Editing the Windows Way


You might have noticed that when you click an object, AutoCAD displays the object's grips, which are special square points on the object. These grips most commonly appear on the endpoints of objects, though they can also appear at the midpoint of lines and arcs and at other geometric features of objects. You can use grips to make direct changes to the shape of objects or to quickly move, copy, rotate, or scale the object. The exercise in the following section gives you a feel for how grip editing works.

In the unlikely event that you do not see grips when you click objects, your version of AutoCAD might have the grips feature turned off. To turn it on, right-click a blank area of the drawing, and choose Options from the shortcut menu. In the Options dialog box, select the Selection tab. Turn on the Enable Grips option in the Grips section.

Stretching Lines Using Grips

In this exercise, you'll stretch one corner of the rectangle by grabbing the grip points of two lines. First, you'll work with the Dynamic Input option turned off. Later, you'll see how to use Dynamic Input to make detailed changes to objects.

  1. Press Esc to make sure you're not in the middle of a command, and then make sure the DYN button in the status bar is in the off, or "up," position.

    image from book

  2. Click a point below and to the right of the rectangle to start a selection window.

  3. Click above and to the left of the rectangle to select the rectangle, placing a crossing window around it. Notice that the lines of the rectangle are selected and that the grips appear.

  4. Place the cursor on the lower-left corner grip of the rectangle, but don't click yet. Notice that the cursor jumps to the grip point and the grip changes color.

  5. Move the cursor to another grip point. Notice again how the cursor jumps to it. When placed on a grip, the cursor moves to the exact center of the grip point. This means, for example, that if the cursor is placed on an endpoint grip, it is on the exact endpoint of the object.

  6. Move the cursor to the upper-left corner grip of the rectangle, and click. The grip becomes a different color and is now a hot grip. The prompt displays the following message:

     ** STRETCH ** Specify stretch point or [Base point/Copy/Undo/eXit]: 

    This prompt tells you that Stretch mode is active. Notice the options in the prompt. As you move the cursor, the corner follows, and the lines of the rectangle stretch (see Figure 4.5).

    When you select a grip by clicking it, it turns a solid color (typically red) and is a hot grip. If you want to select more than one grip, you can Shift+click each grip that you want to include in your grip selection.

    Shift+click a hot grip again to remove it from the selection.

  7. Make sure the osnap mode is turned on, then move the cursor upward toward the top end of the arc, and finally click that point. The rectangle deforms, with the corner placed at your selection point (as shown in Figure 4.5).

image from book
Figure 4.5: Stretching lines using hot grips. The left image shows the rectangle's corner being stretched upward. The right image shows the new location of the corner at the top of the arc using the Endpoint osnap.

When you click the corner grip point, AutoCAD selects the overlapping grips of two lines. When you stretch the corner away from its original location, the endpoints of both lines follow.

Here you saw that you can issue an option called STRETCH simply by clicking a grip point. A handful of other hot grip options are also available. You'll explore them in the following exercise:

  1. Notice that the objects are still selected and the grips are still available. Click the grip point you moved earlier to make it a hot grip again.

  2. Right-click to open a shortcut menu that contains a list of grip edit options. Now try moving and copying the selected objects.

    image from book

  3. Choose Move from the shortcut menu, and then click a point directly to the left of the hot grip, as shown in Figure 4.6. The entire set of objects moves.

  4. Click the grip you selected before, right-click, and choose Move again.

  5. Right-click again, and choose Copy. You can also enter C.

  6. Select a point below the hot grip. A copy appears.

  7. Press , or enter X to exit the grip edit. You can also right-click again and choose Exit from the shortcut menu.

image from book
Figure 4.6: Click the location shown to copy the grip.

In this last set of exercises, you saw how to select a grip and then select grip edit options from the shortcut menu. You also saw how to stretch grips, move objects, and make a copy.

You can also specify distances and directions using relative Cartesian or polar coordinates. For example, instead of just moving the hot grip and clicking a new location, you can enter a polar coordinate in steps 5 and 6 of the previous exercise. (See Chapter 2 for more about Cartesian and polar coordinates.) The grip will then move or be copied to the exact distance you specify. A third option is to turn on the Dynamic Input feature and use it to specify an exact distance and direction. You'll learn more about the Dynamic Input feature later in this chapter; see the "Changing Objects with Grips and Dynamic Input" section.

Copying, Mirroring, Rotating, Scaling, and Stretching with Grips

The shortcut menu presents options other than Move. When you select a grip and right-click, you can choose from Mirror, Rotate, Scale, and Stretch. Stretch is the default option, and you've seen how that works with the Move options in the previous exercise. The other options are self-explanatory. You can use the Copy option to make mirrored, rotated, scaled, or stretched copies. Just remember to select the main option first and choose Copy next, since the Copy option affects the current editing mode.

You can also "cycle" through the Move, Rotate, Scale, and Stretch options by pressing the spacebar while a hot grip is selected.

Another option, Base Point, lets you change the location of the cursor in relation to the current hot grip. By default, the cursor and the hot grip are in the same location and move together. You can right-click, select Base Point, and then select another point to change the location of the cursor in relation to the hot grip.

image from book

Since you can move the base point, you aren't limited to the actual grip location. This is handy if you want to use other objects as references for your grip edits. For example, you can use the Base Point option to rotate your selection around a point other than a grip point.

You can use the osnaps while grip editing by Shift+right-clicking to open the Osnap menu.

Using Other Grips Features

Grips let you perform the most common editing tasks you'll encounter as you work with AutoCAD. Along with what you've been shown so far, you'll want to be aware of the following grip features:

  • You can click endpoint grips to reposition those endpoints.

  • Clicking midpoint grips of lines lets you move the entire line. If multiple objects are selected, all the objects also move.

  • If two objects meet end to end and you click their overlapping grips, you'll select both grips simultaneously.

  • You can select multiple grips by holding down the Shift key and clicking the desired grips. You must hold the Shift key down when you select the first grip.

  • When a hot grip is selected, the Stretch, Move, Rotate, Scale, and Mirror options are available from the shortcut menu.

  • You can cycle through the Stretch, Move, Rotate, Scale, and Mirror options by pressing or the spacebar while a hot grip is selected. Watch the command window to see which option is currently active.

  • All the hot grip options let you copy the selected objects by either using the Copy option or holding down the Ctrl key while selecting points.

  • All the hot grip options let you select a base point other than the originally selected hot grip. Choose Base Point from the shortcut menu.




Introducing AutoCAD 2008
Introducing AutoCAD 2008
ISBN: 0470121505
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 147
Authors: George Omura

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net