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Getting Started with DraftSight
Getting Started with DraftSight
Getting Started with DraftSight
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Getting Started with DraftSight

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Packed with illustrations and step-by-step guidelines, this book will serve as a guide for DraftSight and get you up and running with it! Getting Started with DraftSight is for anyyone who wants to create accurate 2D drawings in the DWG file format. It is also a great resource for architectural, engineering, or design professionals and students. The reader needs to have basic knowledge of CAD.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 26, 2013
ISBN9781782160250
Getting Started with DraftSight

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    Book preview

    Getting Started with DraftSight - João Santos

    Table of Contents

    Getting Started with DraftSight

    Credits

    About the Author

    About the Reviewers

    www.PacktPub.com

    Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

    Why Subscribe?

    Free Access for Packt account holders

    Preface

    What this book covers

    What you need for this book

    Who this book is for

    Conventions

    Reader feedback

    Customer support

    Downloading the example code and graphics

    Errata

    Piracy

    Questions

    1. Introduction to DraftSight

    Downloading and starting DraftSight

    Understanding the user interface

    Configuring DraftSight

    Starting and setting up a drawing

    Starting a drawing

    Setting up a drawing

    Opening, saving, and closing drawings

    Summary

    2. Drawing with Precision

    Defining coordinates

    Absolute coordinates

    Relative Cartesian coordinates

    Relative polar coordinates

    Drawing lines and deleting

    Drawing lines

    Selecting and deleting

    Graphical auxiliary tools

    Ortho and Polar

    Entity snaps

    Entity snap tracking

    Snap and Grid

    Visualization tools

    Exercise 2.1

    Summary

    3. Starting to Create Projects

    Drawing circles and arcs

    Drawing rectangles and polygons

    Selecting entities

    Moving, copying, and reflecting

    Rotating and scaling

    Offsetting and stretching

    Trimming and extending

    Filleting and chamfering

    Exercise 3.1

    Summary

    4. Structuring Projects and Following Standards

    Creating and managing layers

    The layer list

    The LAYER command

    Filtering layers

    Applying colors, linestyles, and lineweights

    Applying colors

    Applying linestyles

    Applying lineweights

    Exercise 4.1

    Summary

    5. Inquiring Projects and Modifying Properties

    Measuring distances and angles

    Measuring areas

    Obtaining coordinates

    Verifying and modifying properties

    Exercise 5.1

    Summary

    6. Creating Complex Projects

    Creating text styles and applying text

    Creating polylines

    Creating multiple equally spaced copies

    Creating other entities

    Creating tables and table styles

    Joining, lengthening, and breaking the entities

    Exercise 6.1

    Summary

    7. Creating and Applying Components

    Creating components (blocks)

    Inserting components

    Exporting components

    Editing components

    Applying attributes

    Cleaning the drawing

    Exercise 7.1

    Summary

    8. Applying Fills and Patterns

    Applying patterns

    The Predefined and Custom types

    User-defined type

    Pattern origin

    Boundary definition

    Other options

    Applying gradients

    Editing fills and patterns

    Exercise 8.1

    Summary

    9. Documenting Projects

    Creating linear dimensions

    Creating angular dimensions

    Dimensioning arcs and circles

    Ordinate dimensions and leaders

    Editing dimensions

    Creating and managing dimension styles

    Exercise 9.1

    Summary

    10. Printing Efficiently

    Creating and managing sheets for printing

    Configuring sheets

    Creating and managing print styles

    Creating viewports

    Adjusting viewport visualization, scale, and layers

    Previewing and printing

    Exercise 10.1

    Summary

    11. Advanced Tools

    Referencing external drawings and images

    Managing and linking external drawings and images

    Clipping external drawings and images

    Advanced layer commands

    Exercise 11.1

    Summary

    Index

    Getting Started with DraftSight


    Getting Started with DraftSight

    Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

    Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

    Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

    First published: August 2013

    Production Reference: 1200813

    Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

    Livery Place

    35 Livery Street

    Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

    ISBN 978-1-78216-024-3

    www.packtpub.com

    Cover Image by Sandeep Babu (<[email protected]>)

    Credits

    Author

    João Santos

    Reviewers

    Deepak Gupta

    Mark Lyons

    Neb Radojkovic

    Acquisition Editor

    Mary Nadar

    Commissioning Editor

    Sruthi Kutty

    Technical Editors

    Vrinda Nitesh Bhosale

    Mrunmayee Patil

    Ruchita Bhansali

    Project Coordinator

    Michelle Quadros

    Proofreader

    Samantha Lyon

    Indexer

    Monica Ajmera Mehta

    Production Coordinator

    Melwyn D'sa

    Cover Work

    Melwyn D'sa

    About the Author

    João Santos is the manager and main instructor at QualiCAD (www.qualicad.com), one of the most important Portuguese ATCs (Autodesk Authorized Training Center), based in Lisbon. With a degree in Mechanical Engineering, he has been teaching AutoCAD for more than 25 years and, most recently teaching several AutoCAD clones such as DraftSight, ZW CAD, ProgeCAD, BitCAD. He is an AutoCAD 2013 and 3ds Max 2013 Certified professional user and instructor, being also the Portuguese instructor in these technologies with more students. João is the author and co-author of more than 40 Portuguese AutoCAD and 3ds Max books. He is also the author of Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design, Packt Publishing.

