Creating 3D Drawings

Viewing an object in three dimensions gives you a sense of its true shape and form. It also helps you conceptualize your design, which results in better design decisions. In addition, using threedimensional objects helps you communicate your ideas to those who may not be familiar with the plans, sections, and side views of your design. A further advantage to drawing in three dimensions is that you can derive 2D drawings from your 3D models, which may take considerably more time with standard 2D drawing methods. For example, you can model a mechanical part in 3D and then quickly derive its 2D top, front, and right-side views by using the techniques discussed in this chapter. In this chapter, youll learn to do the following: Know the u 3D modeling workspace u Draw in 3D using solids u Create 3D forms from 2D shapes u Isolate coordinates with point filters u Move around your model u Get a visual effect u Turn a 3D view into a 2D AutoCAD drawing u Import point cloud data

Getting to Know the 3D Modeling Workspace

Most of this book is devoted to showing you how to work in the 2D Drafting & Annotation workspace. This workspace is basically a 2D drawing environment, although you can certainly work in 3D as well. AutoCAD offers something called the 3D Modeling workspace, which gives you a set of tools to help ease your way into 3D modeling. This 3D Modeling workspace gives AutoCAD a different set of Ribbon panels, but dont worry. AutoCAD behaves in the same basic way, and the AutoCAD files produced are the same regardless of whether theyre 2D or 3D drawings. To get to the 3D Modeling workspace, you need to click the Workspace tool in the Quick Access toolbar and then select 3D Modeling (see Figure 21.1). To the far right is the AutoCAD Materials Browser. It shows a graphical list of surface materials that you can easily assign to 3D objects in your model. You ll learn more about materials in Chapter 23. The Ribbon along the top of the AutoCAD window offers all the tools youll need to create 3D models. The 3D Modeling workspace Ribbon offers a few of the tabs and panels you re already familiar with, but many of the tabs will be new to you (see Figure 21.3). You see the familiar Draw and Modify panels in the Home tab, but there are several other panels devoted to 3D modeling: Modeling, Mesh, Solid Editing, View, and Subobject. In addition, other Ribbon tabs offer more sets of tools designed for 3D modeling. For example, the Render tab contains tools that control the way the model looks. You can set up lighting and shadows and apply materials to objects such as brick or glass. You can also control the way AutoCAD displays the model through the Visual Styles, Edge Effects, Lights, Sun & Location, and Materials panels. In the next section, youll gain firsthand experience creating and editing some 3D shapes using the Home tabs Modeling and View panels and the View tabs Visual Styles panel. This way, youll get a feel for how things work in the 3D Modeling workspace.

Drawing in 3D Using Solids

You can work with two types of 3D objects in AutoCAD: solids and surfaces. You can treat solid objects as if theyre solid material. For example, you can create a box and then remove shapes from the box as if youre carving it, as shown in Figure 21.4. With surfaces, you create complex surface shapes by building on lines, arcs, or polylines. For example, you can quickly turn a series of curved polylines, arcs, or lines into a warped surface, as shown in Figure 21.5. Next, youll learn how to create a solid box and then make simple changes to it as an introduction to 3D modeling. you see your model in different styles from sketchlike to realistic. You ll learn more about Visual

Styles in Getting a Visual Effect later in this chapter, but for now, youll get a brief introduction by changing the style for the exercises that follow: 1. In the Home tabs View panel, click the Visual Styles drop-down list to view the options. 2. Select the Shades Of Gray option. This will give the solid objects in your model a uniform gray color and will also highlight the edges of the solids with a dark line so you can see them clearly.

