Book Image

Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design

By : JOAO ANTONIO C DOS SANTOS
Book Image

Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design

By: JOAO ANTONIO C DOS SANTOS

Overview of this book

AutoCAD is a computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. AutoCAD supports both 2D and 3D formats. AutoCAD is used in a range of industries and is utilized by architects, project managers, and engineers, among others."Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design" will take you beyond the 2D frontier and help you create accurate 3D models that simulate reality. This book is crammed full of creative and practical tutorials which will help you master the third dimension. From exercises on coordinate systems to creating solids and surfaces from 2D, you will wonder how you ever designed without this resource by your side."Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design" is full of hands-on studies and projects that will help develop your 3D skills. Starting from the assumption of only a very basic knowledge of AutoCAD, this book will help you master 3D visualization and coordinate systems, create 3D models from 2D drawings, and from basic shapes, measure volumes, and other information, obtain 2D construction drawings from 3D models as well as how to apply lights and materials to get photorealistic images.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Meshes


Meshes are 3D objects that can simulate smooth or organic models. These meshes are represented by planar faces that enclose the object, called tessellation. Meshes were introduced in Version 2010 with additional commands added in Version 2011. The normal workflow for meshes is roughly creating the model and then smoothing it.

There are three possibilities for creating meshes: primitives, from linear objects, or by conversion. Several commands are available to edit or smooth meshes.

Access to commands

The mesh commands are on the ribbon, Mesh panel, the Draw/Modeling menu bar, and the Smooth Mesh toolbar.

Creating primitive meshes

There is one command to create primitive meshes and another to specify default parameters for these meshes.

The MESH command

The MESH command (no alias) creates meshes with the six basic geometric shapes. The command starts by displaying the current smoothness level and prompts for the type of shape:

Command: MESH
Current smoothness level is set to: 0
Enter an...