AutoCAD Tips Blog » viewport

AutoCAD Tutorial: Create a rectangle with an adjustable corner

Ellen — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:09:48 +0000

Have you noticed how grip-editing a viewport is different from grip-editing a rectangle?

When you grip-edit the upper-right corner of a viewport to stretch it, the viewport keeps its rectangular shape. You can freely choose your new corner location, so you’re not just scaling. You can change the proportion between the width and height, all without losing its rectangle-ness.

Stretching a viewport

But when you grip-edit the upper-right corner of a rectangle, the rectangle is distorted. The rectangle doesn’t know that it’s supposed to remain a rectangle. AutoCAD just thinks of it as a 4-sided, closed polyline. Indeed, select it and check in the Properties palette (Ctrl+1) and you’ll discover that it is indeed just a polyline.

Stretching a rectangle in AutoCAD

AutoCAD 2010′s geometric parameters can help you easily create a rectangle that knows it’s a rectangle. And, what is a rectangle? Well, “rect” means right, as in 90°. “Angle” is self-explanatory. So, we need to ensure that the angles will stay 90°.

Here’s how:

Draw a rectangle.
Go to Parametric tab> Geometric panel, and click the Perpendicular button.
At the Select first object: prompt, click the top horizontal line of the rectangle.
At the Select second object: prompt, click the left vertical line. You’ll see the Perpendicular icon near the upper-left corner of the rectangle.
Repeat the process for the two lines that meet at the lower-left corner and the lower-right corner.

A rectangle with 3 perpendicular geometric constraints

Note: If you try to do all 4 corners, you’ll get a message telling you that AutoCAD can’t apply the constraint. That’s because when you have 3 corners constrained to perpendicular, the last corner is superfluous, and is therefore an overconstraint.

You can't overconstrain an object in AutoCAD

Now, you can grip-edit that upper-right corner and it will behave just like a viewport!

The rectangle now stretches like a viewport!

Here’s a video of the same operation:

Display a named view in a viewport

Ellen — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 09:11:44 +0000

While you create your drawing, you may specify named views (View > Named Views) that display areas you’ll want to show in a viewport on a layout (paper space).

When it comes to creating viewports, you can display a named view in a couple of ways. One, of course, is to double-click inside a viewport and choose View > Named Views. There you can choose the named view you want and make it current.

But you can also display a named view while you create the viewport, saving some steps. Here’s how:

Choose View > Viewports > New Viewports to open the Viewports dialog box.

Choose the configuration you want. Then, for each viewport that you see in the preview, click it to make it active, and choose the named view from the Change View To drop-down list.

You can even choose a visual style for that viewport from the Visual Style drop-down list.

Click OK.

Tutorial: Automate annotation scaling with annotative objects

Ellen — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:55:56 +0000

Since AutoCAD 2008, you can automate the sizing of annotation, such as text and dimensions, in multiple viewports with varying scales. In this tutorial, you practice using this feature, called annotative objects.

The following objects can be annotative, meaning that they can size automatically:

Text (single-line text)
Mtext (multi-line text)
Dimensions
Multileaders (which are new for AutoCAD 2008)
Tolerances (in frames)
Hatches
Blocks
Block attributes

Note that objects that use styles — text, dimensions, and multileaders — require an annotative style as well.

In this tutorial, to keep things simple, we’ll just dimension the following drawing, which I extracted from AutoCAD’s sample drawing (in the Samples folder) db-samp.dwg.

Follow these steps:

Click a layout tab, or the layout button on the status bar.
Choose View tab>Viewports panel> New (or View > Viewports, the VPORTS command) and insert the viewports that you want. If possible, decide which scales you will use before adding annotative objects.
Select a viewport and set its scale in the Standard Scale item of the Properties palette. Do the same for each other viewport. Here I have two viewports: the left is 1/4″ = 1’0″ (1:48) and the right is 1/2″ = 1’0″ (1:24). At the same time, check that the Annotation Scale value (shown in the Properties palette) is the same as the Standard Scale; if not, change it so that the two values are the same.

Return to the Model tab.
Choose Annotate tab> Dimensions panel and click the dialog box launcher at the right of the tab (Dimension> Dimension Style, the DIMSTYLE command). Choose the dimension style you want to work with and click Modify. Or, click New, and create a new dimension style. Either way, on the Fit tab, check the Annotative check box. Click OK. Notice that your style now has the annotative icon next to it. Click Set Current and then click Close.

At this point, you should think a bit about which dimensions you’ll want in which viewport, but you can make changes later.
Switch to a dimension layer. Choose Annotate tab> Dimensions panel> Dimension drop-down>Linear (Dimension> Linear Dimension, the DIMLINEAR command). If this is the first annotative object you’ve created in the drawing, you’ll see this dialog box, reminding you to set the scale. Click the drop-down list and choose a scale for one of the viewports that will show this dimension. I chose 1/4″ = 1’0″ because this dimension will go in the left viewport which is at that scale. Click OK.

Place the dimension. Note that the annotation scale on the right side of the status bar shows the scale that you chose. You can change the scale at this time. If you place other dimensions, they will also be at the same scale.

