Chapter 1 Introduction to Three-Dimensional Modeling
23
over each of these controls, the name of the control is displayed in the tooltip. The
current setting for each control is shown in brackets. Picking on a control displays a
fl yout. A brief explanation of the viewport controls is provided here to introduce you fl
to the options and tools available.
The options in the
Viewport Controls
fl yout, fl Figure 1-10A, allow you to work with
viewports, which are described in detail in Chapter 5. The default setting (-) indi-
cates that the current viewport configuration is “minimized” to a single viewport. fi
The
Viewport Controls
fl yout also contains options to display AutoCAD navigation fl
tools, including the view cube, steering wheels, and the navigation bar. The view cube
is introduced in this chapter, and other navigation tools are introduced in Chapter 3.
The
View Controls
fl yout, fl fl Figure 1-10B, enables you to change the viewpoint to one
of the preset orthographic or isometric viewpoints. This is discussed in more detail in
the next section. The default setting when you start a new drawing with the
acad3D.dwt
template is
Custom
View. The other options in the
View Controls
flyout can be used to fl fl
display a perspective or parallel projection or to access the
View Manager
dialog box,
which is used to create named views. Creating named views is discussed in Chapter 3.
The
Visual Style Controls
fl yout, fl Figure 1-10C, allows you to quickly display the
drawing in one of 10 different visual styles. The default setting when you start a new
drawing with the
acad3D.dwt
template is Realistic. Use of visual styles is introduced in
this chapter and discussed completely in Chapter 15.
Isometric and Orthographic Viewpoint Presets
A 2D isometric drawing is based on angles of 120° between the three axes.
AutoCAD provides preset viewpoints that allow you to view a 3D object from one
of four isometric locations. See Figure 1-11. Each of these viewpoints produces an
isometric view of the object. In addition, AutoCAD has presets for the six standard
orthographic views of an object. The isometric and orthographic viewpoint presets are
based on the world coordinate system (WCS).
The four preset isometric views are southwest, southeast, northeast, and north-
west. The six orthographic presets are top, bottom, left, right, front, and back. To switch
your viewpoint to one of these presets, pick the view name in the
View Controls
flyout fl
in the viewport controls, as previously discussed. Refer to Figure 1-10B. You can also
select one of the presets in the
View
panel in the
Home
tab of the ribbon. See Figure 1-12.
The presets are also available in the
Views
panel in the
View
tab.
VIEW
Ribbon
Home
View
SW Isometric
SE Isometric
NW Isometric
NE Isometric
Figure 1-11.
There are four preset
isometric viewpoints
in AutoCAD. This
illustration shows
the direction from
which the cube will
be viewed for each of
the presets. The grid
represents the XY
plane of the WCS.
NW Isom metricc
SW S Isometric
NE Isometric
E Isometric SE
VIEW
Ribbon
Home
View
Top
Bottom
Left
Right
Front
Back