Drawing the Sink

Drawing the Sink
You’re ready to draw the sink. First, you’ll draw the sink countertop. Then, you’ll make sure Running
Osnaps and Osnap Tracking are turned on. Finally, you’ll draw the bowl of the sink.
Here are the steps for drawing the outline of the sink countertop:
1. Click the Grid button in the status bar to turn off the grid. It was helpful to let you see the
work area, but you don’t need it now.
2. Click the Rectangle tool in the 2D Draw control panel, or type rec↵.
3. At the prompt
Specify first corner point or [Chamfer/Elevation/Fillet/Thickness/Width]:
enter 0,0↵. This places one corner of the rectangle in the origin of the drawing.
4. At the Specify other corner point or [Area/Dimensions/Rotation]: prompt, enter
@2´4,1´6↵. Metric users should enter @71,46↵. This makes the rectangle 2´-4˝ wide by 1´-6˝
deep, or 71 cm by 46 cm for metric users. The rectangle appears in the lower half of the drawing
area.
5. Choose View  Zoom  Extents to enlarge the view of the sink outline. Then, use the Zoom
Realtime tool in the 2D Navigate control panel to adjust your view so it looks similar to the
one shown in Figure 3.14.
When you draw the bowl of the sink, the bowl will be represented by an ellipse. You want to
place the center of the ellipse at the center of the rectangle you’ve just drawn. To do this, you’ll use
the midpoint of two adjoining sides of the rectangle as alignment locations. This is where the Osnap
Tracking tool will be useful.


You need to make sure Running Osnaps are turned on and that they’re set to the Midpoint
option. Then, you’ll make sure Osnap Tracking is turned on. Use these steps:
1. Right-click the Otrack button in the status bar, and choose Settings from the shortcut menu
to open the Drafting Settings dialog box at the Object Snap tab.



2. Make sure the Midpoint check box in the Object Snap Modes group is selected.
3. Also make sure that Object Snap On and Object Snap Tracking On are both selected. Click OK.
You’ll notice that the Osnap and Otrack buttons in the status bar are now in the on position.
Finally, you’re ready to draw the ellipse:
1. Click the Ellipse tool in the 2D Draw control panel, or enter El↵.
2. At the Specify axis endpoint of ellipse or [Arc/Center]: prompt, type C; or, rightclick,
and choose Center from the shortcut menu.
3. Move your cursor to the top, horizontal edge of the rectangle, until you see the Midpoint ToolTip.
4. Move the cursor directly over the Midpoint Osnap marker. Without clicking the mouse,
hold the cursor there for a second until you see a small cross appear. Look carefully, because
the cross is small. This is the Osnap Tracking marker.



TIP You can alternately insert and remove the Osnap Tracking marker by passing the cursor over
the Osnap marker.
5. As you move the cursor downward, a dotted line appears, emanating from the midpoint of
the horizontal line. The cursor also shows a small X following the dotted line as you move it.



6. Move the cursor to the midpoint of the left vertical side of the rectangle. Don’t click, but
hold it there for a second until you see the small cross. Now, as you move the cursor away,
a horizontal dotted line appears, with an X following the cursor.



7. Move the cursor to the center of the rectangle. The two dotted lines appear simultaneously,
and a small X appears at their intersection.




8. With the two dotted lines crossing and the X at their intersection, click the left mouse button
to select the exact center of the rectangle.
9. Point the cursor to the right, and enter 8↵ to make the width of the bowl 16˝. Metric users
should enter 20↵ for a bowl 40 cm wide.
10. Point the cursor downward, and enter 6↵ to make the length of the bowl 12˝. Metric users
should enter 15↵ for a bowl with a length of 30 cm. The basic symbol for the sink is complete
(see Figure 3.15).



11. Choose File  Save. You can exit AutoCAD now and take a break.
In this exercise, you saw how Osnap Tracking enables you to align two locations to select a point in
space. Although you used only the Midpoint osnap setting in this exercise, you aren’t limited to only
one osnap setting. You can use as many as you need in order to select the appropriate geometry. You
can also use as many alignment points as you need, although in this exercise, you used only two. If you
like, erase the ellipse, and repeat this exercise until you get the hang of using the Osnap Tracking feature.
TIP As with all the other buttons in the status bar, you can turn Osnap Tracking on or off by clicking
the Otrack button.