    First of all, I would like to thank my family for all their support and guidance. No less important are all my friends, students, readers and colleagues for their continuous questions, feedback, suggestions, and basically shaping my career. And I would also like to express my gratitude to everyone at Packt for this opportunity and collaboration.

    About the Reviewers

    Deepak Gupta graduated in 2000 from Indo Swiss Training Centre, (Chandigarh, India). With over 12 years of rich experience working with various industries, he has been working in different roles with different product lines. His main area of experience and interest has been the design and manufacturing processes along with team and project management.

    He is working as Technical Director at Vishnu Design Services, an Engineering and CAD outsourcing service provider based in Chandigarh, India, offering wide range of CAD design, drafting, and engineering services. Being a certified SolidWorks expert and user for the last 7 years, Deepak is passionate about working with SolidWorks. Besides working for Vishnu Design Services, he enjoys writing for his own blog, Boxer's SolidWorks Blog where he writes tips, tricks, tutorials, and news about SolidWorks. In addition to this, he has participated in various SolidWorks World Conferences as a press member.

    An important aspect of his life is his family—his parents, his wife, a 5-month old son, and other family members. He loves to travel and make friends.

    I would like to thank my wife, Swati Gupta, for her love, kindness, and support she has shown during the past few weeks it has taken me to review this book. Furthermore I would also like to thank my parents for their endless love and support. I would also like to thank João Santos for writing such a great book, which I enjoyed reading more than simply reviewing. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Packt Publishing team for choosing me as one of the reviewers of this book and helping me out to complete the review of this book

    This book is more like a mystery with secrets in every chapter. Don't miss out on your chance to explore them.

    Mark Lyons works for Dassault Systèmes as the Product Manager for DraftSight. He is the principal of The Lyons' Share™ resource center for DraftSight. Prior to this position, he has been the Training Specialist for DraftSight since December 2008. Before taking this position, Mark was employed as CAD instructor at two regional high schools in Massachusetts. He began his career as a Mechanical Draftsman creating drawings the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper. He has worked in this industry since 1981, and has used many CAD products.

    Neb Radojkovic comes from a technical family. Neb started technical (manual) drafting straight after high school in 1979. Over the years and while using his other skills, such as model making and painting, in 1990, Neb was introduced to AutoCAD. From that point on, Neb used AutoCAD to the best of his ability (self-taught) until he finished a 6-months course in AutoCAD 2D and 3D in 2000. His first job as an AutoCAD Operator was in the Doors and Windows manufacturing firm. Soon enough Neb was in search of more challenge, so he became a sole AutoCAD Draftsperson in a Kitchen Manufacturing business. He became expert in cabinetry, millwork and Interiors Drafting and Design using several software: AutoCAD, SolidWorks, DraftSight, and ARES Commander, to mention a few. Since 2008 Neb has been the owner and principal of Cadesigneb.com—his Interiors AutoCAD Drafting business. Neb is now also exploring CAD and 3D Photo Realistic Rendering. As a form of relaxation, Neb enjoys making Logos and Website Designs.

    The main companies that Neb worked at were:

    Energoprojekt: Belgrade, Serbia

    Elmwood Kitchens: St. Catharines, ON

    Benson Industries: Saanichton, BC

    Cutting Edge Woodworks: Saanichton, BC

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    Preface

    DraftSight is a free CAD program that uses the DWG file format. It includes all the main tools to produce precise technical drawings and runs on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac and Linux. The DWG file format is the most used CAD (Computer Aided Design) format, widely spread in all areas of technical drawings.

    DraftSight runs in 15 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), and Russian. DraftSight is free for any personal or commercial application.

    With a practical project and many illustrations, this book addresses all the main phases for executing a mechanical project, including setting up a drawing, drawing and editing with precision, organizing with layers and obtaining valid information from the drawing, applying patterns and dimension, and defining and printing sheets.

    What this book covers

    Chapter 1, Introduction to DraftSight, includes an introduction to DraftSight, where to download it, how

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