Welcome to CADVANTAGE’s No Nonsense, Quick Start, Click by Click tutorial for AutoCAD. This tutorial is part of the CAD-CAM @ Home scheme currently available in the city of Aurangabad in India. Two Goodwill Gesture lessons are provided in this document. Lesson 1 : Introduction to Program Interface and Viewing Commands. Lesson 2 : 2D Drafting with AutoCAD. The intention of this tutorial is not to teach AutoCAD but to help crack the ice, aid new users get familiar and Up and Running with AutoCAD.

For Remaining lessons as listed in the detailed syllabus below, you may enroll for the CAD++ [ CAD @ Home ] program at : CADVANTAGE ( where AutoCAD is taught FREE ) C 2 - 6, N 7, CIDCO, Opp. Onkar Gas, Behind Swamikripa STD, Aurangabad 431003 India Ph : 0240 - 480767 Email : CadGuruCool@yahoo.com Webpage : www.geocities.com/CadGuruCool

Index 1. Who needs AutoCAD Anymore ? - CAD CAM Sketch 2. Who needs AutoCAD Anymore ? - CAD CAM Chart 3. AutoCAD Detailed Syllabus 4. Introduction to Program Interface and Viewing Commands 5. 2D Drafting with AutoCAD

Who needs AutoCAD anymore ? As shown in the illustration, AutoCAD is a Entry-level CAD software. Using AutoCAD, you can draw 2D Sketches, 3D machine parts, display assembly drawings in both 2D and 3D and even create sheet-metal parts. All these features are also readily available in Mid Range CAD packages like Solid Edge, Solid Works, Inventor, etc. However, the difference lies in the intelligence that mid-range softwares exhibit, the ease of use and the fewer number of steps that are involved in creating a given machine element. That’s not all. Future modifications to a design can be done in a more logical way in Solid Edge than in AutoCAD where the model needs to be re-worked either from scratch sometimes or by way of patch work. Pro/Engineer is a High End CAD CAM CAE suite. The other softwares in this category are I-DEAS, Unigraphics and CATIA. What sets apart High-end from mid-range is CAE which stands for Computer Aided Engineering and FEA ie Finite Element Analysis. Some people are habitual of categorizing FEA under CAE. The world of CAD-CAM-CAE is still evolving and its difficulty to state such a thing. FEA which in itself is a huge field is not available readily under Solid Edge or other mid-range softwares. Pro/Engineer is a High-End CAD-CAM-CAE suite. What is a suite ? A suite is a collection of softwares which may run independent of each other but together they offer very strong capabilities in achieving a common goal. You may be aware of MS Office which is a suite of Office Automation applications like MS Word used for word processing, MS Excel used as a spread-sheet, MS PowerPoint used as a presentation tool and MS Access which is a database application. Similarly, Pro/ENGINEER is a collection of a vast number of CAD applications which may work togther to achieve a common goal. Pro/ENGINEER includes Pro/Sheetmetal for creating sheetmetal parts, ProDesigner for conceptual design, ProMechanica used to evaluate motion of an assembly, ProVibration, ProCasting, ProMolddesign, ProThermal, ProPiping , ProWelding and so on. These are only a few points which distinct Entry-Level, Mid-Range and High-End softwares from each other A chart showing different CAD-CAM softwares and their creators is shown next.

Company	Autodesk	Unigraphics	Dassault	PTC	SDRC
Entry-Level	AutoCAD	-	-	-	-
Mid-Range	Inventor	Solid Edge	SolidWorks	Pro/Desktop	-
High-End	-	Unigraphics	CATIA	Pro/ENGINEER	I-DEAS

The chart is self Explanatory. Mid-range softwares in their initial years were ruled out as only mid-priced softwares by Autodesk as they were no better off than AutoCAD. But today they (the mid-rangers) rival with the High-End CAD CAM applications as far as core-modeling is concerned.

As an example, fillet and shell are two typical solid modeling features.

With AutoCAD you can fillet an edge with only constant radius, whereas, fillet with varying radius is also possible in mid-range and high-end cad programs as shown in the figure on the right.

Another example is that of the shell feature.

