Hello and welcome to SourceCAD. In this three-part video series, I will introduce you to AutoCAD software. So this tutorial series is for a complete beginner in AutoCAD who has absolutely no knowledge of this software whatsoever. So in this AutoCAD beginner series of videos, I will start with the basics and I'll introduce you with the user interface and setting units. and working with commands.
Then later on we'll move to making basic drawings using draw and modify tools and then we'll learn about tools that let you make precise drawings like object snaps. Further we'll move into some drawing management tools like layers. Then we'll talk about blocks which are symbols in AutoCAD and then we'll talk about making dimensions and finally we'll print our drawing. All these things in just this three-part AutoCAD tutorial for beginner series. So let's get started.
So in this first part, we'll learn about making the basic drawing. Now when you start AutoCAD for the very first time, this is how your interface is going to look like. It also depends on the software which you are using and its version.
As of now comes in two different variants. It has AutoCAD complete version which is called Autodesk AutoCAD 2020 in this case because it's the 2020 version which I am using and the second one is Autodesk AutoCAD LT. The LT version is the lighter version of AutoCAD which has limited set of features although all the basic features are similar in both the softwares is still some advanced features like 3D tools and sheet sets are not available in AutoCAD LT. Apart from that, everything is same for AutoCAD as well as AutoCAD LT, including the user interface. Now I'm using AutoCAD for Windows here, but if you are a Mac user, you will find the user interface little different.
Although functionally they are exactly the same, the tools, commands and everything is exactly the same. They'll work in a similar way, but the user interface will be different and you may have to figure out the place where some of these tools are in the Mac environment. But if you're using Windows, Well, you're good to go with this tutorial. Now, this is the start screen of AutoCAD software. And to start a new drawing, all you need to do is just select this start drawing box here, and it will start a new tab.
So now here we have different parts of the AutoCAD software. The first one is application button on the top left, which has all the frequently used tools, the quick access toolbar, again, similar set of tools. On quick access toolbar, then we have the tabs and the ribbon area.
On this ribbon area, we have tabs like home, insert, annotate, parametric and so on. And on these tabs, we have the panels and on these panels, we have the tools and commands. To activate any command, all you need to do is just click on its icon and the command will start. Also, you can use the command alias, which is also called the shortcut for the command.
For example, if you want to start line command, you can just click here or you can use its command alias. L. So you can just type L, press enter to start the line command. Now this is the drawing area on which everything is actually drawn in AutoCAD. And then we have right beneath this drawing area, the command bar or the command line or the command palette, whatever you want to call it.
And finally, we have the status bar toggles right here. These status bar toggles help us in making precise drawings in AutoCAD. We'll talk about that also.
So Let's first make our very first drawing quickly. For that I'll go to line tool and I'll just left click. Now when you do that you'll notice that your cursor will look like this two intersecting lines.
This type of cursor is called point selection cursor. Also right next to cursor you'll see this kind of tooltip. Now if you have this kind of tooltip that's fine this is called dynamic input tooltip. If you don't that's also fine you can bring it using F F12 function key.
So press F12 if you don't have it and if you have it don't press F12 key. Now in this case I will not use this dynamic input. So I'm going to press F12 just to make it disappear and now we have this empty cursor.
Now we need to start with the first point as you can see here on the command line the instruction is clear. You need to specify first point. So click at a point and that's going to be your first point. Now click again. and that will be the second point click again third point click again fourth point all right And here we have the very first drawing.
Once you're finished making your drawing, press enter to exit from the command because after making line, your command will still remain active. So now let's talk about the navigation tools. So here we have the simple triangle.
Now, if you want to navigate in your drawing, if you want to move this triangle around, then you can do that using your middle mouse wheel. So in Audica Add, it is recommended to use a three button mouse, the left click, right click and the middle mouse wheel. These buttons should be there. And to move this drawing, all you need to do is press and hold the middle mouse wheel. When you do that, your cursor will change to this hand icon.
