So Why Would We Need to Move/Rotate Our Coordinate?

1. Working on angled coordinate/object.
   UCS (user coordinate system) icon is showing you X axis and Y axis, an the origin. As you know, we input the point coordinate base on those axis. When we need to draw angled object in AutoCAD, in some cases it would be easier if we rotate the coordinate temporarily.
2. Working on local coordinate.
   Surveyor often need to work with local coordinate, but they may not mess up with the global coordinate. In AutoCAD, we can consider World Coordinate System (WCS) as global coordinate and User Coordinate System (UCS) as local coordinate.

*What a coincidence. When I’m thinking about this post, Autodesk release a video on YouTube: tip to work on angled portion of your drawing.

How We Can Control the Coordinate System?

In the old days, we type UCS [enter] and choose the options. We still can do it now, but if you are not command line big fan, you may want to use the ribbon panel. Go to view tab, coordinates panel. All the options are here.

The tools on first row, are used to move, save, or reset coordinate system to world coordinate system (WCS).

On the second row, you can use the tools to rotate AutoCAD coordinate system using coordinate axis. Except the last one, the one with the light bulb is for turning UCS icon on or off.

The last row, there are tools that you can use to quickly aligned the coordinate by view, object, or picking 3 points.

Try to see AutoCAD extended tool tip to see more explanation.

Examples

Aligned Objects

Let us see the building footprint below.

Let’s say we need to draw the interior, parking lot and more objects to complete the AutoCAD drawing. It would be easier to rotate the coordinate system to complete the job. In this example, I use object and pick a line in the drawing.

As you can see, the UCS icon is now moved and aligned to the top most line (I pick that line).

Now when we create rectangle, linear dimensions, etc it will be aligned to the current UCS orientation. And don’t forget, ortho mode and polar tracking also using the XY axis! Try to create linear dimension and see how it works.

Rotating View

Still find it difficult? Many of us prefer to work with the object aligned to our screen. No problem. After you rotate the UCS, now you can set the viewpoint preset. Type VP then [enter], you should see the dialog below. Or using DDVPOINT command also works.

Change the viewing angles option to relative to UCS. And change the from X Axis to 0.

Click OK. You should see now the view rotated!

Don’t you think this is much easier than working on rotated object? When you need to restore the view, open the view point presets dialog again, and choose absolute to WCS. Click OK. To restore coordinate system, click world coordinate on ribbon (the one with the earth globe)

Using Local Coordinates

Sometimes you need to draw or annotate relative to local coordinate and not to world coordinate. You surveyors should familiar with this. If you are in manufacturing industry, you probably need to annotate part/assembly coordinates, or holes coordinates. In Architecture drawing, you may need to annotate the elevation view.

This example, shows a rough elevation view (yes it’s bad and lazy drawing, I know), but the elevation level is not showing correctly. The bottom red line should be at 0,00 elevation. It’s because ordinate dimension use 0,0 as origin. We need to move the origin before create the ordinate dimension.

So after we restore the UCS to World coordinate, the dimension will use the world coordinate value? Nope. See below. The right dimensions was created in word coordinate. The left dimensions on local coordinate. The value never changed even we move the UCS around to new places.

So how do you use UCS to increase drawing productivity? Is there any other tips you want to share with us?

AutoCAD Object Snap

Object snap is a tool that you can use to refer for a location from existing objects. For example, a center point of an arc or circle. You can snap to a reference point after you see the snap symbol on that point. Below is an example for midpoint snap.

Object snap is only working when AutoCAD is asking you for a point. You will not see the object snap symbol when AutoCAD is not asking for point.

Object Snap Settings

There are many modes of object snap you can use. Activating all of the object snaps is not a wise decision. You will find difficulties snapping to objects when you have complex drawing. You need to decide which object snaps you commonly use. To activate or deactivate object snaps, you can right click on object snap button, and choose the object snap.

You can also click settings… to open the settings dialog box. You can turn off the object snap (for all modes of snap) or you can check/uncheck a single snap mode.

Hint: You can press F3 to turn on/off object snap.

Overriding Snap Mode

You have decided which object snaps you mostly use. However, you will need to use other snap mode eventually. And sometimes when the drawing become very crowded, you will wish only one snap mode is active. No need to change the object snap settings.