Creating a 3D Box
Start by creating a box using the Box tool in the Home tabs Modeling panel: 1. Close the Materials Browser by clicking on the X in the upper-right corner of its title bar. You wont need it for this chapter. If you feel you need to have it back later, you can go to the Materials panel in the Render tab and click the Materials Browser tool. 2. Click the Box tool from the Solids flyout on the Home tabs Modeling panel.
Solids flyout

3. Click a point near the origin of the drawing shown in Figure 21.6. You can use the
coordinate readout to select a point near 0,0. Once you click, you see a rectangle follow the cursor. 4. Click another point near coordinate 20,15, as shown in Figure 21.6. As you move the cursor, the rectangle is fixed and the height of the 3D box appears. 5. Enter 4for a height of 4 units for the box. You can also click to fix the height of the box. select the center, then the radius, and finally the height. For a wedge, you select two corners as you did with the box, and then you select the height. Youll learn more about these 3D solid primitives in Chapter 24.

Editing 3D Solids with Grips

Once youve created a solid, you can fine-tune its shape by using grips: 1. Adjust your view so it looks similar to Figure 21.7, and then click the solid to select it. Grips appear on the 3D solid, as shown in the figure. You can adjust the location of the square grips at the base of the solid in a way that is similar to adjusting the grips on 2D objects. The arrow grips let you adjust the length of the site to which the arrows are attached. If you click an arrow grip and you have Dynamic Input turned on, a dimension appears at the cursor, as shown in Figure 21.7. You can enter a new dimension for the length associated with the selected grip, or you can drag and click the arrow to adjust the length. Remember that you can press the Tab key to shift between dimensions shown in the Dynamic Input display.

Figure 21.7
Grips appear on 3D solid.
Click this arrow grip to adjust the length of the box. Ctrl-click the top edge to displayRotating

Objects in 3D Using Dynamic UCS

Typically, you work in what is known as the World Coordinate System (WCS). This is the default coordinate system that AutoCAD uses in new drawings, but you can also create your own coordinate systems that are subsets of the WCS. A coordinate system that you create is known as a User Coordinate System (UCS). UCSs are significant in 3D modeling because they can help you orient your work in 3D space. For example, you could set up a UCS on a vertical face of the 3D box you created earlier. You could then draw on that vertical face just as you would on the drawing s WCS. Figure 21.9 shows a cylinder drawn on the side of a box. If you click on the Cylinder tool, for example, and place the cursor on the side of the box, the side will be highlighted to indicate the surface to which the cylinder will be applied. In addition, if you could see the cursor in color, you would see that the blue Z axis is pointing sideways to the left and is perpendicular to the side of the box. The UCS has always been an important tool for 3D modeling in AutoCAD. The example just described demonstrates the Dynamic UCS, which automatically changes the orientation of the X, Y, and Z axes to conform to the flat surface of a 3D object. You may have noticed that when you created the new 3D file using the acad3D.dwt template, the cursor looked different. Instead of the usual cross, you saw three intersecting lines. If you look carefully, youll see that each line of the cursor is a different color. In its

default configuration, AutoCAD shows a red line for the X axis, a green line for the Y axis, and a blue line for the Z axis. This mimics the color scheme of the UCS icon, as shown in Figure 21.10.

when you point at a surface on a 3D object. The following exercise shows you how to use the Dynamic UCS to help you rotate the box about the X axis: 1. Be sure the Object Snap and Allow/Disallow Dynamic UCS features are turned on.
Allow/Disallow Dynamic UCS Object Snap

2. Click Rotate from the Home tabs Modify panel or enter Ro.3. At the Select objects: prompt, click
the box, and then press to finish your selection. 4. At the Specify base point: prompt, dont click anything, but move the cursor from one surface of the box to a side of the box. As you do this, notice that the surface you point to becomes highlighted. The orientation of the cursor also changes depending on which surface youre pointing to. 5. Place the cursor on the left side, as shown in the top image of Figure 21.11; then Shift+right-click your mouse and select Endpoint from the Osnap shortcut menu. 6. While keeping the side highlighted, place the Osnap marker on the lower-front corner of the box, as shown in the top image in Figure 21.11. Click this corner. As you move the cursor, the box rotates about the Y axis. 7. Enter 30 for the rotation angle. Your box should look like the image at the bottom in Figure 21.11. Here you saw that you can hover over a surface to indicate the plane about which the rotation is to occur. Now, suppose you want to add an object to one of the sides of the rotated box. The next section will show you another essential tool, one you can use to do just that