AutoCAD tutorials for Beginners – Creating Arrays, Part 3
Here is part three of our
AutoCAD tutorials for beginners on
creating arrays. You’ll remember from our previous articles that an
array is a collection of geometry. In SOLIDWORKS you call this entity a
“pattern”. AutoCAD was the first to introduce this algorithm, and in
AutoCAD they are grouped into Polar Arrays (these are circular arrays),
Rectangular Arrays (these are linear arrays), as well as Path Arrays,
where you pattern an entity across a path that you define, like a
spline, polygon etc. That’s what I’ll be showing you in this article.
In our last two articles I wrote about how to set up the parameters
of your array, defining the base point, editing the source object,
editing and exiting the array editing mode, how to create and modify
circular array, and how to create and modify a rectangular array.
Let’s talk about creating and editing a Path Array now. The first job
you have is to create a path. We can use a more complex type of
geometry with the path array. Try creating a polyline, and place a
couple points. Then, right click and select Arc; this changes your
drawing tool to the arc tool. Create an arc with a couple clicks, then
right-click and go back to the polyline tool. Place a few more line
points and when you’re ready, press Escape on your keyboard to exit the
polyline tool.
Next, create an object to pattern. I’ll create a circle whose center
point is snapped to the end point of my polyline. We’re ready to
activate the path array tool now! Choose it from the array submenu.
First step is to select the object or objects to pattern. You’ll see the
prompt in the command bar. It’ll state: ARRAYPATH Select objects:
(isn’t that nice of AutoCAD, to tell us what to do like this? In newer
CAD software, there is no command prompt, but you’ll still see
instructions regarding what your next step should be, in the status bar
at the bottom of the screen of your software). So, I’ll select the
circle, and then right-click in blank space in the graphic area to
finish the selection. Now we’re prompted to select a path. The command
prompt tells us: ARRAYPATH Select path curve. Select the complex line
you just created with the polyline and arc tools. And presto, your
circle is patterned the whole way along the path. So, in just a few
simple clicks you’ve created some pretty complex geometry.
After this, you can use the handles in the graphic area or the edit
array fields at the top of the graphic area to make some changes to your
path array. You can adjust how many items appear in the array, how far
apart they are, make the array associative or not. When you’re done,
click Close Array. To edit the array, just click on it in the drawing
area. We’ll talk more about editing your path array in our next article.
This concludes the third of our
AutoCAD tutorials for beginners about creating and editing arrays in AutoCAD. If you’re interested in working with AutoCAD, please try our
AutoCAD tutorials; you can see several sample videos
at our youtube channel, videotutorials2.
Thanks! Rosanna D, VTN -
www.video-tutorials.net
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