Computer Aided Drafting Using Autocad

Computer Aided Drafting using AutoCAD 1.1 CAD and AutoCAD Commonly, CAD stands for computer Aided Drafting which is used to produce technical drawings using a computer. Today with the development of computer industry, there are many types of software developed for computer Aided Drafting. AutoCAD is one of the leading and most popular software used in the industry. 1.2 Special Features of AutoCAD •

Gives greater accuracy compared to the traditional hand drafting methods

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Automatic Dimensioning with customized tools

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Layer Properties

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Zooming of the Drawing or Part of the Drawing

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Ability to attach textural information

1.3 Recommended Hardware List below are the hardware requirements for running AutoCAD 2007 on any system. •

Pentium IV (800 MHZ) or higher

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512 MB RAM

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1024 X 768 VGA with true color

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Installation 550 MB hard-disk space

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Pointing device (Mouse)

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CD-ROM Drive

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Windows XP Professional / Windows 2000 with SP3 or SP4

1.4 The first look at AutoCAD Launching AutoCAD is very simple. Double- click the

shortcut icon or start the

application by clicking Start » Programs » Autodesk » AutoCAD 2007 » AutoCAD 2007 After a few moments, you could see the AutoCAD 2007 interface as shown in the following figure.

Properties Toolbar Title Bar Menu Bar

Standard Toolbar

Draw Toolbar Cross Hair

Drawing Area

UCS Icon Layout Tabs

Coordinate Display

Command Prompt Window

Status Bar

Figure 01: Graphical user Interface (GUI) of AutoCAD 2007 1.5 The Pull-down Menus The Pull-down menus available on the menu bar offer a quicker way to access the commands and functions are the heart of AutoCAD 2007.

Figure 02: Pull-down menu

Scroll bars

1.6 Creating a New Drawing When you start a new drawing, follow the following steps. File » New from the Pull-down menu or click on the

icon on the Standard toolbar.

Then following Select Template dialogue box will appear

Figure 03: Select Template Dialogue Box A drawing template file contains standard settings. You can select one of the template files supplied, or create your own template files. Drawing template files have a .dwt file extension. By default, drawing template files are stored in the template folder. For the starting, select “acad.dwt” template The behavior of the NEW command is determined by the Startup setting on the system tab of the options dialog box.

By default, Do not show a startup dialog options is selected in the system tab of the options dialog box. When show Startup dialog box options is selected, AutoCAD displays the Startup dialog box as shown below.

Figure 04: Startup dialogue box Imperial Starts a new drawing based on the Imperial measurement system. The default drawing boundary (the drawing limits) is 12× 9 inches. Metric Starts a new drawing based on the Metric measurement system. The default drawing boundary (the drawing limits) is 420× 297 millimeters. 1.7 Opening a Drawing File » Open from the Pull-down menu or icon from Standard tool bar. Then following Select file dialogue box will appear. There you can select the location of the file and open it.

Figure 05: Select file dialogue box

1.8 Saving a Drawing File » Save/Save As… AutoCAD displays the save Drawing As standard file selection dialog box. Then you can select the exact file saving folder and enter the file name and save the drawing. 1.9 Closing a Drawing File » Close AutoCAD closes the current drawing, if there have been no changes since the drawing was last saved. If you have modified the drawing, AutoCAD prompts you to save or discard the changes. You can close a file that has been opened in Read-Only mode when you have not made any changes or willing to discard changes. To save changes to a read-only file, you must use the SAVEAS command.

Close all Window » Close All When you invoke this command, a message box is displayed for each unsaved drawing, in which you can save any changes to the drawing before closing it.

Quit/exit File » Quit/Exit Quits AutoCAD if there have been no changes in all opened drawing since the drawings were last saved. If the drawing has been modified, AutoCAD displays the Drawing modification dialog box to prompt you to save or discard the changes before quiting. 1.10Giving Commands You can give commands in AutoCAD several ways. Following methods are the most frequently used methods. 1. By typing the commands on the Command prompt. This is located below the drawing area. 2. Through Pull-down Menu: you can select the command on Pull-down menu and just click on it to activate the command. 3. Through the Tool bars