COMPUTER AIDED DRAFTING

Introduction: The engineering drawing is a link between design and manufacturing. An

engineering drawing may be prepared using means other than the conventional tools. An
alternative is to prepare the drawing with the aid of a computer. This method is known as
Computer aided Drafting (CAD)
Thus, the Computer Aided drafting (CAD) system is the computerization of technical,
production, electronics and architectural drawing. CAD system uses the computer to assist in
generation of Blue Print Data.

Advantages of CAD: There are several potential advantages that a computer can offer to the
designer or drafter. Some of these are: Easier creation and correction of working drawings
Easier visualization of drawings
Drawings can be stored and easily referenced for modification
Quick and Convenient solution of computational design analysis problems
Simulation and testing of designs
Increased accuracy

CAD Software
The CAD system creates an environment to prepare drawing interactively. Most CAD systems
available commercially are menu driven. Commands can either be typed directly with the help of
a keyboard or can be picked-up from the screen menu with the help of a mouse or can be
selected from menu bar.

Major Functions: Basic set-up of a drawing

Drawing the objects
Creating symbol libraries for frequently used objects
Clipping the objects
Changing the object properties
Translating the object
Scaling the objects
Text insertion
Dimensioning

AutoCAD
AutoCAD (a product and registered trademark of Autodesk Inc., USA) is a low cost yet very
effective Computer Aided Design and drafting software.First released in December 1982,
AutoCAD was one of the first CAD programs to run on personal computers. AutoCAD is
accepted as the industry standard and it is preferred by a large community of CAD users in the
world. AutoCAD supports 2D drafting and 3D modeling.
Before any drawing is started, the AutoCAD environment must be prepared for proper units of
measurement, line type, and drawing size, layer etc. In AutoCAD the drawing are always
prepared at full scale and the drawing size can be changed at any instant of time by using
LIMITS command.

COMMANDS
DRAWING ENTITIES

LIMITS: It is used to bound a region for drawing. We can fix the lower limit as well
as upper limit.

LINE: It is used to draw a line. A line is specified by giving its two end points.

CIRCLE: There are many ways of drawing a circle, the default being the centre
point of circle and radius. The options available are:
(a) Center point and Radius.
(b) Center point and Diameter
(c) 3P (3 points on circumference)
(d) 2P (end points of diameter)
(e) TTR (tangent tangent radius)
(f) TTT (tangent tangent tangent)

PLINE: Polyline can include both lines and arcs connected at end points. Thus, a
polyline is a single entity with multiple segments.

POLYGON: A polygon is also a polyline with equal length of sides. The regular
polygon can either inscribed in a circle or circumscribed about the circle.

RECTANGLE: It is used to draw a rectangle. We have to specify lower left point

and upper right point.

ELLIPSE: An ellipse can be constructed by specifying the center point, major and
minor axis.

DRAFTING AIDS
LAYER: A layer can be thought of a transparent sheet on which drawings can be
prepared. If the drawing becomes two dense or complicated, some layers can be
turned off so that they do not interfere with the work.

OSNAP: A very useful drawing aid, the OSNAP identifies the points on drawing
entities that are visible on the screen.

MODIFY COMMANDS

MOVE:-Moves selected objects to another location.

ROTATE: Rotates selected objects through a specified angle about a base point.

COPY:-Creates one or more copies of selected objects at another location.

MIRROR: Creates a mirror image of the selected about a specified line.

ARRAY: This command creates multiple copies of selected objects in rectangular or

polar form.

ERASE: This command deletes the selected entities. A record of entities erased is
always maintained.

FILLET: This command is used to create a round corner between two lines.

CHAMFER: This command works on two lines to create a bevelled edge.

EXTEND: This command extends the lines, polyline and arcs to a boundary edge.

OFFSET: It is useful for creating a parallel copy of a drawing entity which can be a
line, circle or polyline.

TRIM: This command makes use of boundary entities which become a cutting edge.

EXPLODE: It is used to break a polyline into its individual segments.

EXTRUDE: It is used to convert a 2D object into a 3D object.

BOUNDARY: It is used to convert multiple objects into a single object.

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