114 Section 1 Introduction to Drafting
Display Control Commands
Display control commands are used to
control how a drawing is displayed on screen.
These commands are used to control the position
and magnification of the screen window, save fi
views for later use, and redraw or “clean up” the
screen. Commands covered in this section that
are common to CAD packages include
Zoom,
Pan, View, and
w
Redraw/Regenerate.
Zoom
The
Zoom
command increases or decreases
the magnification factor, which results in a fi
change in the apparent size of objects on screen.
However, the actual size of the objects does not
change. You can think of this as using the zoom
feature on a video camera or set of binoculars.
Zoom
may be the most-used display control
command. Generally, the
Zoom
command has
several options that may include zooming to the
drawing limits or extents, dynamically zooming,
and zooming by a magnification factor. fi
AutoCAD Example:
Command: zoom↵
Specify corner of window, enter a scale factor (nX or
nXP), or [All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/Previous/
Scale/Window/Object] real time: .5↵
(the magnification factor is reduced by 50%) fi
Command: ↵
ZOOM Specify corner of window, enter a scale factor
(nX or nXP), or [All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/
Previous/Scale/Window/Object] real time:
previous↵
(the previous magnifi factor is restored) fication
Command:
Pan
The
Pan
command moves the drawing in the
display window from one location to another. It
does not change the magnifi factor. If you fication
think of the drawing as being on a sheet of paper
behind the screen, panning is moving the sheet
so a different part of the drawing can be seen,
Figure 4-17. The 7 7
Pan
command is useful when
you have a magnifi factor that you like, but fication
there are objects that are “off” the screen.
AutoCAD Example:
Command: pan↵
Press ESC or ENTER to exit, or right-click to display
shortcut menu.
(This is AutoCAD’s “realtime” pan function; pick,
hold, and drag to pan the drawing; then press
[Enter]
or
[Esc]
to end the command.)
Command:
View
When constant switching back and forth
between views and magnification factors on a fi
large drawing is required, the
View
command
can be used to speed the process. This command
allows you to save a “snapshot” of the current
drawing display. The “snapshot” includes the
view and the magnification factor. You can then fi
save the view and quickly recall it later. This can
be much faster than zooming and panning to
return to the desired view.
AutoCAD Example:
(Pan and zoom the drawing so the desired view is
displayed.)
Command: view↵w w
(The
View Manager
dialog box is displayed; pick the
New…
button and enter a name in the
New View
dialog box that is displayed. Then close both dialog
boxes.)
Command:
Figure 4-17. You can think of panning as moving a
drawing sheet around underneath the CAD drawing
screen. Only the portion of the drawing directly “below”
the drawing area will be visible. (Eric K. Augspurger;
print courtesy of SoftPlan Systems, Inc.)