Now move your mouse and the whole drawing will move along with it. Don't let go your mouse, just move it like this. Now let go your mouse wheel.
And if you move it, only your cursor will move now. Now if you move your cursor to any point and then rotate your mouse wheel it will zoom in your drawing in the opposite direction it will zoom out. Also the point where you put your cursor will become the point which will be zoomed in or zoomed out. To select anything in your drawing all you need to do is just click on it and that object will be selected. To deselect anything press escape key.
and it will deselect your selection or it will just remove everything from your selection set. Also, to exit any command, you can press escape key and you can press escape key a couple of times. It won't make any difference. Now, before moving on, I'm going to make another drawing here.
I'll just make a circle. So, I'll go to circle. I'll click at a point and I'll click at another point.
So, now we have a triangle and a circle. So, if you want to select anything in AutoCAD, as I mentioned earlier, you can select it using this left click. So hover your cursor over the boundary and left click, it will be selected. That's easy.
But if you have a lot of objects in your drawing, and if you want to make that kind of selection, then you can use the windows. So click at a point and let go your cursor, then move your mouse to the right and you're going to get this window. This window, this solid window is called selection window and everything which is completely inside this window will be selected. In this case, the circle is selected as it is completely inside this window.
Now, if I click here and I'll move to this side, I'm going to get this window, which is the solid window and everything which is inside the window will be selected. Now the second window is crossing window and for this click let go your cursor. Don't click and hold your cursor, just click and let go. Now move your mouse to the left and you're going to get this dashed window, which is also called the crossing window.
In this case, any object which even touches the boundary of this crossing window will be selected. So in this case, the circle and two lines of the triangle, they are simply touching it. They're not completely inside. And if you click, they'll still be selected like this. So I'll press escape to get rid of this selection.
And then we have the third kind of selection set, which is called the lasso selection. So press and hold your left click. Now move your mouse and you're going to get this kind of lasso selection. So if you press and hold, you'll get this lasso selection. If you press your left click, let go, you'll get this window selection.
That's it. Now let's move to the units. And for that, I'll delete this drawing.
So I'll make the window and delete. So before you begin any drawing, the first and the basic thing that you would want to do is set the proper units to set the unit type un and if you type anything in autocad it will always type that in the command line you don't actually need to click here in the command line and then type anything you just need to start typing and it will type the commands directly here on the command line so i've got units un i'll press enter and the drawing units window will pop up Now here we have the unit option. It is right now set to millimeters.
I'll change it to inches. You can select from any of these units. And if you don't want any of these units, then you can also select unit less, which will not select any kind of unit for this. But in this case, I will select inches for the unit.
Now for the length type, you can select decimal if you want it in this kind of format, in the decimal format. So in this decimal format, if you type 4 it will be 4 inches if you type 5 it will be 5 if you type 12 it will be 12 inches and so on but if you want a proper feet and inch format you can select architectural and now you'll get your output in the form of feet and inches and now in this case if you type 4 it will be 4 inches if you type 5 it will be 5 inches but if you type 12 it will now change to 1 feet which is obviously equal to 12 inches so you can directly type the inch value or you can also type the feet values in this architectural format. So for now I'll go to decimal, I'll click on OK.
And now we're using inches as our unit. Now let's talk about making the first set of drawing. And we'll do that using line tool.
So you can click here to select the line command, or you can also use its command alias L. So I'll type L and press enter to start the line command. Now we need to start from a point. As you can see here, the instruction says you need to start from a point.
So I'll just click here. And now. I'll move my cursor to the right. When you do that, AutoCAD will show you this tooltip on which you'll see the approximate length of the line. In this case, it's 1719.8058 unit.
So that's pretty big. Let's make a line of length 100 units. So I'm going to type 100 and press enter and we'll have a line of length 100 unit, which is pretty tiny here.
