Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
You'll be drawing a bathroom that is roughly 8´
×
5´ (230 cm
×
150 cm for metric users). You'll
want to give yourself some extra room around the bathroom, so your drawing limits should be
a bit larger than that actual bathroom size. You'll use an area of 11´
×
8´-6˝ for the limits of your
drawing. Metric users will use an area 297 cm
×
210 cm. These sizes will accommodate your
bathroom with some room to spare.
Now that you know the area you need, you can use the Limits command to set up the area:
1.
Choose Format
Drawing Limits or type
Limits
↵.
2.
At the Specify lower left corner or [ON/OFF] <0´-0˝,0´-0˝>: prompt, specify the
lower-left corner of your work area. Press ↵ to accept the default.
3.
At the Specify upper right corner <1´-0˝,0´-9˝>: prompt, specify the upper-right
corner of your work area. (The default is shown in brackets.) Enter
132,102
. Or if you
prefer, you can enter
11´, 8´6
because you've set up your drawing for architectural units.
Metric users should enter
2 9 7, 2 10
.
4.
Choose View
Zoom
All from the menu bar, or type
Z
↵
A
↵. Although it appears that
nothing has changed, your drawing area is now set to a size that will enable you to draw
your bathroom at full scale.
5.
To check the area, turn on the Dynamic Input display in the status bar, and then choose
Tools
Inquire
ID Point.
6.
Move the cursor to the upper-right corner of the drawing area and watch the coordi-
nate readout at the cursor. Notice that now the upper-right corner has a Y coordinate of
approximately 8´-6˝, or 210 for metric users. The X coordinate depends on the proportion
of your drawing window. The coordinate readout also displays distances in feet and
inches.
7.
Click a point to finish the ID command and turn off the Dynamic Input display.
8.
Press F-Z or click the Grid Display tool in the status bar to turn off the grid.
In step 6, the coordinate readout shows you that your drawing area is larger than before. The
background grid can help you visualize the area you're working with. You can control the grid
using the Grid Display tool in the status bar. Grid Display shows a background grid that helps
you visualize distances and can also show you the limits of your drawing. It can also be a bit
distracting for a new user, so I've asked you to turn it off for now.
Looking at an Alternative to Limits
As an alternative to setting up the drawing limits, you can draw a rectangle that outlines the
same area used to define the drawing limits. For example, in the previous exercise, you could
use the Rectangle tool to draw a rectangle that has its lower-left corner at coordinate 0,0 and its
upper-right corner at 132,102 (297,210 for metric users). You can set up the rectangle to be visible
without printing using the Layer feature. You'll learn more about layers in Chapter 5, “Keeping
Track of Layers and Blocks.”