You can simply hold [shift], right click your mouse. AutoCAD will show you snap override context menu. This will ignore your object snap settings temporarily, and use only the snap mode you choose. Remember, you can only use object snap when AutoCAD is asking you for a point!

Polar Tracking

When you draw an object, and your pointer is about parallel to AutoCAD axis, what will happen? It’s getting sticky and the angle show multiplication of 90 degrees. This is the polar tracking. It will track your pointer when at certain angle and snap your pointer. You can type the relative distance without typing the angle. This is very useful when you need to draw parallel lines. Simply move your pointer, snapped to the axis and type the desired distance.

By default, it will track your pointer when it’s at 90 deg, 180 deg, 270 deg, and 360 deg. We can change the incremental value by right clicking the polar tracking button, and choose incremental angle from the list.

Try to take a look in settings dialog for more control.

Object Snap Tracking

Object snap tracking works with object snap. If you turn object snap off, then this tool will not work. This tool will help you to define a point from another point in an object.

In this example, I want to define a circle center 400 units to the right of a rectangle corner. So I activate circle tool, place my pointer above the corner point. Wait for a while until AutoCAD recognize the point, and move your pointer to the right. The dynamic input should say ‘extension:…’. Type the distance and press [enter].

You can use more than one point as reference. In this example, I use object snap tracking to find a rectangle center.

Or to find extended intersection from two lines.

I guess now you have enough knowledge to start drawing with AutoCAD precisely. We will start an exercise on the next tutorial.

I found most AutoCAD users never aware about using template. And worse, sometimes they just open existing drawing, erase the drawings, and use the existing styles and objects. Avoid this, since this will make your files corrupted.

What is a template? Template is a starting point of your work. There are some default settings you, your company use. Each industry may have different template, even the drawing come from the same company.

How can use template? When you choose file>new, AutoCAD will ask you to choose your template. When you first time starting AutoCAD, it will use the default imperial template. If you work in metric, create another file and close the first one.

AutoCAD Drawing Unit

When you draw with AutoCAD, AutoCAD doesn’t recognize what unit you are using. It just know you are drawing a 5 unit length line. However, this is useful to set the unit when you work further. Especially when you work with someone else, with different unit.

You can check and change your unit by accessing application menu>drawing utilities>units.

If you use metric as template, it’s already use millimeters. Imperial using inch. Keep in mind that AutoCAD use mm and inch only as default unit in plotting. So if you don’t want to have headache figuring what scale to use, stick to mm or inch. You can use other units, but you need to adjust the scale value when plotting.

AutoCAD 2010 Initial Setup

There is a new feature in AutoCAD 2010 that we can use to easily manage our template: initial setup. You probably have set it when the first time running AutoCAD 2010. But if you are not sure, let us define our initial setup.

Click the option button in your ribbon>view tab>windows panel.

This will open options dialog box. Switch to user preferences tab, and click the initial setup.

On the first page, select your industry. Click next.

On the second page, select which tools you want to add to your ribbon.

On third page, you can specify your default template. This is the one AutoCAD will open every time you star AutoCAD. If you already have your template, you can select it. But as we just started here, let us just new default drawing. But use metric/imperial.

Using Template

And how we can create our own template? You can find the detailed tutorial here. You can bookmark it to learn it later. We haven’t touch many area in the tutorial yet. However, I need to emphasize that you have to consider your template (which will affect drawing units) from very early stage.

There are several methods to do it in AutoCAD:

Using Mouse

This is probably the most common way in many applications. You can zoom in/zoom out your drawing by scrolling your scroll button. The drawing will be zoomed in/out about your pointer position.

You can pan by click the mid button, hold it, and move your mouse.

Using Navigation Tools in Ribbon Bar

You can find the navigation tools in view tab, navigate panel. There are pan button, orbit (we will not discuss this until 3D tutorial), and zoom. There are several zoom tools you can use. The tool name should self explain what it’s for. But you might want to try them by yourself. Click the tool you want to use, then use it by hold your left mouse button. [Enter] to end the tool.

Using Steering Wheel

Steering wheel is the navigation tool that stick to your mouse. You can find the navigation tools here, like: zoom, pan, and rewind. If you want to try the navigation tools other than those three, try in 3D model. You can show/hide the steering wheel by pressing [shift]+W. Or click the steering wheel button on the try, right side of your status bar. (see animation below)

Typing in Command Line/Dynamic Input

This is probably the fastest way. You can type Z then [enter] to activate zoom tools. Press [enter] again will activate zoom real time. You have other zoom options if necessary. Refer to previous tutorial how to change the option.

