straight down at it-to one in which you're looking down at it from an angle.

There
are several preselected viewpoints,and here you'll switch to one of them.9.In the
view panel under the home tab,expand the 3D navigation drop-downlist and choose
southwest Isometric, as shown in figure 16.6. The name of the view may be
clipped by the border of the drop-down list.figuRE 16.6 select the soutwest
Isometric view from 3D nagivation drop-down list.The view changes to look like
figure 16.7.notice how the UCS icon has altered with the change of view.The x and y
arrows still run paral-lel to the side and front of the cabin,but the icon and the
floor plan are now at an angle to the screen, and the z-axis is visible.The
crosshair cursor is now colored and also displays the z-axis.10.Save your drawing
as 16A-
3DMOD1.dwg Creating 3D geomentry 838 fiGuRE 16.7 The walls as displayed from the
Southwest Isometric view Setting the Visual Style Just
as you were able to fine-tune and customize your 2D workspace as you worked your
way through the earlier chapters, you can do the same with the 3D workspace.Make
a few changes now by changing the Visual Style setting, which defines the way the
objects are displayed in the drawing area:1.Expand the Tool p alettes, and then
click
the X in the up per-right corner to tur n them off for now.You won't use the
palettes much in the next few pages,and when you need them, you can easily open
them again.
2.In the drawing area, zoom to extents, zoom out a little, and pan down to create
some space above the floor plan for the 3D walls.NOTE a common convention in 3D
graphics is to color vectors or other axes to indicate elements, so that red
indicates the x-axis, green indi- cates the y-axis, and blue indicates the z-
axis.The phrase used to
remember this scheme is "RGB=XYZ." You'll see this convention used several times
in this and the next chapter.3.Open the Visual Styles drop-down list on the View
panel, and select X-Ray, as shown in Figure 16.8.The drawing area takes on a dark
gray background and the UCS icon changes to a chunkier, three-color
appearance. Also note how the position of the ViewCube in the upper-right corner
reflects the Modeling in 3D 839 current orientation of your drawing (see Figure
16.9).The ViewCube is a navigation tool that I'll cover later in this
chapter.FiGuRE 16.8 Selecting the X-Ray visual style FiGuRE 16.9 The drawing using
the
X-Ray visual style Making the Walls O The main task ahead is to create a 3D model
of the cabin. You'll use solid elements for the cabin's walls, doors, windows,
floor, decks, and steps. You'll learn several ways of viewing your work as you
progress.To make the walls, you'll start with the polysolid object and then,like a
sculptor,
remove from the polysolid everything that isn't an interior or exterior wall. The
elements to be removed are the void spaces for the doors and windows. Follow these
steps:
1.Set the Endpoint osnap to be running. Create a new layer calledwhen you assign
colors for 3D lay-ers in the following pages, avoid using grays or other colors
that
are similar to the gray 3D back ground color.A WALL-EXTR-3DO, assign it color 22,
and make it curent. Chapter 16 Creating 3D Geomentry 840 2.Click
the Polysolid tool on the Modeling panel on the far left side of the Home
tab.AutoCAD may pause briefly as it loads the 3D specific applications. 3.At the
Command:_Polysolid 0'-4?, Width = 0'-0 1/4?,Justification = Center Specify start
point or [Object/ Height/Width/Justify] <Object>: prompt, enter H7'7-1/4?
( 2318 ) to set the object height to 7'-7� (2318 mm).This is the height where the
inside faces of the exterior walls meet the roof.The exterior walls are 6(150 mm)
thick, so the polysolid object should be 6 (150 mm) thick as well.4. Enter W and
then 6( 150) at the Specify width < 0 ' -0 � ? >: prompt.5.The Justification
option
determines the side of the polysolid for which you will pick the endpoints.You will
be picking the outside lines of the cabin in a counterclockwise order, so the
justification
must be set to Right.Enter JR.6.You're now ready to begin creating the walls. Use
the Endpoint osnap to select the corner for the exterior wall of the cabin nearest
to
the bottom of the screen, and then move the cursor.The first wall appears and it is
tied to the cursor, as shown in Figure 16.10.FIGURE 16.10 Starting the first
polysolid wall 7.Moving in the counterclockwise direction, click each of the
endpoints along the outside perimeter of the cabin until only one segment sepa-
rates the last
segment from the first.Your drawing should look like Figure 16.11. 8.Right-click
and choose Close from the context menu to close the polysolid.Modeling in 3D 841
FIGURE 16.11 The exterior walls drawn with polysolids Adding the interior Walls The
interior cabin walls are thinner than the exterior walls and will probably have
a different material assigned to them.You will make a new layer for these walls and
change the polysolid parameters.1.Create a new layer called A-WALL-INTR-
3DOB, assign it color 44, and make it the current layer.2.Click the upper corner of
the ViewCube to haochange your view to a North East orientation (see Figure
16.12),
and zoom into the lower-left corner of the cabin so that you can see the bathroom
walls.FIGURE 16.12 Using the Viewcube to change the view Orientation 3.Start the
POLYSOLID command again.Chapter 16 Creating 3D geometry 842_ 4.Press the down arrow
on the keyboard to expose the context menu at the cursor, and then
click the Width option, as shown in Figure 16.13.You can also star t the POLYSOLD
command by enter-ing PSOLID.FIGURE 16.13 Choosing the Width
option from the context menu Enter 4( 100 ) to change the width to 4(100 mm).