Figure on the left shows a shell ( thin region ) feature created in AutoCAD where only constant thickness can be used. Using mid-rangers and high-enders, you may specify unique thickness to different faces for the shell as shown in the figure on the right. Varying radius fillet and variable thickness shells are possible in both mid-range softwares like Solid-Edge and also in High-End CAD programs like I-DEAS. Thus, Mid-range CAD CAM softwares compete with high-end applications. Besides these, there are many features other than modeling where mid-range and high-end softwares are superior to entry-level softwares. One example could be the History access or Model navigator feature wherein you can directly access and modify a treatment feature that was applied half-way during the model making process. This is not possible in AutoCAD.

Detailed Course Contents AutoCAD

1) 2D Drafting

Overview of AutoCAD, Starting AutoCAD, opening an existing drawing, working with multiple drawings, understanding the AutoCAD window, working with different toolbars, using short- cut commands, using pointing devices, saving drawings, closing drawings, exiting Autocad, setting drawing limits, working with different Autocad commands, correcting mistakes, learning by taking help, adjusting snap and grid, snapping to object points, autotrack, polar-track, point filter,construction lines, Calculating distances & angles & areas, Inquiry methods, zoom, pan, aerial view, named views,selecting objects and removing from selsets, editing with grips, Object and match properties,editing by copy, offset, mirror, array, move, rotate, align, erase, resize, break, explode, edit polylines, multilines, splines, chamfer, fillet, hatch, layers, single & multiline text, find-replace text, spell checking, editors for mline text, creating dimensions, dimension styles, geometric tolerencing, leaders, creating & inserting blocks, plot command and plotting with inkjet, dotmatrix and laser printers. Isometric drawing concept, creating isometric drawing by using different isometric planes like right isoplane, left isoplane, top isoplane, creating iso-circle. Project :2D Assembly and 2D Animation .

2) 3D Solid Modeling

3D Solid Modeling - Understanding the difference between hollow and solid objects, concept of regions, boundary region, extrude, creating box, cone, cylinder, sphere, wedge, torus, creating solids by revolve, union, sutract, intersect, creating slices and sections, coloring solids, using 3D orbit, effect of materials and lights on solids, using shading, rendering and landscaping, creating sol-profiles and solviews, design-center all of express tools, importing raster images, X-ref manager, Image manager and layer control manager, mass properties, creating beutiful layouts by using different text effects, image control and irregular viewport shapes, display order of the objects, fillet and chamfer of solids objects, exporting ACAD drawings to different formats to be used in other programs. Project :3D Assembly and 3D Animation

3) 3D Surface Modeling

3D Surface Modeling - Creating 3D objects, editing 3D, use of basic concept of elevation, thickness, viewpoint, 3D-coords, using standard 3D views and projections, user co-ordinate sys. Working with multiple viewports in 3D, using DView, setting camera, creating perspective view, create revolved, tabulated, edge, ruled surfaces, colouring the objects, shading objects, using the arc-ball to rotate objects, all aspects of 3D drawings.

4) AutoLISP and Visual LISP Programming

Programming - Auto LISP, Visual LISP, AutoCAD Script, creating new linetypes and hatch patterns, creating new pull-down menu, screen menu, iconmenu, cursor menu and creating new toolbars, 2D and 3D programming with Visual-Basic for AutoCAD (VBA). Live Industrial Project .

Tutorial 1 : Introduction to Software Interface and Viewing Commands

Step 1 Observe the AutoCAD interface shown besides which is self-explanatory. The various parts of the interface not obvious from the figure shown besides are : a)Title bar - The blue strip at the top. You can close AutoCAD by clicking on the cross mark at the extreme right end of the title bar. The cross just below it will close only the currently open drawing, provided no command is active. b) Menu bar - You will find words like File, Edit, View, Insert, etc written on this bar since, AutoCAD is Microsoft Office compliant - meaning that - Microsoft insists on all Windows based softwares to look and behave like MS Office programs do. AutoCAD subscribes to this idea hence, the interface.

Step 2 To start using the viewing commands, open the AcadTut.dwg file in AutoCAD 2000 format, found in the zip archieve that contained this document. In case of unavailability of the file, either download it from www.geocities.com/CadGuruCool/Tutorial.htm or skip this tutorial entirely, complete Tutorial 2 where you learn how to ceate a 2D sketch and come back and complete this tutorial.

Step 3 By Default, there are 4 toolbars present in AutoCAD A) Standard toolbar, B) Object Properties toolbar, C) Draw toolbar, and D) Modify toolbar. To display or hide a specific toolbar, right click on any toolbar and select the desired toobar name from the pop-up menu that appears.