Command: Z
ZOOM
Specify corner of window, enter a scale factor (nX or nXP), or
[All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/Previous/Scale/Window/Object] <real time>: W
Specify opposite corner:

Play this animation to see how it works. You can play it by right click and choose play from contextual menu.

Try to open sample files to do this exercise. You can find AutoCAD sample files in AutoCAD folder: C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2010\Sample\Sheet Sets

Using AutoCAD Drawing tools is simple

There’s nothing hard in using AutoCAD drawing tools. Let’s try this simple steps. You can see the screenshot below, click next/forward button to move to the next step.

1. Click the tool you want to use on the ribbon. AutoCAD drawing tools is on home tab. Let’s start with line.
2. You will see the dynamic input near your pointer. It will tell you what you need to do next. Most of drawing tools will ask you a point location. We will learn how to input the coordinate precisely later. Just click anywhere on your drawing area.
3. Again, dynamic input will tell you what to do. Another point location. Click anywhere again. Pay attention that information in dynamic input is also shown in command line.
4. AutoCAD is continue asking you for point location. Click again.
5. When you finish drawing line segments, press [enter] to finish it. Many veteran AutoCAD users like to use [space] as an alternative.
6. Now let’s try to draw a rectangle.
7. Just like drawing lines, it will ask you for a point location. Click anywhere.
8. And just like line tool, it will ask next point. But don’t click your mouse yet. Press down arrow on your keyboard, or click the small arrow next to ‘specify other corner point or’
9. This is how you can see options for creating rectangle. The most common way is defining 2 points, but you can also define it by using other methods. If you see in the command line, you can see the options too. You can use the option by typing the capital letters in available options.

In a Nut Shell

Using most AutoCAD drawing tools can be used the same way.

1. Click the tool to activate it.
2. Follow the instructions.
3. Change the options if necessary.
4. Some tools will end after you define points, like rectangle and circle. Some other tools require you to end it manually, press [Enter] to do it.

It’s very simple isn’t it?

Now, try to use the other drawing tools. Don’t worry about the size for now. We will learn how to input points precisely later.

This is the first article of my AutoCAD tutorial series. Since I have Revit and MicroStation tutorial for beginners, then I think, why not writing AutoCAD for beginners too? I know that there are many resources for learning AutoCAD, but I hope this is still useful.

I have posted 12 steps you need to get through to mastering AutoCAD. This AutoCAD tutorial will be based on that article.

The AutoCAD Interface

Let’s start your AutoCAD and get familiar with the AutoCAD interface elements, what they do, and where you can access them. You can see an image at the bottom of this post. You can see where are the interface elements by clicking the next/previous button on the image. If you can’t see the image, you need to install flash player for your browser.

Changing the Workspace

Before we start, I want to make sure we all see the same AutoCAD interface, so if you don’t see the same interface as we see in this image, click the workspace button in your AutoCAD, then select the ‘2D Drafting and Annotation’. Click next button to see how to do it.

AutoCAD Interface Elements

1. Your AutoCAD drawing area. This is where you will drawing your AutoCAD objects.
2. AutoCAD Ribbon. This is where you can access AutoCAD tools and settings.
3. AutoCAD Ribbon has several tabs. Each tab holds AutoCAD tools based on your drawing task. For example, we can use drawing tools and modify tools in home tab. But when we need to add text and dimensions, we need to open the Annotate tab. When we need to insert blocks, we need to move to insert tab.
4. In each tab have several panels. This panels have similar AutoCAD tools inside them.
5. Command Line. We can activate tools and change the tool settings by typing in command line. Command line is also providing information what you should do next.
6. Drafting Settings. While we draw, we need to change some drafting settings. This is where you can change it.
7. The AutoCAD logo. Click it once (do not click it twice, as doing it will end your AutoCAD session).
8. AutoCAD will show you the AutoCAD menu. Some will say ‘application menu’, since the application name is AutoCAD, I prefer to call it AutoCAD menu :) This is where you can access tools related to applications, such as saving files.

You will see more interface elements as we move forward.