Book Image

Practical Autodesk AutoCAD 2021 and AutoCAD LT 2021

By : Yasser Shoukry, Jaiprakash Pandey
Book Image

Practical Autodesk AutoCAD 2021 and AutoCAD LT 2021

By: Yasser Shoukry, Jaiprakash Pandey

Overview of this book

AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT are one of the most versatile software applications for architectural and engineering designs and the most popular computer-aided design (CAD) platform for 2D drafting and 3D modeling. This hands-on guide will take you through everything you need to know to make the most out of this powerful tool, starting from a simple tour of the user interface through to using advanced tools. Starting with basic drawing shapes and functions, you'll get to grips with the fundamentals of CAD designs. You’ll then learn about effective drawing management using layers, dynamic blocks, and groups and discover how to add annotations and plot like professionals. The book delves into 3D modeling and helps you convert your 2D drawings into 3D models and shapes. As you progress, you’ll cover advanced tools and features such as isometric drawings, drawing utilities for managing and recovering complex files, quantity surveying, and multidisciplinary drawing files using xRefs, and you'll learn how to implement them with the help of practical exercises at the end of each chapter. Finally, you’ll get to grips with rendering and visualizing your designs in AutoCAD. By the end of the book, you’ll have developed a solid understanding of CAD principles and be able to work with AutoCAD software confidently to build impressive 2D and 3D drawings.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)

Working with complex polylines and splines

We have learned about polylines and splines in previous chapters, but that was just the basics, and both these tools have a lot more to offer than the basic drawing feature. In this section, we will discuss all the interesting features of polyline and line tools, and we will start with polylines.

Complex polylines

To make a polyline, select the Polyline tool from the Draw panel of the Home tab or use its command alias, PL. Start the polyline command, and you will notice many options on the command line, as shown in Figure 8.46:

Figure 8.46: Subcommands of the polyline command on the command line

Select the Halfwidth option from the command line, or type H, and press Enter. Now,...