPMODE to enable or disable
snappings to all the grid points shown. Use ORTHOMODE to draw following
just the X (horizontal) direction or the Y (vertical) direction.
Very important is the Object Snap command. While you draw in your
workspace, AutoCAD helps you being precise using snappings: when you get
close to keypoints, like vertices, intersections, midpoints and so on, your
pointer will directly snap to them. So endpoints and vertices are
represented by green squares, intersections by green crosses, centers by
green circles, midpoints by green triangles and directions with green
dashed lines. If you want to draw completely freely, turn off Object Snap
clicking on the OSNAP button. If you click on the white arrow on the right,
you can disable snappings on some keypoints or consider more additional
keypoints like tangents, perpendicular directions or geometric centers, a
new feature that shows you the centre of any closed path through a white
asterisk.
When you finish drawing, you need to enable the tool again to draw the same
object, or simply use Enter key directly. While you draw, you can undo all
using Escape key.
When you have no drawing tools active, you are in Selection mode. Your
pointer does not draw new objects, but interacts with objects to edit and
manage them. When you hover an object, this is highlighted and a dialog
box appears giving you information about the kind of such object, its style
and its layer.
Layers are very important to manage complex projects. Check out our video
in this guide for more about those.
But if you click on the object you will select it, and this will be
highlighted in blue. You can personalize any object selected going on
Properties on top, changing color, linestyle, line thickness and
transparency. Undo any selection done by using Escape key.
If you want to manage more objects at the same time, you can select them
one by one clicking on each single object. A small plus sign will appear
next to your pointer. If you hold Shift down and click, you can deselect an
object from your overall selection. In this case you have a minus sign on
your pointer. You can also use the Lasso Selection to select objects
faster. Just click and hold your click down to create a selection area: if
you drag from the left to the right, you will create a blue area called
Window Lasso, that selects just all objects fully contained inside such. If
you drag from the right to the lleft, you will use a Crossing Lasso, that
selects also all objects that are even partially included. In this case the
area is in green color. Always use Escape key to undo all selections.
Once an object (or objects) is selected, you can start editing it. To
delete it, use Delete key. To cut, copy and paste, use CTRL+X, CTRL+C and
CTRL+V. While pasting, check the preview and click to place the copy.
A selected object has also some blue nodes used for editing. To move Lines,
Circles and Arcs, you can simply click and drag from their central point.
To edit their shape or length, you can drag from the other nodes. Always
check the preview while doing so.
Plus, if you hover any blue node, critical lengths and angles are shown,
and a dialog box appears, making you choose between Stretch and Lengthen.
The first one edits the shape without any limitation, while Lengthen lets
you edit without changing the basic shape of the object, so keeping the
direction for the Line or the radius for the Arc.
Rectangles, Polygons and Polylines behave differently. Here you have big
and smaller blue nodes. Hover on the big ones set on the vertices: you can
move them through Stretch Vertex, or add or remove ones going on Add or
Remove Vertex. The smaller ones do set the sides of the polygon. For
example use Convert to Arc to set curves, or Stretch to skew. In this case
you can't move the object directly from the nodes: you need to use in this
case the Move command. Select the object, and enable the Move command from
the Modify section. Then simply click and drag.
If you enable the Move command, and you have a small square as a pointer,
it means that you don't have a selected object yet. Simply select all
objects you need to move and then use Enter to start editing.
In case you want to make more complex editing on a single object or on more
objects at the same time, you need to use the tools in Modify section.
These do work exactly as seen for the Move command. For example you can use
Rotate to rotate the selected object; Scale to scale without deforming the
object, just type the scale factor and use Enter to apply.
AutoCAD is not made of buttons only: you can also use the command line to
search, follow and personalize any action you want to perform.
For example, while you draw, you can use your down arrow key to
choose in a list of suboptions and then use Enter to apply. If you are
drawing a Polyline, you can directly draw arcs if you choose Arc in the
list. If you are drawing a Rectangle, you can draw it fixing its area with
Area or fixing length and width with Dimentions. The list inside does
depend on the tool you are using and on which step you are.
You can also use the main Command Line at the very bottom. If you type
inside, a list of all matching commands appears. For example, if you type
and choose RECTANGLE you will activate the Rectangle tool. You will see
that the Command Line shows you all suboptions to change the way to draw
it, just as we have seen before with the dialog box close to your pointer.
You can type the blue letter on the box to choose what you need and use
Enter key to apply. Even more, while you draw, AutoCAD shows you the exact
measurement of any length and angle related to the object in preview. You
can define measurements either using your pointer, or typing directly from
your keyboard. Use Enter to apply. The Measurement unit used is decimal
by default. You can change its format going on Customization and then to
Units.
To manage your actions done, you can use the undo and redo arrows in the
very top left corner. To enable your latest tools used instead, browse by
using your up arrow key.
Checking your project is also very important. You can zoom in and out
around your pointer using your mouse wheel. Enable the Pan tool on the
extreme right and click and drag to check around. Use Escape to finish.
You can also use the 3D ViewCube, in the top right corner. In case of 2D
projects, you will see just the TOP face. You can rotate using the hidden
arrows in a corner, or dragging from the circle left or right.
On your project there is also a default object representing the carthesian
system. In 2D, you have the X axis, representing the horizontal direction
in red, and the Y axis, representing the vertical direction in green. You
can move it by dragging from its centre, and rotate in 2D dragging the
rounded nodes. Keep in mind that, if you rotate the axes, also the cube
on the corner and the workspace grid will follow.
Once you have finished, save your project! Go to the AutoCAD icon, and go
to Save As. AutoCAD Projects are saved as .dwg, and these lets you edit and
modify all again later.
Thanks for watching this video! Check out our full guide to learn much more
about AutoCAD 2016!