Introducing AutoCAD 2008

One of the greatest features of AutoCAD is its ability to draw accurately through a wide range of scales. For example, you can draw a football field, zoom into a blade of grass, and draw its cell structure. With such a broad range of views to work with, you need to be familiar with AutoCAD's view features. The Zoom and Pan commands are the most frequently used view features, so you'll want to become familiar with them right away.

Try the following exercise to see how Zoom works:

1. Choose View è Zoom è Window, or select Zoom, Window from the 2D Navigate control panel. The 2D Navigate control panel is the one at the bottom of the Dashboard.

2. Click the first point indicated in Figure 1.10. You don't have to be too accurate.

3. Click the second point indicated in Figure 1.10. The area you selected expands to fill the drawing area. Notice that the transition to the zoomed view is smooth. This helps you keep track of exactly where in the drawing the zoom occurs.

4. Choose View è Pan è Realtime, or click the Pan Realtime tool in the 2D Navigate control panel. Notice that the cursor changes to a hand icon.

5. Click and drag the cursor in the drawing area. Notice how the view moves as you drag the cursor.

6. Press Esc to exit the Pan command. You can also right-click and choose Exit from the shortcut menu.

7. Finally, to get your original view of the overall drawing, choose View è Zoom è Previous, or click the Previous View tool in the 2D Navigate control panel.

Figure 1.10: Selecting a Zoom window

If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can use the wheel to zoom in and out of your drawing view. You can also use it to pan across your drawing. To zoom, scroll the wheel. To pan, click and drag the scroll wheel.

If you have a mouse that uses special drivers, you might not be able to use the wheel to control pans and zooms.

Several other Zoom- and Pan-related commands exist, but those you've just tried are the ones you'll use 90 percent of the time. You can try the other Zoom and Pan options, which are displayed when you choose View è Zoom. You'll also find options in the Zoom command-line options list:

[All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/Previous/Scale/Window/Object] <real time>:

Here is a list of the options and how you can use them:

• Realtime Is the default Zoom option. It displays a magnifying glass cursor. With this option, you can click and drag up or down to change your magnification in real time. You can right-click to access the other Zoom options, including Exit and Cancel.

• Previous Displays the previous view like Undo does for the Zoom command.

• Dynamic Changes the display to an overall view. A rectangle also appears, which lets you select an area to which to zoom in. To change the size of the rectangle, click the rectangle. This allows you to adjust the size of the rectangle and thus change the size of the zoom area. Click again to fix the rectangle size. Right-click, and choose Enter to zoom in to the selected area.

• Scale Lets you zoom in or out by a specific value. It allows you to enter a specific view scale.

• Center Allows you to center a location on the screen.

• Object Lets you select a view area based on the area occupied by an object. For example, if you want to zoom in so that a particular object fills the display area, use this option.

• In Is the same as using the Scale option and entering 2x to magnify your view two times.

• Out Is the same as using the Scale option and entering 0.5x to view twice the current view area.

• All Displays the area of your drawing defined by the drawing limits plus any part of your drawing that falls outside the limits.

• Extents Displays a view that encompasses all the objects in your drawing. This option ignores the limits of your drawing.

You've just about completed your first look at AutoCAD. You'll want to know about just a couple of other features. In the next section, I'll introduce a display feature in AutoCAD that helps you set up your drawing for printing.