Join Shaun Bryant for an in-depth discussion in this video, Using ISODRAFT with isometric drawings, part of AutoCAD 2017 Essential Training. Sep 08, 2009 If you work in plant industry, then you might need to draw isometric drawings. If you use AutoCAD, you may wish you can do it easily. It’s not a 3D drawing, but 2D drawing by simply change your drawing orientation. You can do it by using snap, then change it’s style to isometric. AutoCAD has a command called ISOPLANE which allows you to easily draw at a 30 degree angle as needed for an isometric drawing. You can switch between the three 'isoplanes' (top, right, left) by using this command or by pressing the F5 key. Command: ISOPLANE.
Simulate an isometric view of a 3D object by aligning objects along three major axes.
A 2D isometric drawing is a flat representation of a 3D isometric projection. This method of drawing provides a fast way to create an isometric view of a simple design. Distances measured along an isometric axis are correct to scale, but because you are drawing in 2D, you cannot expect to extract other 3D distances and areas, display objects from different viewpoints, or remove hidden lines automatically.
By using the ISODRAFT command, several system variables and settings are automatically changed to values that facilitate isometric angles. The standard isometric planes, called isoplanes, are as follows:
- Right. Aligns snap and grid along 30- and 90-degree axes.
- Left. Aligns snap and grid along 90- and 150-degree axes.
- Top. Aligns snap and grid along 30- and 150-degree axes.
Choosing one of the three isoplanes automatically causes the crosshairs cursor, and precision drawing and tracking tools to be aligned along the corresponding isometric axes. Therefore, you can draw the top plane, switch to the left plane to draw a side, and switch to the right plane to complete the drawing.
You can use the Isometric Drafting tool on the status bar to select the desired isoplane. Alternatively, you can press F5 or Ctrl+E to cycles through the isoplanes.
The following commands and features are the most commonly used ones to maintain precision in isometric drawings:
- Polar tracking and direct distance entry
- Object snaps and grid snaps
- Object snap tracking
- Move and Copy
- Trim and Extend
Isometric Circles, Arcs, and Fillets
When drawing on isometric planes, use ellipses to represent circles. The easiest way to draw an ellipse with the correct shape is to use the Isocircle option of the ELLIPSE command. The Isocircle option is available only when an isometric plane is active, which is controlled by the ISODRAFT command or the SNAPSTYL system variable.
Use isocircles for arcs, fillets, and any other radial curve, trimming and extending them to other edges. Isocircles correctly represent cylinders or holes that are parallel to an isometric axis, and their silhouette edges are always parallel to an isometric axis
Isometric Grid and Grid Snap
When you switch from orthographic to isometric drawing, the grid and grid snap will change from a rectangular pattern to a diamond pattern corresponding to the isometric angles. In addition, the grid lines will change to grid dots, and the grid and grid snap distances will also be adjusted. When you turn off isometric drawing, your grid settings will be restored.
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2d Isometric Autocad
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Learn everything you need to know to create precise 2D and 3D drawings with AutoCAD 2017. These tutorials provide AutoCAD beginners (and pros who want to learn more) with the skills required to use AutoCAD 2017 effectively in any industry—architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, or product design.
Autodesk Certified Instructor Shaun Bryant reviews the user interface and leads you step-by-step through all of AutoCAD's tools, menus, and features. Learn how to create and modify geometry, layers, blocks, dimensions, and layouts. Find out how to draw more accurately with AutoCAD's snapping and coordinate model, and add text and annotations that help others understand your drawings. Ready to share your work with others? Discover how to output your drawings in a variety of formats. Even experienced AutoCAD pros can find something new to learn.Skills covered in this course
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- [Voiceover] We're staying in the 06_DrawingAccurately.dwg file, and you can see all the things we've done previously there on the lefthand side of the screen. I've left myself a little bit of space over here because we're going to look at now isometric drawing and the iso snap tool. Now, when you're working in a 2D drawing environment and you want to give a 3D representation of something but in 2D, you would normally draft in isometric utilizing verticals and angles of 30 and 60 degrees. AutoCAD allows you to do that and gives you some really nice drafting settings to do it as well. Now, if we go down to the status bar here, what I want you to do is I want you to switch off object snaps. You don't actually need them. So they can go off. So your O snaps go off. Now what we're going to do, we're going to go over to snap here, click on the flyout, and go to snap settings. We're then going to switch on isometric snap. That's the first thing we're going to do. And you'll notice that the…
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