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

Polyface meshes


Polyface meshes were the first 3D objects in AutoCAD. These meshes are based on 3D faces defined by three or four vertices. Only the 3DFACE command is important, as introduced and used in Chapter 5, 3D Primitives and Conversions. Polyface meshes still have one advantage related to other surfaces and meshes: vertices can be stretched easily.

Creating polyface meshes

Besides the important 3DFACE command, some others are available, but mainly used for programming. None of these commands have icons.

If the MESHTYPE variable has value 0; the RULESURF, TABSURF, REVSURF, and EDGESURF commands, which were presented before, create polyface meshes. The result of exploding polyface meshes are 3D faces.

These commands have no Undo option. An error in specifying a vertex requires command cancelation or posterior modification.

The 3DFACE command

The 3DFACE command (alias 3F) creates faces defined by three or four vertices. A single command application allows creating several contiguous faces...