Mastering AutoCAD 2012 and AutoCAD LT 2012

George Omura

• Publisher: Sybex
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470952887
• eBook ISBN: 9781118105689
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Digital Media
• Index: Computer Science

Learn to master the AutoCAD software

This Autodesk Official Training guide is a comprehensive reference and tutorial that will help you quickly master AutoCAD software. Featuring concise explanations, step-by-step instructions, and hands-on projects based on real-world designs, this Autodesk Official Training Guide covers everything from interface best practices to hatches, fields, dynamic blocks, attributes, linking drawings to databases, rendering realistic views, and presenting designs. This Mastering book is recommended as a Certification Preparation study guide resource for the AutoCAD Associate and Professional exams.

• Serves as an in-depth resource on the fundamentals, functions, and features of AutoCAD, the popular 2D and 3D drawing software, and its less expensive version AutoCAD LT
• Describes how to effectively use hatches, fields, and tables; execute 3D modeling, imaging, and customizing; work with dynamic blocks, drawing curves, and solid fills; and more
• Features a DVD with more than a dozen video tutorials, "before and after" tutorial files, a trial version of AutoCAD, and additional tools and utilities
• Shares helpful examples, step-by-step instructions, and hands-on projects from award-winning author and CAD specialist George Omura

This detailed tutorial is mandatory reading if you're eager to become proficient with AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT.

Part 1
The Basics

• chapter 1: Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface
• chapter 2: Creating Your First Drawing
• chapter 3: Setting Up and Using AutoCAD’s Drafting Tools
• chapter 4: Organizing Objects with Blocks and Groups
• chapter 5: Keeping Track of Layers and Blocks

Chapter 1
Exploring the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT Interface

Before you can start to use AutoCAD 2012’s new capabilities, you’ll need to become familiar with the basics. If you’re completely new to AutoCAD, you’ll want to read this first chapter carefully. It introduces you to many of AutoCAD’s basic operations, such as opening and closing files, getting a close-up look at part of a drawing, and changing a drawing. If you’re familiar with earlier versions of AutoCAD, you should review this chapter anyway to get acquainted with the features you haven’t already used.

Autodesk releases new versions of AutoCAD every year. Part of this strategy is to introduce improvements that focus on a particular category of features. This latest version, AutoCAD 2012, includes several new features that are related to curves in both 2D drafting and 3D modeling. There are also a number of enhancements that allow you to select similar objects in a drawing easily. The ability to make objects appear transparent has also been improved.

Autodesk has discovered that the number of 3D users is on the upswing, so with this version, you’ll see some new 3D features that will give you more freedom to create 3D shapes. These features include some new ways to create surface forms and the editing tools that enable you to manipulate 3D solids and surfaces easily. The Materials feature has also been improved to make it easier to create realistic 3D renderings.

You’ll get a chance to explore these new features and many more as you work through this book. Before you begin the exercise later in this chapter, make sure that you have loaded the sample files from this book’s companion DVD. See the introduction for details.

In this chapter, you will learn to:

• Use the AutoCAD window
• Get a closer look with the Zoom command
• Save a file as you work
• Make changes and open multiple files

Taking a Guided Tour

In this section, you’ll get a chance to familiarize yourself with the AutoCAD screen and how you communicate with AutoCAD. As you do the exercises in this chapter, you’ll also get a feel for how to work with this book. Don’t worry about understanding or remembering everything you see in this chapter. You’ll get plenty of opportunities to probe the finer details of the program as you work through the later chapters. To help you remember the material, you’ll find a brief set of questions at the end of each chapter. For now, just enjoy your first excursion into AutoCAD.

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Get Additional Help on the DVD

On the DVD accompanying this book, you’ll find a set of video tutorials that you can complete to practice the concepts presented in this chapter. Four tutorials give you an overview of the main topics of this chapter. The video titled “The AutoCAD Window” covers the highlights of the material in “Taking a Guided Tour.” The video titled “Getting Started and a Closer Look” touches on some of the material in “Working with AutoCAD.” “Saving a File as You Work” covers the material from the section with the same name in this chapter. Finally, “Opening Multiple Files” covers the material in “Working with Multiple Files.”

While they don’t follow the exercise in this chapter word for word, these videos show you how AutoCAD behaves in real time, thereby giving you a more direct experience of the program.

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AutoCAD References in This Book

In this chapter and throughout the rest of the book, when we say AutoCAD, we mean both AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. Some topics apply only to AutoCAD. In those situations, you’ll see an icon indicating that the topic applies only to AutoCAD and not to AutoCAD LT. If you’re using AutoCAD LT 2012, these icons can help you focus on the topics that are more relevant to your work.

AutoCAD 2012 is designed to run on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. This book was written using AutoCAD 2012 running on Windows XP Professional.

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Launching AutoCAD

If you’ve already installed AutoCAD (see Appendix B, "Installing and Setting Up AutoCAD") and are ready to jump in and take a look, proceed with the following steps to launch the program:

1. Choose Start
   
   All Programs
   
   Autodesk
   
   AutoCAD 2012
   
   AutoCAD 2012. You can also double-click the AutoCAD 2012 icon on your Windows Desktop. LT users will use AutoCAD LT 2012 in place of AutoCAD 2012.
2. Next you’ll see the Welcome screen, which offers a set of tutorials and videos showing you the new features of AutoCAD 2012. Close the Welcome screen by clicking the X at the far right side of the title bar. You can always get back to these tutorials through the Welcome Screen option in the Help menu.
3. The AutoCAD window displays a blank def...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Appendices
• Index
• End-User License Agreement
• Bonus Chapter 1: Using the Express Tools
• Bonus Chapter 2: Exploring AutoLISP
• Bonus Chapter 3: Keeping a Project Organized with Sheet Sets
• Bonus Chapter 4: Hardware and Software Tips
• Bonus Chapter 5: System Variables and Dimension Styles
• Download CD/DVD Content