Autocad 3D - Complete tutorial for beginners

hello people welcome to this tutorial about autocad 3d modeling for beginners as this is a 45 minute video i divide this in several chapters to be easier for you to learn you can check out the description to easily access the parts that you want to learn part one here we will talk about different workspaces visual styles ucs coordinates work with viewports in model space and basic techniques for drawing in a 3d perspective let's start when you install autocad it has by default three workspaces the difference between them are the tabs and the icons that appear on the ribbon to switch between them i need to click on this wheel that says workspace switch the first one drafting and annotation is the current one and used to draw in 2d then there are two workspaces for 3d drawing i'm going to click on 3d modeling and as you see the ribbon has changed completely there are lots of icons here alternatively i can choose 3d basics this one is a bit more simple there are less icons on the panels and their placement is slightly different however i recommend you to use 3d modeling because if one day you feel that the 3d basics gets limited for you there is no need to learn a new ribbon again now imagine i have this rectangle and i want to make a solid from it adding a dimension on the z-axis i'm going to hold the mouse wheel and at the same time hold the shift button i can change the view to a 3d perspective then i personally prefer to use the green mode i can switch it on here this helps me to understand the position of the x y plane and don't forget to look to the directions indicated by the ucs coordinates now i am going to show you how to convert this rectangle to a solid i click on the icon press pull it's this one here the first thing i have to select a closed boundary for example if i place the pointer inside this rectangle it becomes highlighted i click with the left button then i can extrude this object up or down if i want it up i go on this direction and type the height for example 300. let's continue in the workspace you can find these controls here if i click on that one at the right i can change the visual style the first one is 2d wireframe this is the standard view for 2d and it can get very confusing when we draw complex solids as there is no perspective the style conceptual has this appearance the edges are emphasized but it gives us a good perception of the solid x-ray uses transparency on the surfaces then you can explore the other styles to understand which one you prefer at the ribbon there is also a tab here on the view panel to select the same view styles here you can understand better from the image viewpoints ucs and viewcube in this section i will talk about changing the viewpoints and drawing on the face of a solid so one essential tool you must have on the screen all the time is the ucs icon it indicates the direction of the coordinates and the current x y plane which is where the grid is located i am going to draw lines in an empty space by default they are going to be located on the x y plane if i rotate the workspace you can notice it better however the line could also be on the z axis if i follow the polar tracking like here or if i snap to a point which is not on that plane now let's talk about the coordinate system the ucs here is in the original position when i created this file and this means it is at the word coordinate system wcs and this tab on the coordinates panel is set on word let's move now the ucs to another position for example here now the tab stays unnamed and the cartesian point 0 0 0 change it to this place to restore the original ucs position click on the tab and select word again did you notice it moved back to where it was before now i am going to click on this control to select different viewpoints i choose for example southwest isometric the workspace rotates together with the ucs to the isometric position indicated by the viewcube if you don't know in geometry an isometric projection is a view when the x y and z axis have an angle of 120 degrees between them on this menu again apart from the isometric fuse there are six standard orthographic views top button left right front and back they are indicated by the view cube i'm going to show you briefly how this works if i click on left the workspace shows the left plane instead if i click on right it's the plane on the hidden face the workspace rotates in the counter direction the other hand for the osographic views the ucs is readjusted to have the standard x y axis and in the tab named ucs comma control shows right let's move the workspace using the mouse wheel and shift button and you can notice that ucs is in a different position as it was before to use the wcs a change here to world now it's on the original position in this example i'm going to show you how to draw objects on the face of a solid and this is the example i will perform i'm going to move the ucs coordinates to this corner placing it on this end point then the face where i want to draw things has to be on the x y plane for that i can click on the y axis and rotate it to a vertical position i click in this endpoint as i want the axis in this direction now you can see here the x y plane then i have to draw a line at the distance f 150 from the end point move the pointer there move to the right type that value and press enter then draw vertical line here with length 100. finally i can easily draw the square from this endpoint it has a side measure of 100 and at the end i can erase the support line important tip for drawing on faces now we are at the word view style i am going to draw a circle here and you can see this face turning blue if i draw at this moment the circle is going to be on the face and you can also see that the ucs rearrange it automatically in fact this happened because i have the dynamic ucs turned on that icon if it's not on the status bar you can find it here in this list i can add and remove icons from the bar by ticking them however it doesn't mean these features are switched on or off that's important to have in mind i click on the dynamic ucs and it's going to appear here and it switched on now i'm going to click to deactivate it then i try to draw on the face and as you see it's not becoming highlighted anymore the ucs is not changing and the objects i draw go to the x y plane so turn on or off the dynamic ucs according to your needs i will introduce you to viewports on the modal space there are two ways to add them i can go to the visualize tab on the ribbon then on this panel click on viewport configuration as you see there are several options for viewport displaying i want to choose this one three left another way i can click here on viewport controls then go to viewport configuration