Hello people and welcome to this videotutorial! Please if you find defects in
pronunciation and any mistakes, leave feedbacks in comments.
We are going to show you how to use AutoCAD 2014 by Autodesk.
This software is awesome at rendering design projects. We will start with the basics.
If you look at the software, you can see the workspace composed by three parts.
On top you have all commands and actions to draw and render objects.
You can also minimize them to have a wider workspace by clicking on this icon.
In the centre you have your main workspace where you are going to draw, and,
at the bottom, you have different ways to draw as the way you like.
First of all it's it's important how to use the software. At the Home section you find
all you need to draw and edit. Let's see how to draw. You find anything to draw with
in the extreme left. You can draw straight lines, circles an arcs. Click on one
of these to start drawing in your workspace. You find very helpful information if you
keep the mouse on such buttons, that will explain you
what the current selection is going to do.
Below the right buttons, you can see a black arrow at the bottom. This is simply used
to change the way to draw your arc or circle. Click on it and select such way.
Don't forget to leave your mouse on buttons if you don't know how these work.
You can further draw poligons and ellipses using the first two buttons on the right.
Let's for example draw an arc. Click on the Arc button. If you read the help info,
you need three points. Each point is set everytime you click on the workspace
in the position decided with the pointer.
When all three points are done, the arc will be shown.
Other shapes will need more or less points, or even distances and angles.
These three will let you draw anything.
You can choose which is the order to set points or distances or angles by clicking
on the black arrows above and selecting the way of drawing, as explained before.
These green squares or lines help you to draw precisely, through a precise axis
or while connecting two different objects drawn.
Squares often represent corners and endpoints of the drawings.
The cross means intersection between objects; and the dashed line the
straight line intersepting an object's point.
By default, your pointer will snap to these green squares, making things easier.
If you want to disable snapping click on Object Snap to turn it off.
This will let you move as you like.
While drawing, the command line below will guide you through.
Each time you draw or do anything, the command line will tell you what to do
or any choices, which are indicated through brackets. Choose Rectangle.
After you set the first point, you can put a precise area or rotation. If you want to
rotate your shape, just digit R in the white slot next to your pointer.
This is used to digit a command. If the command rotation has the blue letter R
below, means that you need to digit R in such white slot to run it.
Press then Enter key to enter the command. Make sure to pay attention to this,
because for some commands you need to digit more than one letter.
You can undo an action or command pressing Escape from your keyboard.
To redo the previous actions, just press the Up Arrow until you find the command
you need in. For example, if you want to draw an arc again, press the button
until ARC shows up.
The white slot can be used to enter precise numbers too, which is fundamental for
professional projects. Instead of setting a point or distance using the pointer, you can
enter your precise value. Moreover, commands can be chosen using the
Down Arrow key. Choose the command you prefer, and then press Enter.
You can use this slot to do anything without using the buttons above. For example
to erase an object, just select it and then digit the letter D. A small list
will show you all the commands that start with the letter D. Choose DELETE
to erase the object. You can delete objects faster by selecting them
and pressing DELETE from your keyboard.
Let's now see how to manage and edit objects. If you leave the pointer
on an object for some time, you will read info about it, expecially the layer
if belongs to. Each layer is recognised by a different color and used to find all its
objects easier inside your project.
Under the section Layers you can manage all of them fully. However, I am not going to
explain them in this tutorial for beginners. You need them when project
starts to be complex.
For example, select an object and go to Properties section. Here you can choose
color, thickness, kind of line and transparency, just click at the bottom.
These are just related to the object currently selected. You will need to select more
objects to apply the same properties all at once. To do this, you can select objects
one by one by clicking on them singularly, or you can simply click and drag your mouse
across all the objects you need to select, in one single shot.
The objects selected all together will be moved or edited and modified in the same
exact way.
Undo the selection by pressing Escape from your keyboard.
In case there is overlapping between two or more objects in one point, two small
blue rectangles will appear next to your pointer. If you click, you can choose which
object to select.
To move an object singularly select it first and click on the point on the centre.
This values even if you have more objects selected at the same time.
Whereas to edit an object, you can click on its basic points that you used previously
to draw the object itself, and move them to go on editing.
You will need to check angles and lengths in the future. To have a fast check, just
select the object and put the pointer on a basic point for some time.
This will help you to check if values and measures are put correctly.
There are tools to edit your objects properly, just go above, in the Modify section.
If you have already selected the objects, you can go on with your transformation.
Otherwise the software will ask you to select the objects first, and the pointer will turn
into a small white square. After you made this first step, press Enter
from your keyboard to go on with the editing.
For example if you choose Move, click on a random point and then move the mouse
until you are satisfied.
You can stretch or scale objects using the other buttons, in this way.
You will need to use the Move tool in case you want to move more objects selected
at the same time, since you can't do this using the middle points of objects.
You can copy and paste easily using your keyboard. Select one or more objects
by clicking on them, and then press CTRL+C to copy and CTRL+V to paste.
While you paste, the object will appear next to your pointer to let you set exactly
where to put the shape. You can also cut, just press CTRL+X.
It can be very useful to create groups of objects. Fo example, if you want to treat
more than one object in the same way, you can collect them in one group,
instead of selecting them everytime before editing or moving.
Select the objects to collect together, and then go to the Groups section.
When you click on the bigger icon on the left, a new group will be created
containing such objects.
To work with groups, you need to enable Group Selection,
the third button on the right.
If it's on, you will work with the whole groups created in the workspace. If it is off,
the existance of groups is ignored, and you work with objects one by one.
Use the second button on the left, Group Edit, to completely modify your group.
You firstly choose the group, and then use the arrows in your keyboard to work with
the command line. You can add new objects, remove the ones in, and rename the
group itself. Use Ungroup to delete the group selected.
The Escape key undoes the latest attempt of action. In case you delete something
by mistake, use the Undo button here on top to go backwards. You can use the button
on the right to redo the action again.
Last thing we are going to see is the visualization. Zoom is set simply through
your mouse wheel. Use the Pan button on the right to move through your
workspace to check it better.
To check your project you can use the 3D map on the right. Until you go with
3D projects, the cube will show the face TOP only, meaning that you are watching
the project up to down.
Click and drag the circle with cardinal directions to rotate your whole workspace.
You can use also the hidden arrows in the top right corner. This does not rotate
objects, but just your point of view or camera.
At the bottom you see some options, like Model1 and Layout1 and Layout2.
The Model is where you are going to work, the layouts are the preview of your
drawings, in short what you would see if the page was printed.
Rotating the workspace using the 3D map won't rotate the drawings in the final
layout, since they are used just to change the point of view.
If you need to rotate the Cartesian axes, they are like objects in your workspace,
that you can pick and move. This will locate the x and the y axes, and so the direction
and the positions. There is also the z axis, but this is for 3D models, that I will
show in another tutorial.
The blue square will move the system, whereas the rounded ones will rotate
the graph, but not the drawings inside.
Well, this is all you need to start with your first project! Remember to save
your project by going on the AutoCAD icon or the icons above. You can further export
your file as .PDF too by going to Export and then choosing this kind of format.
Watch the next tutorial of this show to learn how to fill objects and render them!
See you!