5.Starting with the interior endpoint of the inside wall nearest to the back door,
draw
the two walls that enclose the bathroom.Right-click and choose Enter to terminate
the command. If you have trouble clicking the correct endpoints,temporarily freeze
the
3D-Walls-Ext layer,create the new wall, and then thaw the layer. 6. Press the
spacebar to restart the command, and then draw the two walls that surround the
closet,
starting at the endpoint that is far-thest from the sliding glass door. Make sure
that it .is justified prop- erly, and then zoom to the drawing's extents. Your
drawing
should look similar to Figure 16.14.Creating the Door and Window Block-outs Before
you add the geometry for the doors and windows, you must make the open-ings
in the walls.You accomplish this using the Boolean tools; the features used to
create a single object from the volumes of two overlapping objects, called o
perands.There
are three Boolean functions: union, subtraction, and intersection. Union combines
the two volumes, subtraction deletes one object and the overlapping vol- ume shared

with the other,and intersection deletes both objects, leaving only the shared
volume behind. For the doors and windows, you will make block-outs;that is, you'll
make
solid boxes the size of the openings and then use the Subtract com- mand to create
the voids by removing the boxes as well as the volume they share with the walls.The
boxes
act as block-outs�volumes that are to be deleted�and their only function is to help
delete part of the polysolid wall.1.Make a new layer named A-DOOR-3DOB,
and set it as the current layer.Freeze the two A-WALL 3DOB layers,and thaw the A-
GLAZ layer.Modeling in 3D 843 Figure 16.14 The cabin with all the
walls drawn as polysolids NOTE See Figure 10.1 in Chapter 10, �Generating
Elevations,� for the window elevations above the floor.2. Click the upper corner
of the
ViewCube to change from the current northeast view to a southwest
orientation.3.zoom into the cabin so that you can see the back door and the kitchen
window.4.Click
the Box button in the Modeling panel of the Ribbon, or enter BOX at the command
prompt. If the Box tool is not shown, click the down arrow below the tool on the
far left
side of the panel and choose it from the fly-out menu.You will be making a block-
out that will act as the operand that is removed from the polysolid. NOTE Boxes,
as
well as cylinders, cones, and the other 3D objects on the fly-out are known as
primit ives,and they are often used as the building blocks of more complex
objects.Chapte r
16 Creating 3D Geomentry 844 5.The box object requires three items of information
to be constructed:two points that define the opposing corners of the object's
footprint
and a height value.At the prompts,click two opposite corners of the back door open-
ing, as shown in Figure 16.15.FIGURE 16.15 Defining the footprint of the back
door 6. At the Specify height or [2Point]: prompt, enter 7'6 ( 2286).The box
appears in place (see Figure 16.16). FIGURE 16.16 The first door operand created in
place _7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 to create the block-outs for two internal doors
and the sliding-glass door. When I instruct you to pick an object when working in
3D,
you need to click an edge of the object or a line that helps define the object.If
you try to select a surface, the selec- tion may not be recognized.8. When using
the B oolean
functions, it's best not to have a situation where the two operands have coplanar
faces. Select the box at the back door. The box's grips app ear all around the base
and a
single grip at the top. Dragging the triangular grips changes the lengths of the
sides of the box but doesn't change the angles between the sides. The square grips
move the
corners of the box or the box itself, and the single top grip changes the box's
height. 9.Click the triangular grip on the front of the box, and drag it forward to
pull the front
of the box out from the front of the cabin. It doesn't MODELING in 3D 845 have to
be a great distance, just enough so that the box and d the fro- zen polysolid don't
share the
same plane. 10. Drag the rear triangular grip backward, and position it off the
inside of the exterior wall. The base of the door should look similar to Figure
16.17.
FiGuRE 16.17 The base of the door after dragging the grips 11.Repeat the process
for the other three door block-outs so that each is thicker than its associated
opening.
Your screen should look similar to Figure 16.18. FiGuRE 16.18 All the thick door
block-outs in place chapte r 16 3D Geomentry 846 Creating the
Window Block-outs As you might expect, making the window block-outs will be just
like making the doorway openings. The only difference is that the bottoms of the
window open- ings sit at a different height above the 2D floor plan. Here are the
steps: 1.Using the same procedure as in the previous s ection, create the boxes for
all the
window block-outs, with each box set to 3'-6 (1067 mm) tall. TIP after you make the
first window box, the default height for the BOX command is the correct height for
the remaining windows. When prompted for the height, just press the spacebar or .
2.Change the thicknesses of the boxes so they overlap the thickness of the outside
walls.
Your drawing should look like Figure 16.19. Figure16.19 The drawing with all the
block-outs in place 3. Save your drawing as 16A-3DMOD2.dwg
Modelling in 3D 847 Moving and Rotating in 3D When you moved objects in the 2D
portion of this book,terms like �left� and �right� or �up� and �down� were
acceptable to use because all movements were associated with the sides of the
drawing area. Even when you rotated the views in Chapter 10 it was so you could
relate
movements to the screen more easily. When working in 3D, however,these terms are no
longer easily translated from your intent to proper movement on the screen. Let's
take the back door block-out for example. If I told you to move it �forward,� would
that mean into the cabin, away from the cabin, or toward the bottom of the screen?
You
see what the problem is. When the viewpoint is significantly different than what
you may expect, say, from the bottom or the back, then front or back may be even
more
confusing. the First Right-Hand Rule To help you stay oriented in 3D space, the UCS
becomes more important. Each colored axis of the UCS icon points in the
positive direction for that particular axis. To understand whether a movement,
particularly in the z-axis, is in the positive direction, you should be familiar
with the first
of two �right-hand rules.� This rule relates your hand to the UCS and helps clarify
the axis directions. Start by extend- ing the thumb and index finger on your right