list and here you have the options so at this moment what i have here is a kind of three different workspaces and in each of them i can activate different features in a way that it helps me during the work this is very common for making 3d projects especially if you are using a big screen on your pc switch from different workspaces the current workspace is highlighted i can zoom in or switch off a few icons at the status bar and you can notice that the other workspaces don't change now i'm going to click on this part this is the current viewport now and this time i can click in the controls to change the viewpoint or the visual style for example the viewports can also be resizable although you must keep in mind that they fill the entire workspace look at this situation i click on the remaining viewport i zoom in and imagine i want to change the ucs coordinates here i want to select it but i can't because it's behind the command bar in this case i can move its position or resize it example of using viewports in the workspace the window on the left is my main one so i want to have a 3d viewpoint there the other two i can set up orthographic perspectives for example top and left i click on the viewports there then go to this control and change it to top by the way on the viewport below i choose left let's draw a line on this face of the solid oh it's better to turn on the dynamic ucs then once highlighted the plane i draw i can draw lines and you can see them appearing on the window at the corner so you can try a few ways to decide which one you prefer part 2 here we will learn how to use solid primitives boolean operations as union subtract and intersect and commands to add a third dimension to objects let's start let's draw basic 3d objects i am going to use viewports in the model space i choose this option for right in the main one i will be drawing the objects with 3d perspective the small windows will be orthographic views top left and right now i am going to introduce the solid primitives these are basic 3d objects and they are located here in the home tab despite they might not be very useful themselves alone as most of our drawings won't be exactly those solids i am going to draw some of them it's very simple i start with the box i click on the icon choose a start point then i have to define the width at the length of the rectangle for example i type 100 for this dimension then i insert the value for the other again 100 so it's going to be a square finally i need the height i am going to type 120 now pay attention how the solid is projected on your geographic viewports this time i'm going to draw a cylinder the first part i draw it as a circle then i insert the height of the cylinder the cone is the same process then i need the height but this time i'm going down with the pointer and you can notice that the solid will be inverted i type the value for the height and press enter now i encourage you to look at the projection in this viewport it seems strange however if i rotate the main viewport to the left side you can understand this the remaining solid primitives you can explore by yourself for now let's continue to the next topic extrude and principal objects basically these two commands allow us to add a third dimension to 2d objects with extrude we can convert objects either to a surface or to a solid that depends of its nature if we extrude lines open polylines or splines we add a dimension on the z-axis converting them to a surface as you can see by the way if we do the same process to a close boundary object like the examples i show you here i activate extrude and by adding a z dimension they are automatically converted to a solid ah and there is also an option to extrude only the boundary here i type ext to activate extrude again and before selecting anything it says here select objects to extrude or mode i type mo to choose mode and the prompt asks me if i want to convert a course profile in a surface or a solid i choose surface type the shortcut su press enter then i select the objects add the height and i can realize they convert to surfaces i'm going to rotate the workspace so you can see this better you see it's a surface if you don't like this visual style because of the grids i can change it to this one command press pull this tool has a similar use but there are few differences with extrude first it only works for close boundaries i'm going to activate the command and then instead of clicking on the objects i must click inside the area when it's highlighted second example in this situation there are two intersected rectangles if i use press pull here i can extrude the clause boundary where my pointer is then i can do the same at this side look how beautiful it is using the command extrude here i convert to a solid the wall polyline that i select if i have an object in script inside another sometimes i have to wait a bit to highlight both objects now click if i want to extrude just this area 3d polyline a 3d polyline can change the z component for example i'm going to draw a normal 2d polyline as you see i'm drawing it in the x y plane and i can't see any polar tracking on the z axis now i will try the same with the 3d polyline it's this icon here i'm making few segments and if i try to move it vertically it recognizes the set axis i click here and then just draw a couple of segments more if i rotate the workspace i can see this segment on the z-axis another characteristic of 3d polylines is that i can only draw straight line segments and like the function to draw an arc in a 2d polyline union this operation is quite easy to understand basically it consists emerging intersect solids in a single one for example here i have a box and i'm going to make a cylinder intersecting it on this face i find the midpoint of this edge to place the center of the circle then the cylinder height is going to be coincident with the top edge now i click on the icon union on the solid editing tab then i just select both objects and press enter as you see this is now a unique solid this works not only for two solids but also for several of them like in this example i select all and press enter here you can see the result subtract in this operation basically we remove part of a solid using another let's activate the command subtract if we wait a few seconds a label appears with instructions how to use the command i find it quite clear first i select the object that i want to keep press enter then i click on the solid i want to subtract the box here will disappear completely along with the intersected part between both objects this tool can still be used for more than two solids here i want to subtract these two boxes i reactivate the command select the wedge press enter then i select the boxes for this case i want to have an empty space where the boxes are here i recommend to use union first for the wedges then with subtract i select first a big solid press enter then select the small ones and be sure you click when they are highlighted intersect with this boolean operation we just skip the intersect part of two objects let's try it for this example i click on the icon intersect select both solids and press enter as you can see everything here was erased except the intersect section i can also use this tool when the surface intersects a solid like here now i can apply intersect here and check out the result okay the original line is still here 2d objects don't work in intersect important considerations the boolean operations union and subtract are uneffective for solids if i want to merge solids with 2d objects like a line it will not work the same if i try to merge a solid and a surface on the other hand the operation intersect i can use the solid and the surface as i explained before before proceeding to teach you the next commands look to the workspace you can see that i have changed the grid colors i did it in order to be easier to see of course as i have a yellow grid now i will avoid to draw objects in the same color to not be confusing let's open the options window type options and press enter here go to the drafting tab and click on colors in this new window you can change the colors of several drafting tools including grid major and minor lines have in mind that the major lines should be lighter than the minor lines now let's continue with more commands to draw solids from 2d objects loft with loft we can create a solid from cross sections the simplest way to use loft is having two surfaces let's look at this example i'm going to draw a circle here then from the center i draw a line on the direction of the z-axis then from the top end point i draw a circle on the x y plane now i am going to activate the command loft if you don't find there click in this arrow and should be one of this list i select both surfaces press enter then choose select cross sections and this is the result for the second example i'm going to draw another circle from the line midpoint i activate loft again select the three surfaces and press enter the order of selection also determines how the solid is drawn for the third example let's do it differently i select the circle at the bottom then the top and finally the middle one of course you have to imagine what you want to draw if you try to draw a solid that is not physically possible the program will adjust it for you and the result may not be as you expected select a point apart from selecting surfaces we can still select points for example here we choose the circles then we want to love to this point if we look to the command bar the prompt says select cross sections in lofting order or these options i click on point or type po finally i can click on the point and select cross sections another way to use loft is through a path this time i draw a rectangle on the x y axis next i want to snap to the geometric center i click on the arrow next to the object snap and check if that mode is on now i'm going to click on the ucs and change it to the center of the rectangle by hovering the polyline i can see it appearing i place the ucs there then i rotate the ucs axis in order to have the plane x y perpendicular with the rectangle in this way for example my next step is drawing a spline from the center of the rectangle when i finish i press enter to place the object now i return the ucs to the word position then i draw a circle on the endpoint of the spline so i'm going to use loft again select the rectangle in the circle press enter now in this list i click on path and finally select the spline we reached the end of the part 2 of this tutorial part 3 in this part we will be exploring the commands revolve slice solid edit and some commands from the modify panel let's go through it revolve with this tool it's possible to create a 3d object by extruding to the objects around an axis as it happens to the command extrude if we select open objects like a line or a closed polyline we obtain a surface on the other hand if we revolve close objects the result is a solid i am going to show you how this command works it looks like a bit tricky on the beginning first we have to find it on the same place where extrude and loft are located select the object to revolve press enter then we have to define an axis where the polyline can rotate it's going to be this line i click on both endpoints now i can rotate around the line as you can see also notice that ucs adjusted its position to the rotation point here finally to create the solid i can set up the angle or i click on the place that i want okay let's check out a few examples if i tap the angle 0 degrees or 360 degrees it creates a wheel shape so the command revolve can be useful to create these kinds of objects especially those ones used on mechanical drawing it's also possible to change the direction of the rotation we can click on reverse on the command bar or type r however at the moment of selecting the rotation axis if i click on the points in an inverse order the rotation angle is automatically on the other side be careful with the axis of rotation the rotation axis that we select needs to permit the object to rotate for example if we select this line as our axis the object cannot rotate around there start angle let's suppose for for the same object we don't want to start extruding here but on that line i click on start angle then i click on a point on this line and finally revolve the object to the second line for example slice the command slice allows us to cut objects in two parts it's like a knife however if you try to use the command for the first time it's possible that you don't get the point immediately but i'm going to explain the things clearly the way slice works is we draw a line on the x y plane and it generates the cutting plane along the z axis i click on the icon select the object to slice this one press enter now i draw the line between these intersections then i have to select the side of the celly that i want to keep if i click here the part to the right of the cutting line disappears so if instead i would click on the other side that is what happens let's draw a line in a different direction but this time i select both solids i draw the line and click on this side keep both sides sometimes we just want to divide the object in two without erasing any side that's simple do the whole process identically but this time i don't click on the side i select this option keep both sides the two solids were divided into two others using slice in a standard orthographic view i mean a 2d perspective is way easier i move to this viewport