MÜHENDİSLİK FAKÜLTESİ

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
İNŞAAT MÜHENDİSLİĞİ BÖLÜMÜ
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 101 – Civil Engineering Drawing – 2021-1

Tutorial – 1
Draw the key figure shown below according to the following steps and hints:

a. Create a New drawing file and Save it by your Name – Student Number and CE 101 T1 as a suffix.
(Example: John – 1234567 – CE101 T1.dwg)
b. From the Snap Settings, set the Grid spacing as 1 for both X and Y, and activate Grid On option if it was not
activated.

c. Use the dimensions shown below for your drawings.

d. You don’t have to draw or write the dimensions and the coordinates of the reference points.

Hints:

• The blue circles show some reference points that you can use during your drawing. The numbers between
parentheses refer to absolute 2D Cartesian coordinates values, while the other numbers refer to length,
METU – CE 101 – 2021-1 Page 1 of 7
MÜHENDİSLİK FAKÜLTESİ
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
İNŞAAT MÜHENDİSLİĞİ BÖLÜMÜ
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 101 – Civil Engineering Drawing – 2021-1

distances and radiuses. When you don’t have absolute coordinates for the end point, you can use relative
coordinates or polar coordinates.
• You can start by choosing Line command from the Draw palette in the Home tab. You can also reach the
Line command by writing “Line” in the Command bar at the bottom of the window (or anywhere if the
Dynamic input is activated). You can also write the shortcut only of that command (which is “L” in this case)
and hit “Enter” on the keyboard.
• When you enter any command in AutoCAD the program will ask you for the next steps. The details of the
next step are usually shown in the Command bar. You will be asked to enter a number or to make a choice
between some options.
• For the Line command, after you choose the command by one of the methods explained above, AutoCAD
will ask you to specify the first point of the line. You can do this by either choosing a point on the screen or
by entering the coordinates of that point.
• Write 0,0 and then hit Enter on the keyboard. The first “0” represents the X coordinate while the second
“0” represents the Y coordinate. Between them, you need to write “,” (comma) to tell AutoCAD that you
wrote the X coordinate and now you will write the Y coordinate.

• AutoCAD uses two kind of coordinates, Absolute and Relative. The absolute coordinates are the 2D
Cartesian coordinates values that identify each point on the screen. These coordinates can be reached by
entering the absolute x and y values or the absolute polar coordinates (an angle and a radius) for each point.
On the other hand, the relative coordinates represent the coordinates of the point in relation to the previous
point. This representation method can be in the mean of X and Y distances or relative polar coordinates.
• If the Dynamic input mode is active, all the coordinates entered are relative coordinates. Dynamic input
method can be activated/deactivated by pressing the F12 key on the keyboard to toggle it on and off.
• When the Dynamic input mode is deactivated, the coordinates entered are absolute coordinates. However,
in that case, a relative coordinate can be entered by writing the symbol “@” before the coordinate values
(e.g. @x,y or @radius<angle).
• In a similar way, when the Dynamic input mode is activated, absolute coordinates can be entered by writing
the symbol “#” before the coordinate values (e.g. #x,y or #radius<angle).
• The coordinate of the first point in AutoCAD commands is usually considered as absolute coordinate.

METU – CE 101 – 2021-1 Page 2 of 7

MÜHENDİSLİK FAKÜLTESİ
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
İNŞAAT MÜHENDİSLİĞİ BÖLÜMÜ
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 101 – Civil Engineering Drawing – 2021-1