So let's zoom in and I'll pan my drawing to bring it at the center and here it is it's 100 unit now i'll move it to the top and we have this green tracking vector which indicates that this line is perfectly vertical then i'll type 50 and enter and we have the second line of length 50 then you can again go to the left side or any other direction which you want type in the value for example maybe 120 and enter and you can even align it in any direction if you want so i'm going to align it here i'll type 60 enter and so on so you can keep on making your lines by entering the proper distances and it will just make your line that way also in this case if you want to add angle values then that also you can do pretty easily so in this case let's just make another line of length 100 so i'm going to go to 100 and enter now this length is again 100 and now from here i want it to incline at an angle of exactly 30 degrees so now instead of typing 3030 I'm gonna type this angle sign now this angle sign is on your keyboard it's right next to the M key so just press shift key press and hold shift key and then press the angle sign key and it will add the angle sign now type in 30 and press enter and AutoCAD will now take this value as angle not as distance so if you move your cursor now you're gonna see angle override here which is now set to 30 unit. So if you now move your cursor the length will change here but not the angle. So all you need to do is now type in the length. So maybe I'll type 50 enter and here it is.
So now the length of this line is 50 and it is inclined to an angle of 30 degrees with respect to positive side of x-axis. Now to exit the command press enter key and this was the line tool. Now, in this case, I specified the angle right here using the line command, but there is an option that can help you do this pretty easily as well. So for that, I'll once again go to line tool and now on the status bar, I have this option here called polar tracking. Now this polar tracking will help you specify any angle that you want.
So I'm going to now click on this arrow, which is right next to polar tracking and the angle currently set is 90 degrees. I'll change it to 30 multiples. So 30, 60, 90, 120 and so on. Now I'll click at a point and I'll move my cursor to the right and you can see that I have an angle, this green line at an angle of zero degrees. Now if I move it in any direction, it will show the green tracking line at the interval of 30 degrees.
So we have it at 30, then 60, then 90, then 120 and so on. So this will also help you in making lines at any particular angle. So here also your line is kind of logged to 60 degrees and all you need to do is just type in the length.
So 60, enter and enter. So the angle is 60 and so is the length. To return it back to normal, I'll change it back to 90. Now if you have selected the angles, make sure you also keep this active.
So this is active. As you can see, it's blue in color. But if you... click on it again, it will be deactivated like this and deactivated status bar option look like this. So make sure it is active if you want to use it.
Now you can also force your lines to 90 degree angles or the multiple of 90s using this tool. This is auto mode. If you select this, AutoCAD will only let you make your drawings at the multiples of 90 degrees. So now if I click here, I will be able to make line here. horizontal or vertical i won't be able to make my line in any other direction so look at this no matter where my cursor is i'll still end up with horizontal or vertical lines just because of ortho mode So I'll switch back to polar tracking and the ortho mode will automatically disable.
Now let's talk about another method which can help you make drawings again pretty easily. And that is dynamic input. So if I go to line command and if I start it, you'll notice that I only have the cursor here. But if you press F12 function key, you'll end up with these extra tooltips. Now this is the dynamic input feature.
And right now on my status bar, I have it here. So you can just click here to activate or deactivate it. Or you can also use its function key F12.
So now I've deactivated, it's no longer visible. Now, if you don't have this kind of feature on your status bar, then go to customization, this three dash line and activate dynamic input. So this should be checked.
If it is checked, the dynamic input will show up here and then you can activate it. Once active, you'll have it like this. Now click at a point and this time you'll have the length as well as angle and you can directly type in the values.
So in this case, maybe let's make a line of length 200. So I'll type 200 and I'll press tab key. Now the length will be logged and you can add the angle value. So let's type 45 for the angle and I'll press enter.
And there we have it. So 200 length and the angle is 45. In a similar way, you can just keep on making lines with the proper angles and the length and you have the visual reference as well. So this one is pretty handy tool if you want to use it for making your drawings.
So again 150. Now this angle is maybe let's make it 30 and enter and so on. To exit this once again I'll press enter. So these are the basic modes of making drawing in AutoCAD. In the next video we'll talk about other draw and modify tools and we'll make a very simple drawing using those draw and modify tools