which is on the top view i activate slice select both objects then when i draw a line i realize it's easier to understand the cutting plane i'm going to make it diagonal to use a cutting plane that is not on the direction of the z-axis and the word ucs i need to rotate the ucs icon here i just go to this viewport where i am at the right view turn on slice select the objects and draw the cutting line here i select this side and here it is oh the solid above remained untouched that was because i didn't cross it with the cutting line one last thing just say that for the cutting line doesn't matter its length even if i draw it until here it applies to all the objects solid edit as well as p edit this is a complex command that allows me to edit parts of a solid such as edges faces or the body in the ribbon you can find the solid edit options in several icons in this tutorial i am going to explain to you some of them extracting edges in a solid object it's possible to extract the edges easily click on the icon select the object press enter and the action is completed if i click on this edge the selection cycling window opens as you see i can select the 3d solid or a line i am going to move the solid to the right look the extracted edges there in print if i draw objects on the face of a solid for example these circles i can use imprint to merge them with the solid i go to this arrow and click on the icon then select the solid press enter select the circle to imprint now if i decide i want to erase the original circle i click on yes after i can select the other circle and do the same what happened is that the circles are now edges of the solid and i can perform operations like press pull here extrude faces this is another solid editing option we can extrude a face of a solid i am going to click on the icon select the face on this object and press enter then i can either insert the extrusion height or define it by drawing a line i click on a point on the face i move up and insert 50. for the angle of taper for extrusion i type 0. here you have the result select 2 faces we can select more than one face at the same time with these two i press enter then i can type the extrusion height 50. press enter again angle of taper after selecting the height of extrusion the prompt asks select angle of taper i am going to type 10 and you will see the result all the edges rotated to 10 degrees inside and it creates this kind of roof let's type 30 for the angle look of course have in mind that i cannot intersect the faces here because the distance on this side is higher than in the section where the roof intersects taper faces this tool allows me to change the face of a solid in a slope i click on this arrow and then on taper faces select the face that i want then i have to specify an axis of tapering i draw a line here and the first point is where the face rotates around i'm going to rotate 30 degrees in this side now let's repeat this process this time invert the order of selecting points by typing a negative value makes the slope outside of the solid in this way separate with this tool we can separate a solid that has non-continuous sections in this example we have two solids but i have in mind that we can use union to merge them even if they don't intersect physically now i have a unique 3d solid so with the option separate it's this icon click there then i select the solid and it separates the non-continuous volumes i can press escape here or click on exit then exit again let's now talk about some commands on the section modify rotation 3d this tool allows us to rotate the solid around a specific axis i am going to show you click on the command located in the modify tab select this solid and the gizmo appears on its center i can click on the axis that i want to rotate around for example the y-axis this one if i rotate the pointer to this side i am at the start position it stays here 0 degrees then as you can see i rotate around the center of the solid by clicking at this moment i place the solid at this current position or i can specify a rotation angle i type for example 90 degrees to rotate around the x-axis choose the red circle this time the start position is here then i move the pointer and you can see how the rotation looks like now specify a base point instead of choosing a rotation axis on the gizmo i can specify a new position for the rotation point as it's written in the prompt i can type the coordinates for the base point or choose it with the mouse i click on this endpoint and the gizmo moved there then i need to specify the angle for the start point i click across the track line to start the rotation here now we have the solid on the strange position let's rotate it to where it was before activate 3d rotate again select the solid specify the base point on the corner again the rotation axis is the green one for the angle start point click on this edge it can be the other corner finally find the track line for the x axis and click there 3d move to understand the command 3d move let's remember first how the command move the normal move works in a 3d perspective after specifying the base point we can move the object around the x y plane when we click on 3d move we select the object and then the gizmo appears there basically here we select the plane where we want the solid to move around if i click on this one it's the xz plane the y coordinate doesn't change look at the left viewport here to understand how this wedge moves 3d mirror to use the command 3d mirror instead of drawing a mirror line we need a mirror plane let's have this example that we want to draw a symmetric white stair unlike normal mirror we should draw here an auxiliary line hove this end point move left along the x axis then type 30 to place the first point the line we will place it along the y-axis then we activate 3d mirror select the object press enter then we need three points to define the plane click on two points of the line and the third point is going to be along the z-axis second example i want to mirror the white stair that means our mirror plane will be when the z-coordinate is zero select the object press enter for the plane click on three points on the x y plane for example these two and the third can be along this axis so here you have the result it's very simple so it's everything on this tutorial thank you very much for watching and subscribe to the channel if you haven't done it yet still if you need online private lessons send me an email to the address that is showing there see you next time you

Channel: CAD in black

Views: 45,244

Rating: 4.9458647 out of 5

Keywords: autocad 3D, 3D modelling, tutorial for beginners, cad in black

Id: y41ZgOdExOo

Length: 45min 35sec (2735 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020