Using an Existing Drawing as a Symbol
You need a door into the bathroom. Because you’ve already drawn a door and saved it as a file, you
can bring the door into this drawing file and use it as a block:
1.
In the Draw toolbar, click the Insert Block tool, or type
I
↵
.
2. In the Insert dialog box, click the Browse button to open the Select Drawing File dialog box.
3. This is a standard Windows file browser dialog box. Locate the
Door file, and double-click
it. If you didn’t create a door file, you can use the door file from the Chapter 04 project files
that you can download from the Mastering AutoCAD web site.
TIP You can also browse your hard disk by looking at thumbnail views of the drawing files in a
folder.
4.
When you return to the Insert dialog box, make sure the Specify On-Screen options for the
Insertion Point, Scale and Rotation groups are checked, and then click OK. As you move the
cursor around, notice that the door appears above and to the right of the cursor intersection,
as in Figure 4.3.
5.
At this point, the door looks too small for this bathroom. This is because you drew it 3 units
long, which translates to 3˝. Metric users drew the door 9 cm long. Pick a point near coordinates
7´-2˝,2´-4˝, so that the door is placed in the lower-right corner of the room. Metric users
should use the coordinate 210,70.
6.
If you take the default setting for the X scale of the inserted block, the door will remain 3. long,
or 9 cm long for metric users. However, as mentioned earlier, you can specify a smaller or
larger size for an inserted object. In this case, you want a 3´ door. Metric users want a 90 cm
door. To get that from a 3. door, you need an X scale factor of 12, or 10 for metric users. (You
may want to look again at Table 3.3 in Chapter 3 to see how this is determined.) At the
Enter
X scale factor, specify opposite corner, or [Corner/XYZ] <1>:
prompt, enter
12Metric users should enter
107.
Press twice to accept the default Y = X and the rotation angle of 0°.
The Command prompt appears, but nothing seems to happen to the drawing. This is because
when you enlarged the door, you also enlarged the distance between the base point and the object.
This brings up another issue to be aware of when you’re considering using drawings as symbols:
All drawings have base points. The default base point is the absolute coordinate 0,0, otherwise
known as the
origin,
which is located in the lower-left corner of any new drawing. When you drew
the door in Chapter 2, you didn’t specify the base point. When you try to bring the door into this
drawing, AutoCAD uses the origin of the door drawing as its base point (see Figure 4.4).
Because the door appears outside the bathroom, you must first choose Zoom
All to show more
of the drawing and then use the Move command on the Modify toolbar to move the door to the
right-side wall of the bathroom. Let’s do this now:
1.
Choose View
Zoom
All from the menu bar drop-down menu to display the area set by
the limits of your drawing (choose Format
Drawing Limits), plus any other objects that are
outside those limits. The view of the room shrinks, and the door is displayed. Notice that it’s
now the proper size for your drawing (see Figure 4.5).
2.
Choose Modify Move, or type M↵.
3. To pick the door you just inserted, at the Select objects: prompt, click a point anywhere on
the door, and press ↵. Notice that now the entire door is highlighted. This is because a block
is treated like a single object, even though it may be made up of several lines, arcs, and so on.
4. At the Specify base point or [Displacement]
Osnaps, and pick the lower-left corner of the door. Remember that pressing the F3 key
or clicking Osnap in the status bar toggles Running Osnaps on or off.
5. At the Specify second point or 
Check this out
 |
Autocad Tutorials, Autocad 3D, Free Autocad Blocks
Using an Existing Drawing as a Symbol
