Thursday, July 7, 2011

AutoCAD 's Snapstyl Command

Isometric drawings. Are you familiar with the "SNAPSTYL" command? Well, this command is used in creating isometric drawing. Instead of using "ISOPLANE" command for each angle, and then enter those corresponding values and options, you can use this command to easily produce or create an isometric drawing. It's more reliable and comfortable in using this command because you can simply navigate or toggle-up from isoplane right, left or top.  Using isometric drawing  is one the simplest way  show the perspective of an object  in 3-dimensional state while in 2-dimensional  command. This gives you the idea of how does a design looks like in 3-D, but it only has limited faces and views. Most isometric drawing used to express an orthographic view of a plan, design or even a drawing.

In addition to this, I will also give you some tricks in creating an isometric text, dimensioning and creating a circle in isometric view. Lets first start in creating an object using the "SNAPSTYL" command then follow-up with isometric text.

-First, open Autocad, create new file, then press F8 for Orthographic Projection and F3 for Osnap (Object Snap Tracking) to specify precise location on objects. After that, enter the command "SNAPSTYL" on the command line then press 1 <↵>. There you can see that the crosshair changes from rectangular to isometric snap. It means, it is now ready to create isometric objects. Now you can draw your desired shape or object.


-Then follows the text. Create a text using text command. Type "TEXT" in the command line then enter. (Note: Don't use the command "T" only because it will make an m-text which lacks some properties of  being an isometric text or otherwise you'll have to explode the text itself just to make it text only.) After you've created a text, open the object properties dialog box. There you can see options under text, the options rotation and obliquing. These options controls the direction and the obliquing angle of the text . You can try to explore and you'll find out for yourself. Most commonly used angles are the 30°, 330°, -30°  and -330° because these are the corresponding angles used in isometric drawings.

-Next is the circle or ellipse. To create a circle in isometric view, you will use the ellipse shape. It possess the property of being in isometric or even in rectangular view. Type "EL" (for ellipse shortcut command) then enter. After that, you can see an option in the command line, press "I" for isocircle then enter, click on the desired location for the center of the ellipse, then enter the radius or press <enter> if diameter. You can press F5 to change the direction of the isoplane. That is how you can create a circle in an isometric drawing.

-Finally, dimensioning. To dimension an isometric drawing, first create a text style thru command line or thru dimension style dialog box and named it 30 Degrees, and put 30 on its obliquing angle option. Then, create another one and named it-30 Degrees and put on -30 on its obliquing angle option. Next, create a dimension style in relation with the text styles we've created. Named it 30 Degrees and -30 Degrees respectively. After that, put a dimension on an object. Then type "DIMEDIT" <enter>, type "O" <enter> to change the obliquing angle of the dimension line. Choose the object itself as the reference for its angle. That's it! You have now the steps on making an isometric drawing. Feel free to ask questions.

Example: 


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