By Elvis Sverko
We live in a 3D world. We design objects, machines, and buildings to interact with in three dimensions. We’ve even gotten to the point where we design these objects in 3D. And 3D solid modeling has gotten so precise and easy to use, that you wouldn’t want to do it any other way.
But in order to manufacture and construct these objects and buildings, we need to make 2D drawings of them first, and then use these flat pieces of paper during the assembly process. Autodesk Inventor has been doing this process very well in the manufacturing industry for some time. And Autodesk Revit is just as equal in the building industry.
But for a huge portion of the CAD users out there, AutoCAD is the highly utilized product. Therefore, many of you out there already know how to use viewports in layout tabs to create different angled views of your 3D model from the Model Space. And when you want more than just a view of the 3D model at a specific angle, you know how to create actual 2D views of the 3D model using the Solid View and Solid Drawing commands. In some cases, maybe you even use the Solid Profile command. Or maybe you take advantage of the Flatshot command. Or any combination of these. They all have their unique reasons to be used. Where some update when the 3D model is modified (ie Viewports), others do not (ie blocks created from Flatshot).
And that’s where the new Drawing View commands come in. AutoCAD 2012 has added the power to automatically generate intelligent documents based on AutoCAD, Inventor, or other imported 3D models. Like viewports, they update automatically when the model is modified. But they can also maintain a wireframe with hidden edges style.
The new Drawing View commands are found on the Annotate tab of the ribbon.
You first need to create a Base View. It’s then from this view that you create Projected views (ie side, top, orthographic).
After creating your 3D models for our 3D world, it’s just a quick command to create your 2D drawings to get you there. Who would have thought that we still need 2D drawings?
“What can this piece of paper do; imagine?” – Alamgir Hashmi
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