Any location in a drawing has its unique coordinates (Cartesian or Polar System) and can be described in X, Y and Z coordinate values. Those values are shown at the left side of the drawing status bar.

Cartesian & Polar System

Cartesian co-ordinate system is the standard system that it is used in AutoCAD. In 2 dimension drawings the first value is expressed as the X co-ordinate measured along the horizontal axis, the second value is expressed as the Y co-ordinate measured along the vertical axis, while the third value, Z will always be zero. It has to be mentioned that the origin is always 0, 0.

Polar co-ordinate system is used to express the position of point in drawing space. The main difference between Cartesian & Polar is that the second one uses one distance and one angle in order to describe the position of a point. Both the distance and the angle are measured from the origin (0,0) as shown below. The angles in AutoCAD starts at X axis (0 or <360 degrees) going anticlockwise. In the positive Y axis the angle is 90 degrees, in the negative X axis is < 270 degrees and finally c

Co-ordinate system in 3D drawings:

In 3 dimension drawings the points are expressed in X, Y, Z coordinate values and there are always separated by a comma.

The days of pen & paper belongs to the past. Nowdays designing by hand is replaced by the use of CAD programs (CAD stands for Computer Aided Programs). Mouse & keyboard are the tools in order to create new drawings.


At this point I will demonstrate the mouse functions.

• Left click is used for selection purposes as for example we can select to draw a line from the toolbar.
  

• By right clicking the following menu will appear on the screen. We can pan, zoom, repeat a previous command, options etc.

• Select an object and then by right clicking a different menu is availiable. The options are related to the selected object that gives us the ability to make alterations. We can move, rotate, erase it, etc.

• Hold left click + drag the mouse to the right: Every object that is inside this window is selected. It has to be noted that the whole object must be included in the window.

Window

• Hold left click + drag the mouse to the left: Creates a crossing window. Every object that it is crossed by this window is selected even if the whole object is not included.

Crossing Window

Hello everyone, my name is Constantinos and I am a Civil Engineer. I love design, so I have decided to create this blog in order to share my passion & knowledge. This is my 1st post and I hope that you will enjoy and learn staff about design. If you have any comments, suggestions or anything else do not hesitate to contact me. So, with no further delay I welcome you to the amazing design world.