Step 4 The standard toolbar has 30 tools as shown in the figure. We will discuss most of the tools indepth in this and the next tutorial.

Step 5 The Object Properties toolbaris a special toolbar. Apart from tools, it also sports list boxes.

Step 6 Click the Zoom Window tool on the Standard toolbar. Click at two points as shown in the figure and a window will be formed as you drag the mouse for the second point. Finally the part of model enclosed in the window will enlarge to accomodate the whole of the graphics area and appear big.

Step 7 Click the Zoom Previous tool You will get back to the view before zooming in Step 6.

Step 8 Click the Zoom Realtime tool Press and Drag the mouse in vertically upwards. As you move the mouse vertically upwards, the drawing appears to grow in size and vice versa.

Step 9 Click the Pan tool Press and Drag the mouse in any direction. As you move the mouse, the drawing appears to move in the direction of movement. This is called panning.

Step 10 Another way of viewing the drawing entirely is by selecting View > Zoom > All from the menu bar as shown in the figure.

Tutorial 2 : 2D Drafting with AutoCAD

Step 1 We want to draw the figure shown on the right.

Step 2 To begin with, Click the Rectangle tool from the Draw toolbar. Click at point 1 as shown in the figure. A rectangle begins to appear as you move the mouse. Leave the rectangle and click in the last line in the command window. Type @110,40 and press Enter on the keyboard. A rectangle of size 110 x 40 will be formed and may not be seen entirely. Selecting View > Zoom > All from the menu bar will display the full rectangle as discussed in Step 10 in Tutorial 1.

Step 3 Click the Explode tool from the Modify toolbar. A small square called pickbox will appear in place of the cross-hair. Select the rectangle with the pick box as shown in the figure. The rectangle will appear highlighted. Press Enter on the Keyboard.

Step 4 The Offset command is used to make parallel copies of existing objects as shown in the figure. The steps involved are as follows : a) Issue the Offset command. b) Type the distance between parallel copies, c) Select a single object to offset, and d) Specify on which side of the object you want to make the parallel copy, for example, inside or outside for a circle and left or right side for a vertical line.

Step 5 Click the Offset tool from the Modify toolbar. Type 56 and press Enter on the keyboard. Select the left vertical side of the rectangle as shown in the figure. Click anywhere on the right side of the selected line as shown in the figure. A line at a distance of 56 and parallel to the selected line will be created as shown in figure.

Step 6 Similarly, offset the bottom horizontal side of the rectangle by 12 as shown in figure Your drawing should now look similar to the one shown in figure besides.

Step 7 Click the Line tool from the Draw toolbar. Move the cross-hair near the intersection of the two lines as shown in figure. A small yellow square will appear and the word Endpoint will pop-up. Click and move the cross-hair away. A line will start appearing between the intersection point and the current poisition of the cross-hair. This line is called the rubber-banding line since it stretches like a rubber-band.

Step 8 Click at the other intersection point as shown in figure The line is now complete. Press Enter on the keyboard.

Step 9 Your drawing should now look similar to the one shown in the figure besides.

Step 10 The Trim command is used to erase objects partially as shown in the figure. The steps involved are as follows : a) Issue the Trim command. b) Select an object (a line or circle) as cutting edge (point P1), c) Press Enter on the keyboard, and d) Select another object which you want to erase partially (point P2 and P3).

Step 11 Click the Trim tool from the Modify toolbar. Press Enter on the keyboard immediately. Select lines at points 1, 2 and 3 as shown in figure.

Step 12 Your drawing should now look similar to the one shown in the figure besides.

Step 13 Click the Circle tool from the Draw toolbar. Move the cross-hair over the line as shown in figure. A yellow triangle and the word Midpoint appears. Click and move the cross-hair away from the mid-point. A circle begins to appear. Type 20 as the radius for the circle and press Enter on the keyboard. A circle is then drawn.

Step 14 Click the Trim tool from the Modify toolbar Select the line at point 1 and the circle at point 2 as shown in figure. Press Enter on the keyboard Again select the line at point 1 and the circle at point 2 as shown in figure.

Step 15 Your drawing should now look similar to the one shown in the figure besides.

Step 16 Want to dig deeper into AutoCAD? Call CADVANTAGE Now !!! Ph : 0240 - 480767 in Aurangabad.

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