• Now, back the key drawing, the next point you would enter can be the point at the right of the first point
(with absolute coordinate of (5,0)). Entering those values in absolute or relative coordinates will give the
same result, since the previous point is (0,0).
• After that, to move to the point (7,-2) you can input 7 and -2 in
absolute coordinate mode or 2 and -2 in relative coordinate mode.
Up to this step, you should have drew two lines like the figure in the
right.
• The coordinate of the next point, which is directly below (7,-2) point, is (7,-4). The x coordinate is taken from
the point above it, while the y coordinate is taken from the point on its left.
• To continue drawing the line to that point you should enter (7,-4) in absolute coordinate mode or (0,-2) in
relative coordinate mode.
• After that, to draw the next point should enter (4,-4) in absolute coordinate mode or (-2,0) in relative
coordinate mode.
• Note that after you specify the first point in the Line command, an Undo option appears in the Command
bar. If you click on that option on the Command bar, or write the capital letters shown for that word (in this
case “U”), AutoCAD will undo your choice and let you specify that point again. This choice will be always
available after any point selection.
• Moreover, after you specify the second point in the Line command you can always exit the command by
pressing Enter or Esc button on the keyboard. If you do so and you want to start a new line from the last
point, you only need to select that last point by clicking on it with the mouse after you choose the Line
command.
• Up to this step, you should have four lines like the figure in the right.
• To find the y coordinate of the next point you should take a look on the
dimensions (the numbers in green color in this drawing). You can notice
that the bottom lines have a vertical distance of “13” from the last point
(4,-4), which means its absolute coordinate is (4,-17) and its relative coordinate to that point is (0,-13).
• As for the next horizontal line, the length of that line can be found through the difference between the x
coordinates of point (9,-7) and point (4,-4) which is “5”. For this, the absolute coordinate for the next point
is (9,-17) and its relative coordinate to that point is (5,0).
• The next point can be reached by entering an absolute coordinate of (9,-7) or a relative coordinate of (0,10).
• As for the next point, it can be best reached by entering the relative coordinate of @4<45. This coordinate
means that the next point has a distance of “4” from this point and a direction with an angle of “45˚”.
• The next horizontal line has a length of “2” as it can be seen from the dimension lines. This line can be best
drawn by entering a relative coordinate of (2,0).
• Up to this step, you should a few lines like the figure in the right.
• As for the next few lines, the rest of the levers on the tip of the key, it is clear
that those lines are a mirrored copy of the previous ones. For that, instead of
trying to enter the coordinates of the next points, Mirror command will be
used to create a copy of those lines but in a mirrored way.
• You can reach the Mirror command either by clicking its icon on the Modify
palette at the Home tab, or by typing its name or its shortcut (which is “Mi” in this
case).
• After this point, AutoCAD will ask you to select the object that you want to mirror.

METU – CE 101 – 2021-1 Page 3 of 7

MÜHENDİSLİK FAKÜLTESİ
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
İNŞAAT MÜHENDİSLİĞİ BÖLÜMÜ
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 101 – Civil Engineering Drawing – 2021-1

• To make a selection in AutoCAD there are two methods. You can
either select individual objects one by one by clicking on them, or
you can drag a box over the objects you want to select. For the first
method, each object you click on will be added to the selection
group. You can deselect an object by pressing Shift on the keyboard
and the left click on it. You can always clear the selection group by
pressing Esc button on the keyboard. As for the drag selection
method, there is a difference based on the drag direction. If you left
click and drag from left to right you will select all the objects that
are entirely enclosed in the selection area (a blue colored area),
“window selection”. However, if you left click and drag from right
to left you will select all the objects that are crossed by the selection
area (a green colored area), “crossing selection”. Note that, if left
click once and release your finger the selection area will be in a
rectangle shape. However, if you keep pressing on the mouse left
button the selection area will be in a lasso shape.
• For this example, you should select the objects shown in the figure
on the right.
• After you make your selection you should hit Enter on the
keyboard, then the Mirror command will ask you to specify the first point of the mirror line. This mirror
line is the one that represents the mirror that will reflect the selected objects to the other side. In this
example, it is a vertical line that passes through the middle of the last drawn horizontal line.
• In order to select the middle point of that horizontal line,
you can calculate its coordinate. However, AutoCAD can
help you locate some main points of the objects (like the
endpoints, midpoints, centers, perpendicular, parallel,
tangent and insertion points, etc.) through an option called
Object Snap. You can reach this option by writing “OSNAP”
(or the shortcut “OS”), and you can toggle it on and off by
pressing F3 on the keyboard. On the Object snap box,
activate the Object snap modes that you want to use. After
that, if you have the Midpoint mode activated, when you
move the crosshair of the mouse near the middle of the
horizontal line, a green triangle will appear indicating that
you will be able to select the midpoint of that object if you
left click on the mouse, as shown in the figure on the right.
• After you select the midpoint, your next point should be on
a vertical line that passes through this point. You can select
this point either by entering a coordinate or by clicking on screen. For the second choice, to make sure
that you are clicking a point on the vertical line that passes through the midpoint, you should toggle the
Ortho mode on and off by pressing F8 on the keyboard or by writing its full name (or its shortcut “Ort”).
When you activate this mode, the crosshair of the mouse will only move in horizontal and vertical
directions.

METU – CE 101 – 2021-1 Page 4 of 7

MÜHENDİSLİK FAKÜLTESİ
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
İNŞAAT MÜHENDİSLİĞİ BÖLÜMÜ
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 101 – Civil Engineering Drawing – 2021-1

• After you select the second point, AutoCAD will ask you if you want to erase the original objects or keep
them. In this example you should select “No” by either write it (or writhe the capital letters, which are
only “N” in this case) or click on it on the Command bar. Note that the word “No” is written between
angle brackets <No>, which indicates that it is the default choice for that question. This means if you
press Enter directly, AutoCAD will consider “No” as your answer.
• Up to this step, your drawing should look like the figure below.

