You can save time if you save the views, then you can quickly load it later anytime you need it. And for a large project, configuring your viewports can help.

Saving UCS

Rotating view pretty much depends on UCS. When we work with many UCS settings, it would be good to save the settings. You can do it by using named UCS. This tool is in View tab of your ribbon.

AutoCAD will open a dialog box. Simply rename the unnamed UCS to something that can be easily recognized. You can use name like Bat Cave, Pandora, View 1, View 2, etc. But giving clearer name will help when you already have many saved views. You will see the named UCS on the drop down list, so you can quickly change the UCS later.

Saving Views

What settings are saved when we save a view? I snipped this from AutoCAD help file:

When you name and save a view, the following settings are saved:

1. Magnification, center point, and view direction
2. View category that you assign to the view (optional)
3. The location of the view (the Model tab or a specific layout tab)
4. Layer visibility in the drawing at the time the view is saved
5. User coordinate system
6. 3D perspective
7. Live section
8. Visual style
9. Background

There are many things can be saved!

Now try to zoom to an area you would use to work. Or if you want to work in a rotated view, you can rotate it now. In short, change the view appearance to anything you wish.

In 3D, when you place a camera, it would be saved automatically as saved view. But in 2D drawing, we need to save it manually. Click named views on your ribbon. This tool is in View tab of your ribbon.

In opened dialog box, change the view name. Pay attention that you can save the layer visibility and UCS with this view.

You can also relate this view to a named UCS, set the visual styles, and set the background. Pretty cool, right? Now you can change your views quickly, along with the settings.

Saving Viewports Configuration

There is one more thing. You may want to see several views at once on your display. You can do this by configuring your viewports. There are several tools to configure your viewports. You can use the standard viewports configuration from the drop down list. This tool is also in View tab of your ribbon.

Or you can split the viewports again to meet your needs.

And why would want to  do this? In 3D model, you can use it to move between views quickly and to see how the whole model looks like. It is the same here. You can quickly move between area, pick points that separated far-far away without having to zoom it. And you can see the changes on the complete drawing. And yes, you can have different UCS on each view!

See the video on our YouTube Channel here!

Now let us see the word processors. I remember how we need to add tags to format the words. If you know a bit of html tags, then it close. I used WordStar. Then Microsoft Word. There must be some resistance when Microsoft decided to change the toolbar to ribbon. They are the one who said that toolbar is a part of Windows compliant application, and they change it. Not sure what elements a Windows compliant must has now.

The changes is permanent. Can you use toolbar in Word now? Nope. Can we use the formatting tag in a Word document? I don’t think so. Things have to change.

If we think of it, the AutoCAD users should be grateful. I think it’s the only application that has all three generation of command input: command line from Rolling Stones era, toolbar from Bon Jovi era, and ribbon from Justin Bieber era. At least I never found other application like that. Not even Revit and Inventor from Autodesk product line. Yes there is ‘unsupported’ old interface, but it’s not the same with the legal ‘classic interface’.

It is good for the users, but sometimes can be not that good for the others. I read Donnie Gladfelter’s book: AutoCAD 2011 – no experience required. I can see him trying to explain all three command input. I don’t really care about explaining all of them. Then it cross my mind: Do we really have to mention all of that when we write or teach AutoCAD? If in Office 2015, they change the ribbon again to something new, then AutoCAD may have 4 ways to activate a command. Unlike AutoCAD, Microsoft Office application just get rid the old interface. But not AutoCAD! If Windows is replaced with something new, some Iron Man high tech stuff, will we still have command line and toolbar? If AutoCAD lives for another 25 years, it can be 8 ways to activate a line!

I guess it is interesting to see… if, only if, one day Autodesk decided to simplify this and only use one default interface. If you can choose, which one would you prefer to keep? The one that you can’t live without it. No right or wrong for your choice and your reason. Please vote below, and I appreciate if you mention your reason.

“I want my front door like this. Can you put it in your model and render it for me?”

What do you think if your client want a door like below?

It definitely take some time to create it. And become harder if your client is quite hard to be satisfied. He may come back later and want another door model!

If you want to represent a door like that, especially for quick presentation, you don’t need to model it. In the previous tutorial, we created a painting with material texture. Well, you can do the same with this door! I’ve seen many people have used this trick. However, some people never use it. When I show it, many of them are surprised. So let’s see how we can do it.

I quickly model walls,floor, and a door like this. The door is simply a 3D solid box.

Then I created a rendering material using the image. I set the scale to match the door size.

How long do you need to create that?

This is the door I rendered in medium quality. Not bad for a few minutes modeling. I wonder how it would take to actually create the model…

Let us start. Open your material browser. On the left top of material browser palette, you can see create material dropdown. Click it, and you will see several types of rendering materials available. Autodesk has introduced this several versions ago. It is easier for us to create our own materials. However, if you want to achieve certain effects, sometimes you need to use generic material, which has all the parameters available.

Find which type of material you want to create. AutoCAD will open material editor palette.

Rendering Material Template

Choosing the right type of material can make the creating process simpler. Let us review the different materials below. AutoCAD will only show you parameters that are relevant to that type of material. This can make us easier and focus to only what’s important. For example, for glass we mostly only care about reflection, refraction, and roughness. We do not need to see other parameters, so AutoCAD hide it. Plastic material has different behavior. See that AutoCAD will show you different parameters.

Material template for plastic	Material template for Solid Glass

We are going to add more accessories to our interior design. We will add a painting. Download the exercise file here. Your challenge now is to create your own material for the frame and the painting image. Create a wood material. After you created it, AutoCAD should open material editor. If it doesn’t, double click the new material from document materials.

Material Editor

In material editor, you will see 3 separate parts.

(1) is where you can change the preview/swatch shape and the preview quality. For reflective materials, you can see better reflection effect in sphere objects. For pattern materials, probably canvas is more convenient.

(2) is where you can create a new material. You can also rename material here.

(3) is where you can change the material texture. You can use predefined texture or use bitmap image.

There are more options available. Most of the parameters can be changed using slider or selecting from a list.

Feel free to play around with material editor. I don’t do many changes. Only change the texture to noise, change the noise color, and change the finish to semi-gloss varnish. After you have done, apply the material to the frame. Refer to previous tutorial how to do it.

Texture Editor

Now let us do an exercise to create a new material. Use generic material type. Generic material has all the parameters available in AutoCAD. We are going to define the painting. You can use your own photograph, or use any images.

Click image to define the material texture.

Browse for your image. And click open. You should see texture editor opened.

In texture editor, expand the transform category, then expand scale. Define the image scale. In the provided drawing, it is 800×1000 mm size.

Expand repeat category. Change the horizontal and vertical to none. We don’t want this painting to appear tiled, but as a single image.

Apply the material to the pic layer.

Test the materials by rendering your model.

Well, not bad…

Saving Material To Library

After we created several materials, we would want to save it to our own library. You don’t want to recreate your materials every time you want to render your model, don’t you?

In materials library, expand my materials category. It’s at the bottom of Autodesk library. Click to open it. You will see no materials on the right panel, unless you have done this before.

You can directly drag and drop your materials here. Or if you want to create your own category first, right click above my materials, and click create category.

Now you have the materials in your own library. You can use  it in your later design.