Autocad tutorial part:2 (Drawing lines with the LINE command)

Autocad tutorial part:2 (Drawing lines with the LINE command)

 1. Move the graphics cursor to the first icon in

the Draw panel. This icon is the Line icon.

Note that a brief description of the Line

command appears next to the cursor.

2. Select the icon by clicking once with the leftmouse-

button, which will activate the Line

command.

3. In the command prompt area, near the bottom of the AutoCAD drawing

screen, the message “_line Specify first point:” is displayed. AutoCAD

expects us to identify the starting location of a straight line. Move the graphics

cursor inside the graphics window and watch the display of the coordinates of

the graphics cursor at the bottom of the AutoCAD drawing screen. The three

numbers represent the location of the cursor in the X, Y, and Z directions. We

can treat the graphics window as if it was a piece of paper and we are using

the graphics cursor as if it were a pencil with which to draw.

We will create a freehand sketch of a fivepoint

star using the Line command. Do not

be overly concerned with the actual size or

the accuracy of your freehand sketch. This

exercise is to give you a feel for the

AutoCAD® 2012 user interface.

Coordinates of the graphics

cursor.

4. We will start at a location about one-third

from the bottom of the graphics window.

Left-click once to position the starting

point of our first line. This will be point 1

of our sketch. Next move the cursor

upward and toward the right side of point

1. Notice the rubber-band line that follows

the graphics cursor in the graphics

window. Left-click again (point 2) and we

have created the first line of our sketch.

5. Move the cursor to the left of point 2 and

create a horizontal line about the same

length as the first line on the screen.

6. Repeat the above steps and complete

the freehand sketch by adding three

more lines (from point 3 to point 4,

point 4 to point 5, and then connect to

point 5 back to point 1).

7. Notice that the Line command remains activated even after

we connected the last segment of the line to the starting point

(point 1) of our sketch. Inside the graphics window, click

once with the right-mouse-button and a popup menu

appears on the screen.

8. Select Enter with the left-mouse-button to end the Line

command. (This is equivalent to hitting the [ENTER] key on

the keyboard.)

9. Move the cursor near point 2 and point 3, and estimate the

length of the horizontal line by watching the displayed

coordinates for each point.