• By using the same methods explained above, you can draw the rest of the lines, and your final drawing up
to this step should be something like the figure below. Note that for this example, the length of the two
horizontal lines at the right of the figure is not important. The reason for that will be explained in a later
step.

• To draw the bow part of the key, you need to draw two circles for the inner side and one ellipse for the
outer side.
• To draw the circles, you need to use Circle command. You can reach this command from the Draw palette
in the Home tab or by typing its name (or its shortcut “C”).
• After you select this command, AutoCAD will ask you to specify the center point of the circle, which you can
do by selecting a point on the screen or writing the absolute coordinate of that point. Note that there are
other choices available on the Command bar which will allow you to use different methods to draw the
circle, like drawing a circle that passes through two or three specific points or that is tangent to specific
lines.

METU – CE 101 – 2021-1 Page 5 of 7

MÜHENDİSLİK FAKÜLTESİ
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
İNŞAAT MÜHENDİSLİĞİ BÖLÜMÜ
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 101 – Civil Engineering Drawing – 2021-1

• After you select your center point, AutoCAD will ask you to specify the radius of the circle. Note that there
is another choice on the Command bar the will allow you to enter the value of the diameter instead of the
radius. After you enter the required value the command will ended, and you will have to choose it again in
order to draw another circle.
• Note that if you hit Enter on the keyboard after a command has ended, AutoCAD will repeat that command.
• In this example, you need to draw two circles with a center point of (82,7.5) for the first one and (82,-2.5)
for the second one. The radius for both circles is 10, as it is specified by the dimension “R10”.
• You need to pay attention to the difference between the comma symbol “,”and the point symbol “.” in
AutoCAD. The first one will let you move from the x coordinate to y coordinate, while the second one is
used to indicate the decimal point.
• As for the outer side of the bow, you need to use the Ellipse command by clicking on its icon in the Draw
palette in the Home tab or by writing it (or its shortcut “EL”).
• After that, AutoCAD will ask you to specify the center point of the ellipse, which is (82,2.5) in this example.
Then you will have to determine the lengths or the distances of the ellipse axes. If you have the Ortho mode
activated you only need to enter 20 in the vertical direction and 15 in the horizontal direction.
• Up to this step, your drawing should look like the figure below.

• In order to get rid of the interfered parts of the two circles you need to use Trim command. This command
will help you to trim/cut/erase objects that cross or meet the edges of the original selected object.
• You can reach the Trim command by clicking on its icon in the Modify palette in the Home tab, or typing its
name (or its shortcut “Tr”). After that, select the top circle, press Enter and then click on the upper part of
the lower circle that you want to delete and press Enter again. You can delete the bottom part of the upper
circle by using the same method.
• Moreover, you can select both circles at the first step, and then press Enter before you can delete both parts
with one command. In addition to that, you can notice that a default choice of <select all> appears at the
first step of the Trim command. For that, if you press Enter before you select any object, AutoCAD will select
all the objects in the drawing, which will save you a lot of time when you are working with too many
segments.
• The final part of this drawing is the curves that merge the ends of the horizontal lines with the ellipse. In
order to draw those curves, you need to use a command called Fillet. This command is used to round or
fillet the edges of two objects. The result will be a transition curve between the two objects.

METU – CE 101 – 2021-1 Page 6 of 7

MÜHENDİSLİK FAKÜLTESİ
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
İNŞAAT MÜHENDİSLİĞİ BÖLÜMÜ
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 101 – Civil Engineering Drawing – 2021-1

• You can reach the Fillet command by on its icon in the Modify palette in the Home tab, or by typing its name
(or its shortcut “F”). After that, AutoCAD will ask you to select the first object, but will also offer you some
choices in the Command bar, like Polyline, Radius and Trim. If you choose Radius (by clicking on it in the
Command bar, or by writing “R” and pressing Enter), you will be able to enter the value of the desired fillet
radius, which is “5” in this example. After that, you can select the first object, which can be the ellipse or
the top horizontal line, then select the other object. By doing so, AutoCAD will create an arc between those
two objects with a radius of “5”.
• You can repeat the same steps for the bottom horizontal line. Notice that a part of the ellipse between the
two fillets still exist. You can get rid of that part by using Trim command.
• Your final drawing should look like the figure below.

METU – CE 101 – 2021-1 Page 7 of 7