Western Mindanao State University

College of Engineering
Electrical Engineering Department
Zamboanga City

BES 114 – Computer-Aided Drafting

Exercise and Activity 3

Selecting Objects in AutoCAD

You can select objects in AutoCAD by simply clicking them or by using a

window or crossing method. These two methods can be either of the following
selection types:

Rectangular Selection Area Lasso Selection

Rectangular Selection Area:

To specify a rectangular selection area, left click and release the mouse button,
move the cursor, and click again.

Lasso Selection:

To create a lasso selection, left click, drag, and release the mouse button.
 Direction Method Description
Selects all objects that are
entirely enclosed in the
Left to Right Window Selection
selection rectangle or
lasso.
Selects all objects that are
Right to Left Crossing Selection crossed by the selection
rectangle or lasso.

To unselect the objects, simply press Shift and then click individual object, or you
may drag across multiple objects. If you want to unselect all objects, press Esc.

Note: When using lasso selection, you can press Spacebar to cycle between the
Window, Crossing, and Fence object selection modes.

More Modifying Commands

Modifying commands are commands that are used to

edit operations such as erase, move, trim, extend, and copy
on the objects in a drawing. Most of these common tools are
located on the Modify panel of the home tab, as shown.

In this lesson, you will be adding more of these commands to your collection. All
these commands are essential and can be used on a regular basis.

Command Alias Icon Location Description

Home > Modify >
Move MOVE/M Moves an object or objects
Move
Home > Modify > Copies object(s), once or
Copy COPY/CO
Copy multiple times
Home > Modify > Lengthen or shorten parts of
Stretch STRETCH/S
Stretch the drawing
Home > Modify > Creates a mirror image of
Mirror MIRROR/MI
Mirror the selected object(s)
 Exercise #3 – More Modifying Commands

Draw a 10mm x 5mm (L x W) rectangle using RECTANGLE command with first corner
point at (2,2). Draw another rectangle with a dimension of 6mm x 3mm and a first corner point at
(4,2). Now observe that these two rectangles overlapped with each other. You are task to move the
smaller one to the right with an offset of 2mm from the right side of the larger rectangle.

MOVE COMMAND
To do this, start the MOVE command by typing M or MOVE in the command line, or
simply click the MOVE icon in the MODIFY panel. Select the smaller rectangle then press
<Enter>. Now you need to specify the base point; click on the lower left corner of the rectangle
then specify the second point. To have an offset of 2mm between the two rectangles, enter (@10,0)
or simply 10. You may also choose Displacement by typing d instead of specifying the base point.
If you do this, make sure that the ORTHOMODE is ON by pressing F8 or clicking the icon
located on the status bar to ensure that only vertical or horizontal movement is allowed. Then,
enter 10 as the displacement.

COPY COMMAND
Now you are task to copy the two rectangles with an offset of 5 units to the top (measured
from the upper side of the larger rectangle). To do this, start the COPY command by typing CO
or COPY in the command line, or simply click the COPY icon in the MODIFY panel. Select the
two rectangles, then you may choose either to specify the base point or Displacement. Using the
base point, select the lower left corner as your base point then enter (@0,10) or simply 10. Using
Displacement, you may directly enter 10 units to the top.

STRETCH COMMAND
Start the STRETCH command. Now you need to select part of the object that you want to
stretch using Crossing Window (Rectangular Selection). Click, just a bit, above the right side of
the larger rectangle then release, now move the cursor to the lower part of the rectangle, click then
<Enter>. You then need to specify the base point; click on the midpoint of the right side of the
rectangle then move the cursor up and then enter 2.5 (make sure that ORTHOMODE is ON and
midpoint OSNAP is turned on). You just now transform the rectangle into an inclined
parallelogram.

MIRROR COMMAND
Erase the smaller rectangle located at the bottom. Draw a line from (16,2) to (14,2) to (14,5)
to (15,5) to (15,6) and then to (16,6). Start the MIRROR command and select the five lines that
you have just created, and the <Enter>. Now you are asked to specify first point of mirror line,
pick the end of the line at 16,2 (make sure endpoint OSNAP is turned on). Select point 16,6 as
your second point of mirror line, and then <Enter> (or simply move your cursor up, click anywhere
then <Enter>). Make sure to check the command line to see if the default is at <No>, to retain the
source objects. If not, then just type N then <Enter>.

Now to finalize your drawing, make a 22mm x 20mm (L x W) border using RECTANGLE
command with a first corner point at (0,0). Save your drawing as “FamilyName-Exercise-3”.

Kindly check if your work looks like the figure below.

 ACTIVITY-3

Draw the figure below using circles, rectangles, arcs and the different modifying
commands. Use the different ways in entering coordinate in AutoCAD, Do not include the
dimensions.
Hint: start your drawing by creating the lower left circle that has a center point at 5,5 with
a radius of 1.5. (save your drawing as “FamilyName-Activity-3”)

Name: _____________________________________ Date: _________________

Year & Section: ___________________________ Remarks: _____________