Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
3.
Click the upper-right grip, and drag it to the location shown in the top image in
Figure 15.8.
4.
Press the Esc key, and erase the lower-right viewport by selecting it and clicking Erase on
the Tool Sets palette or by pressing the Delete key.
5.
Move the lower-left viewport so it's centered in the bottom half of the window, as shown
in the bottom image in Figure 15.8.
In this exercise, you clicked the viewport edge to select it for editing. If, while in Paper Space,
you attempt to click the image in the viewport, you won't select anything. Later, you'll see that
you can use the osnap modes to snap to parts of the drawing image in a viewport.
Because viewports are recognized as AutoCAD objects, you can manipulate them by using
all the editing commands, just as you would manipulate any other object. In the previous exer-
cise, you moved, stretched, and erased viewports.
Next, you'll see how layers affect viewports:
1.
Create a new layer called Vport.
2.
In the Properties Inspector palette, change the viewport borders to the Vport layer.
3.
Turn off the Vport layer. The viewport borders disappear.
4.
After reviewing the results of step 3, turn the Vport layer back on.
You can assign a layer, a color, a linetype, and even a line weight to a viewport's border. If
you put the viewport's border on a layer that has been turned off or frozen, that border becomes
invisible, just like any other object on such a layer. Or you can put the viewport border on a non-
printing layer so the border will be visible while you're editing. Making the borders invisible or
putting them on a nonprinting layer is helpful when you want to compose a final sheet for print-
ing. Even when turned off, the active viewport has a heavy border around it when you switch to
Model Space, and all the viewports still display their views.
Scaling Views in Paper Space
Paper Space has its own unit of measure. You've already seen how you're required to specify a
paper size when opening a layout view to a Paper Space view. When you first enter Paper Space,
regardless of the area your drawing occupies in Model Space, you're given limits that are set by
the paper size you specify in the Page Setup dialog box. If you keep in mind that Paper Space is
like a paste-up area that is dependent on the printer you configured for AutoCAD, this differ-
ence of scale becomes easier to comprehend. Just as you might paste up photographs and maps
representing several square miles onto an 11˝-
×
-17˝ board, so can you use Paper Space to paste up
views of scale drawings representing city blocks or houses on an 8½˝-
×
- 11˝ sheet of paper. But in
AutoCAD, you have the freedom to change the scale and size of the objects you're pasting up.
While in Paper Space, you can edit objects in Model Space through a viewport. You can then
click a viewport and edit in that viewport. In this mode, objects that were created in Paper Space
can't be edited. Double-click outside a viewport to go back to the Paper Space.
If you want to be able to print your drawing at a specific scale, you must indicate a scale for
each viewport. Viewport scales are set in a way similar to the annotation scale in the model lay-
out. Let's look at how to put together a layout in Paper Space and still maintain accuracy of scale:
