Computer Aided Engineering Drawing

Introduction to AutoCAD
Chapter No 1

Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology

Computer Engineering Department
University Road, Karachi-75300, PAKISTAN
CAED - Chapter No 1 Introduction to CAED

Text Book
 Text Book: Mastering AUTOCAD 14
By George Omura

 Course Outline is available at CAED course

website.

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Course Outline
 Introduction to AutoCAD for Windows
 Overview of AutoCAD, Program Files, File Extension, Drawing Editor in
AutoCAD
 Basic Concept of AutoCAD
 Co-ordinate System, Drawing Aids, Display Control, Limits command

 Entity Draw Command in AutoCAD

 Line, Point, Circle, Arc, Ellipse, Donut, Polyline, Polygon, Sketch, Text

 Editing Tools in AutoCAD

 Erase, Move, Fill, Break, Rotate, Divide, Scale, Mirror, Extend, Fillet,
Chamfer, Array
 Advanced AutoCAD Commands & Concepts
 Hatch, BHatch, Printing, Dimension, Layer, Blocks, 3D Drawing

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Computer Aided Engineering

Computer Aided Engineering (CAE)

Computer Aided Design (CAD) Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM)

Computer Geometric Modeling Computer Aided Drafting

Finite Element Analysis

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Overview of CAD
 CAD stands for Computer-Aided Design.

 Computer Aided Design (CAD) is the latest

breakthrough in the modern technology that
became a part of variety of professionals like
Engineers, Architects and Interior Designers.

 CAD helps in the presentation of Engineering

Drawings, Architectural Drawings, Interior
Designs, Work-flow charts, Organizational
Diagrams and Company logos etc.

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Overview of CAD
 AutoCAD is a general purpose computer aided
drafting application program designed for use on
single-user, desktop personal computers and
graphic workstations.

 An AutoCAD drawing is made up of entities. These

can be either simple graphic primitives (such as
lines, arcs, circles, text, and so on) or blocks
(which are groups of entities). A block is a group of
entities that can be manipulated as a single unit.

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Overview of CAD
 Designs and drawings can be standardized
and more accurately presented by using
AutoCAD.

 Drawings drawn on AutoCAD can also be

transmitted to CAM (Computer Aided
Manufacturing) system for the actual
production of the product design.

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Overview of CAD
 An AutoCAD drawing is made up of objects.
These can be either simple graphic objects
(such as lines, arcs, circles, text, etc.) or blocks
(which are groups of objects).

 Each object also has certain attributes

associated with it, such as line style, text font,
or colour.

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Overview of AutoCAD R14

 AutoCAD R14 for windows provides a
Graphical user Interface (GUI) similar to that
of any other windows package that further
simplifies access to commands.

 Pull-down menus, dialog boxes, scroll bars

and command icons adhere to Windows
standards. The open architecture of this
product makes it much easier for the
developers to create new applications that
can run with AutoCAD.
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Advantages of AutoCAD
 Generation of graphic images on a computer
 Modification of graphic images on a
computer
 Printing these images as a hard copy by a
printer or a plotter
 Retrieval of designing information

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Advantages of using computer

over paper work
 Easier creation of the drawing
 Easier correction of the drawing
 Easier visualization of the drawing
 Increase the accuracy of the drawing
 Increase the life of the drawing
 Drawing can be stored and easily
referenced for the further modification

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Hardware and Software

Requirements for AutoCAD
 Minimum IBM compatible 80386 computers
 At least 64MB of RAM. AutoDesk
recommend at least 128 MB.
 Hard disk with at least 50MB or more space.
 One floppy Drive
 Digitizing tablet or mouse
 Printer or plotter
 A video display adapter (VGA) that is
capable of displaying Windows
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The Program Files in AutoCAD

Number of subdirectories are present in AutoCAD’s
directory.

 ADS (AutoCAD Development System):

Files contain in this directory are programs and
sample codes for ADS.

 API (Application Programming Interface):

Files in this directory are for programmers interested
in linking applications to the Advanced Modeling
Extension like Access 7, Excel, and FoxPro.
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The Program Files in AutoCAD

 ASE (AutoCAD SQL Extensions):
Files in this directory are for database programmers
interested in linking AutoCAD drawings to the SQL
servers.

 Fonts:
Contain the standard font-definition files.

 Sample:
Contain the sample drawing and AutoLisp programs.
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The Program Files in AutoCAD

 Source:
Contain the ASCII source file for many of the
support files.

 Support:
Contain the files that support variety of AutoCAD’s
functions such as linetype, fonts and pattern etc.

 Tutorial:
Contain the sample files used in conjunction with
the tutorial that appear in various AutoCAD
manuals.

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Ways of Entering Commands

 Command Entry
 Data Entry
 Entity Selection

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Ways of Entering Commands

 Command Entry:
All the commands can be entered from the
keyboard, screen menu, pull-down menu or from
the button menu.

 Data Entry:
When the command is invoked, a user has to
supply additional information to specify how,
where or upon what the requested action should
be performed. A user responds to AutoCAD by
entering numeric values, specifying angles and
distances.
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Ways of Entering Commands

 Entity Selection:
One or more entities can be selected for
processing. This collection of entities (just
clicking) or remove entities from (shift+click),
the selection set. AutoCAD highlight the
selected entities using dotted lines

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Drawing Editor in AutoCAD

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AUTOCAD Command Line Area

 The command line area is located by default
at the bottom of the AutoCAD application
window, just above the status bar.
 This is the area where AutoCAD prompt you
the next step in a command sequence the
three lines in the command: line area display
the three most recent prompts and command,
with the current one of the bottom line.
 The current command line separated from the
others by horizontal line.

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Setting Up The Initial Drawing

Area

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Drawing Aids Dialog Box

 The Drawing Aids dialog box enable you to
specify several setting of the drawing area.

 The snap area enables you to specify the

incremental movement of your cursor across
the drawing area.

 In the grid area, you can specify the spacing

of the grid dots displayed within the drawing
limits

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File Format in Auto CAD

 When starting from scratch AutoCAD doesn’t
need a file name for the drawing.
(all drawings have an extension of DWG).

 After you have specified the name of the

drawing using the Save Drawing as dialog
box, AutoCAD will automatically save the
drawing under the current name without
opening a dialog box.

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