Dear all, welcome to this new tutorial on Autodesk AutoCAD! In just
13 minutes you are going to see everything you need to know to
start making your first 2D and 3D drawings with it!
AutoCAD is one of the best CAD software to realize 2D and 3D professional
drawings for both Windows and MacOS. It is available either under a
monthly or yearly subscription plan or through limited sessions (or tokens)
in case you don't use AutoCAD quite often. When you open AutoCAD the
Start page opens showing online resources, your most recent projects
made and several news and tips from Autodesk. Go to Open... to open
any project you have or go to New to start with a new blank project
by using different templates. In this video we are going to use the
default one called acad.dwt. The new project opens on the main
interface under a new Drawing tab on top. You can always come back
to the Start page with its tab. Around the big preview you get the
Ribbon on top, collecting all the tools and features within AutoCAD;
several visualization tools on the right and further options and the
Command Line at the bottom. You can change the Ribbon size with the
Minimize button on top and show/hide any tool from the View tab. Let's
start with 2D drawing. Any new project starts with a 2D preview, with
a gizmo system in the bottom left corner showing the X axis as a
red line - representing the horizontal direction - and the Y axis as
a green line - representing the vertical direction. These two define
the ground plane, which is where you drop all your 2D drawings. The
Draw section, under the Home tab, collects all the tools to draw
in 2D. Some of these have different ways to draw an object, that you
can check by hovering over any button for some time. In this video
we will follow the default ways to make any drawing. Enable the Line or
the Polyline tool and click twice on the preview to drop a straight
segment. You can go on drawing others as long as you do not use the
Escape key. At this point the tool gets disabled but you can enable it
again with the Enter key. Whereas use the Circle tool to drop a circle
with two points and the Arc tool to make arcs with three points.
Also these tools get disabled once the drawing is made, so use the
Enter key to go on. With the Rectangle and the Polygon tool set the
number of sides, apply with the Enter key and fix two points to drop
a regular shape. Whereas enable the Ellipse tool to drop an ellipse
with three different points. While drawing any object AutoCAD shows a
live preview of it with useful measurements on it. You can undo the
drawing in progress with the Escape key. You get angle degrees in
respect to the X axis and length measurements following the unit set
for the whole project. You can adjust the unit to use by typing UNITS
and applying with the Enter or the Space bar key. Then set the
unit, format and the precision you like most. While drawing you can
also type any precise value and use the Tab key to apply and set the
next value. Then use the Enter key to go on with the next drawing step.
AutoCAD comes with several drawing aids collected in the bottom
right corner. With GRIDMODE you can turn ON or OFF the drawing grid
and use SNAPMODE to enable or disable snappings to it while drawing.
Use ORTHOMODE to draw only through the horizontal or the vertical
axis direction. Moreover you can enable Object Snap to get snappings
to several object keypoints selected from the list next to the Snap button.
These include object endpoints, centers but also midpoints,
intersections and perpendicular directions, all shown in green color.
The same keypoints are used to drop dashed guidelines to extend
directions and extract other keypoints. You can also use your keyboard
and the Command Line at the bottom to ease your drawings. For
example you can enable the Polyline tool by simply typing POLYLINE and
using the Enter or the Space bar key to apply. Moreover the Command
Line shows several options available, highlighted with blue letters.
For example you can enable Arc by typing A and using the Space
bar key to drop a curved side and type L to enable Line and come back
to a straight side. You can do the same thing with the Up and the
Down Arrow keys, choosing the right option from the list. These are
the same ones you find on the Command Line. When you have no drawing
tools ON the cursor is in selection mode, showing a small square on
its center. In this mode you can click on any object to select it and
turn it in blue color, ready to get edited. Use CTRL (or CMD) and
X, C and V to cut, copy and paste the object and the Delete key to
remove the object. If you make any mistake you can undo all with
CTRL (or CMD) and Z. The selected object shows several nodes you can
use to edit it. If it is a Line, an Arc, a Circle or an Ellipse click
and drag from its central node to move it and use the others to
resize it as you like. You can also hover over any node to get useful
information and additional options, such as Stretch to move any
endpoint; Lengthen to adjust the line or arc length and Radius to change
the arc radius. When selecting Polylines, Rectangles and Polygons
you get big and smaller nodes. Click on the big ones to move, add or
remove the selected vertex and click on the smaller ones to manage
the sides. Use Stretch to move the side; Add Vertex to add a new
vertex and Convert to Arc or Line to turn the side into a curve or a
straight segment. Consider that selections are always cumulative
unless you use the Escape key to deselect all. Inside Home, Modify you
get several tools to edit your 2D drawings. For example select any
drawing and enable the Move tool to move it; the Rotate tool to rotate
it, specifying rotation point and angle and the Scale tool to scale
the object without deforming it. You can also edit multiple objects
together by selecting all of these first. You can click on these
singularly or click and hold while dragging to select loads of drawings
with the Lasso. If you drag from the left to the right you make a
Window Lasso, selecting all objects fully included within the blue
area. If you do the same from the right to the left you make a Crossing
Lasso, selecting all objects touched by the green area. You can
check your project from different points of view. Use your mouse wheel
to zoom in and out around your cursor and enable the Pan tool on
the right and click and drag to pan around. Use the Escape key to finish.
Whereas use the arrows above the 3D View Cube to rotate by 90
degrees and click and drag its circumference to 2D rotate freely. Now
let's see how to make simple 3D drawings. First of all switch to a
3D preview by either clicking on any vertex or side of the 3D View
Cube or using the Orbit command to 3D rotate. Any 3D preview shows
all the 2D drawings laying on the X-Y ground plane and an additional
Z blue axis representing the height or depth. At this point you
can show all the 3D tools by right-clicking on top and going to Show
Tabs, 3D Tools. The 3D drawing tools are all collected under the
Modeling section. For example enable the Box tool to create a 3D box
by defining its base on the X-Y ground plane and then its extrusion
through the Z axis. Or else enable the Sphere tool and click and drag
to drop a perfect sphere. Make sure to hover over any tool to get
hints and tips on how to drop any 3D solid in detail. All 3D objects
are shown with their skeleton if you use the default 2D Wireframe
View in the top left corner. Click on it and select other views to
be able to see the 3D volume. Other tools allow to create 3D objects
starting from any 2D section. Use Extrude to add extrusion to any 2D
base by selecting it and applying with the Enter key. Whereas use
Revolve to create a 3D solid by rotating a 2D section. Just select the
section, apply with the Enter key and then fix two points to define
the rotation axis. All these 3D solids can be edited just like 2D drawings.
You can also use the gizmo system to move, scale and rotate
towards any of the three axes. Just make sure to select the right
mode from the Selection section on top. To save your project click
on the A button in the top left corner and go to Save As. This makes
a .dwg file format that can be reopened any time. Whereas to export
your project go to Output and then to Export. Choose .DWFX or .DWF
to share your drawing as a read-only AutoCAD project or .PDF to send
your current preview to a printer. If you have 3D solids you can also
render these by going to Visualize, Render to Size. Check it out!
Thank you very much for watching this tutorial! Do not lose our free
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