Overview

This is one of the basic topics covered in this book, and many users will jump in and start to draw without a great need to consult this chapter. Still, some tools and tool characteristics might not be obvious or might trip you up as you begin to draw. If you find you need a little extra help when you draw something, you can review this chapter.

When you draw in AutoCAD, you are creating AutoCAD objects: lines, circles, arcs, ellipses, and hatch patterns. And each and every object has a set of properties. There are geometric properties such as the endpoints of a line or the center and radius of a circle. There are also properties not directly related to the geometry of an object, such as its color or its layer assignment. (See Chapter 7 to find out what layers do.)

When you draw objects, you are really specifying their geometric properties. The other properties are assigned by whatever defaults are currently in place, such as the current color and layer assignments. You can set these defaults in the Properties toolbar. You can always change the properties of an object (see Chapter 4), so don t feel that you need to be too careful when you re drawing.

This chapter includes the following topics:

• Drawing Straight Lines

• Drawing Circles and Arcs

• Drawing Curves

• Drawing Parallel Lines

• Drawing Revision Clouds

• Working with Hatch Patterns and Solid Fills

• Drawing Regular Polygons

• Using Objects...