To place a dimension that will be visible at a different scale, such as for our right-hand viewport, choose the scale from the Annotation Scale list on the status bar.

For a dimension that will appear in more than one viewport, place it at any of the scales, then select it, right-click it, and choose Annotative Object Scale> Add/Delete Scales. In the Annotation Object Scale dialog box, click Add. Choose the new scale and click OK. Click OK again to return to your drawing. Use the same procedure to remove or change annotation scales for objects.

Note: If you hover the cursor over the dimension, you’ll see that it now shows a double annotation icon, indicating that the dimension has more than one scale.

That’s it! Just display the layout and you’ll see that the dimensions are all the same size. Even dimensions that show in both viewports, at more than one scale, are the right size in both viewports.

In this drawing, you can see that one of the dimensions of the desk (7′-1 11/16″) doesn’t appear in the left viewport. That’s because it doesn’t have the 1/4″=1’0″ scale. But the 6′ dimension has both scales, so it appears in both viewports.

Draw with tiled viewports

Ellen — Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:15:00 +0000

Tiled viewports let you divide up the drawing area into tiles and display different parts of your drawing in each. The great thing about tiled viewports is that you can draw from one viewport to another without missing a beat, making them great for large drawings where you need to alternate between working in detail in a small area and working in a larger area. In fact, it’s common to use one viewport for a view of the entire viewport, and others for zoomed in details.

You can set up a wide variety of configurations of tiled viewports, and set the view however you want in each one, using standard zooming and panning. But no matter how you set them up, they always take up the entire drawing area, unlike floating viewports.

Note: Floating viewports are for laying out a drawing in paper space for plotting. Tiled viewports are for drawing and editing.

Only one tiled viewport can be active at a time. The crosshairs appears only in the active viewport. Just click inside a viewport to make it active. Then you can draw or edit there, in the same way you usually do in model space, when you only have one viewport, which is the default.

Create tiled viewports

To choose from preset tiled viewport configurations, choose View> Viewports> New Viewports. In AutoCAD 2009 and 2010, go to View tab> Viewports panel> New. This opens the Viewports dialog box.

Choose one of the options to see its preview. Note that at the bottom, you can make the following adjustments:

* Apply to: You can use the default Display option to apply the configuration to the entire drawing area. Alternatively, you can choose Current Viewport from the drop-down list to divide up an existing viewport. In this way, you can create customized configurations.
* Setup: You can choose 2D or 3D. If you choose 3D, AutoCAD creates standard orthogonal views of your model for you.
* Change view to: You can choose named views that you’ve saved from this drop-down list.
* Visual Style: For 3D drawings, you can choose a visual style.

Use tiled viewports

Once you have your viewports, click inside each one and zoom and pan until you have the view that you want. You work inside a viewport in the same way you would without them. Think of the usual way you work as a single tiled viewport.

Let’s say that you need to draw a line from the far left of your drawing to the far right. With the configuration shown above, you can zoom in to the left side of your drawing in the lower-left viewport, and zoom in to the right side of your drawing in the lower-right viewport. Then follow these steps:

1. Click in the lower-left viewport and start the LINE command.
2. Specify the start point as needed.
3. At the Specify next point or [Undo]: prompt, click the top viewport and move the cursor to the approximate location of the endpoint at the right side of your drawing.
4. Click the lower-right viewport. Now you see the endpoint of the line. Specify the endpoint and press Enter to end the LINE command.

You can use a similar technique for editing as well.

Save and restore viewport configurations

If you have a custom configuration that you like, you can save it. Choose View> Viewports> New (View tab> Viewports panel> New in 2009/2010), which opens the Viewports dialog box with the Named Viewports tab on top. The current configuration is highlighted, named Active Model Configuration. Enter a name in the New Name text box. The name can be up to 255 characters and can include spaces. Click OK.

Tp restore a saved configuration, choose View> Viewports> Named Viewports (View tab> Viewports panel> Named (Viewports) in 2009/2010). This opens the same Viewports dialog box, but with the Named Viewports tab on top. Choose the configuration you saved, and click OK.

Tip: Did you know that you can used saved tiled viewport configurations to make configurations of floating viewports? You use the same Viewports dialog box to create floating viewports on a layout and you’ll find your saved viewport configurations on the Named Viewports tab, ready to use in paper space.

Remove tiled viewports

You can remove tiled viewports in two ways:

* Join two viewports: Choose View> Viewports> Join (View tab> Viewports panel> Join (Viewports) in 2009 and 2010). At the Select dominant viewport : prompt, click inside the viewport you want to keep (or press Enter to keep the active viewport). Then, at the Select viewport to join: prompt, click inside an adjacent viewport. The resulting view is the same as the dominant viewport.
* Return to one viewport: Choose View> Viewports> 1 Viewport. (In 2009 and 2010, View tab> Viewports panel> Select a Viewport Configuration/Viewport Configuations drop-down list> Single.)

Related tips:

* Display a named view in a viewport
* Zoom to objects