AUTOCAD Tutorials - Part 3 (Drafting Settings)

In the previous article, we studied about Line, Circle, and Erase Command. 
Today we will look into most used settings, Drafting Settings.
AutoCAD has some drawing aids which can help you to draw different drawings. These are placed in Status Bar as shown below: -

 If you don't understand these icons, right click any of these "icons" and uncheck "Use icons" (as seen below)

 You should now see the icons displayed as words as seen below.

 (A) Ortho Mode (Shortcut - F8)

• One of the simplest and oldest drawing aid.
• When On, it constrains drawn lines to the horizontal or vertical.

(B) Object Snap (Shortcut - F3)

•  I find it the most handy tool in the AutoCAD.
• It is a tool that you can use to refer for a location from existing objects like center of a circle, quadrant points of circle, intersection points of two objects, base points of blocks etc.
• Object Snap works only when AutoCAD is asking you for a point .
• Settings:
• Activating all of the object snaps is not wise decision, will cause errors in a complex drawing.
• PRESS F3 to turn on/off Object Snap.

(C) Object Snap Tracking (Shortcut - F11)

•  Object Snap Tracking works with Object Snap.
• This tool will help you to define a point from another point in a object.

 In this example, I want to define a circle center 400 units to the right of a rectangular corner. 
So I activate circle tool, place my pointer above the corner point of the rectangle . Wait for a while until AutoCAD recognize the point, and move your pointer above the corner point to the right.
The dynamic input should say 'extension'. Type the distance and press [enter] (shown in Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

You can use more than one point as a reference point.In this example, I use Object Snap Tracking to find a rectangle corner.(shown in Fig. 2)

Fig. 2

Or to find extended intersection from two lines.(shown in Fig. 3)

Fig. 3

Now you have enough knowledge to start drawing with AutoCAD precisely.

 SCORE POINT :-   Switch Polar tracking On (F10). It helps to snap to specific angles and these are user definable.

So, it's time to sign off !!
We will meet next time with an important all new topic - Drawing Setup & Properties.
Feel free to leave a comment for any queries,feedback or suggestions.