What is it?

Lesson
Drawing Aids
3

Drawing in AutoCAD is like drawing in a drawing board, you will need drafting tools
To achieve precision. In fact, many of the drawing aids that AutoCAD provides are
the same to traditional drafting tools. In manual drawing to draw vertical and
horizontal lines you will need T-square and triangles. AutoCAD has similar drawing
aids to help you achieve the same output. This means the concept are very similar
so go ahead and explore the drawing aids.

How to access drawing aids

1. Look for the status bar located at the lower corner of your AutoCAD interface
2. Look for the drawing grid, Snap mode, dynamic input, ortho mode, polar
tracking

Status bar
Drawing Aids

The Drawing Grid

Function key: F7
Command Line: Limits

The grid is a rectangular pattern of lines or dots displayed on the screen. Using grid
is like using graphing paper under a drawing. You can set the grid spacing and can
be used to define the extent of your drawing. The grid cannot be printed.

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 Click the
grid
display
tab to Status
turn it on

Note: a blue background

indicates a feature is on

Grid display
off

Grid Settings can be specified in the Drawing Settings dialogue box, to access the
drawing settings, right click on the grid display tab and select Grid settings. Both
Snap and Grid settings will be access in this tab.

The Drawing/ Drafting Settings

Keyboard: DDRMODES/DSETTINGS

Change
the X and
Y spacing Change the
distance X and Y
for Snap spacing/dist
mode ance of
Grids

Setting Grid limits

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1.Command line: type LIMITS

limits

2.type 0,0

0,0

3.type 100,100

100,100

4. type gridisplay

5. enter the value of 0

6. type Zoom _All

AutoCAD will show the limits you set in your drawing area.

Note: To restore the grid display to the entire XY plane of the UCS, set grid display
to 3.

Limits is useful if you know the print size of your objects and is used to specify the
extent of the grid.

Tip: Always remember to press ENTER or space bar to execute the command
you entered in the command line and press Esc to exit the command

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Snap Mode
Function Key: F9
Command line: Snap

When the snap mode is on the cursor movement will allow you to pick points that
lie on a regular Grid. Although the snap grid is different from the display grid, they
are set to the same value to avoid confusion. Or to align the display grid with the
snap grid, set the display grid to zero. See the drafting setting on page 34.

Setting the Snap mode in the command line

1. Command line: type Snap

snap

2.

Enter the required spacing

Note: changing the snap settings can be done in the Drawing settings dialogue
box.

Tip: The quick way to set the snap mode on and off is by using the F9 function
key or just click the snap button on the status bar.

Ortho Mode
Function key: F8
Command Line: Ortho

Ortho or short for orthogonal, which means either vertical or horizontal.

Setting the Ortho Mode On

1. Command line: type Ortho

ortho

2. Command line: Type On

on
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Polar Tracking

Function Key: F10

It guides cursor movement to specified angles. It is like Ortho except it simply
indicates when your crosshair is close to a vertical or horizontal angle.

Modify the Polar tracking setting at the Drawing Settings Dialogue box, just right
click on the polar tracking tab and select settings.

Dynamic Input
Function Key: F12

It provides a command interface near the cursor in the drawing area.

Dynamic input

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Object Snap Tracking

Function Key: F11

provides a track along alignment paths that are based on object snap points.
To have ease in using the different object snaps mode, we can activate the
Running object snaps. It can be configured using the Object Snap tab of the
Drafting Settings dialogue box as illustrated below.

Object snap

Function Key: F3
This drafting feature will allow you to snap onto a specific object snap location when
you are picking a point. It can look for key points on objects and select those points
automatically. These points are called object snap, see the complete list of object
snap modes on pp 38-39.

List of Object snap modes

ENDPOINT This snap mode snaps at exact endpoint of a line,

arc or other object that has a definite ending to it.
This is used for joining lines, and dimensioning.

MIDPOINT Midpoint snap mode finds the exact middle of any

object that has a beginning and an end. All lines
and arcs have a midpoint.

CENTER
Center snap mode allows you to snap to the exact
center of circles, arc, and ellipses.

This snap mode snaps to the 'geometric' center of

GEOMTRIC CENTER a rectangle rather than trying to find the two
midpoints. Works on closed polylines, rectangles,
splines.

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 NODE
Node snap mode snaps to the center of a point
object.

QUADRANT Quadrant snap mode snaps to one of the four circle

quadrant points located at north, south, east and
west or 90, 270, 0 and 180 degrees respectively.

INTERSECTION
This snap mode snaps to the physical intersection
of any two drawing objects.

INSERTION
This snaps to the insertion points of objects such
as blocks, text and attributes.

PERPENDICULAR
Perpendicular snap mode snaps to a point which
forms a perpendicular with the selected object.

TANGENT
This snap mode snaps to a tangent point on a
circle.

NEAREST
This snap mode finds the closest point on an object
relative to where you started.

APPARENT INTERSECTION
This snap mode snaps to the point where objects
appear to intersect in the current view.

PARALLEL
This is used to draw a line parallel to any other line
in your drawing.

EXTENSION This enables you to snap to some point along the

imaginary extension of a line, arc or polyline
segment.

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Function Keys

Keyboard Name Description

Shortcut
Key

F1 Help This function key displays Help for the active

tooltip, command, palette or dialog box.
F2 Expanded It shows expanded command history in the
History Command window.
F3 Object Snap This function key will turn object snap on and off.

F5 Isoplane It is the plane with an angle of 30 degrees from

horizontal. By using this shortcut key, we create
any drawing in isoplane.
F7 Grid display This will turn the grid display on and off.

F8 Ortho Mode This function key will lock cursor movement to

horizontal or vertical.
F9 Grid snap This will restrict the cursor movement to specified
grid intervals.
F10 Polar tracking It guides cursor movement to specified angles.

F11 Object snap Tracks the cursor horizontally and vertically from
tracking object snap locations.
F12 Dynamic input It provides a command interface near the cursor in
the drawing area.

Please watch the video link below for more information about the status bar:
https://tinyurl.com/y6rtrmwp

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