Chapter 3. Viewing in 3D
In this chapter, I immerse you into the world of 3D in AutoCAD as I explain how to navigate and view 3D models. AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT offer a number of ways to view 3D models. These include basic preset views as well as more sophisticated viewing tools, such as orbit and walk, which are available only in AutoCAD. After you have a model displayed the way you want, you can apply a visual style or a shade mode to make the objects appear hidden or shaded, respectively, on-screen.
Expressing Your Point of View
AutoCAD offers what seems like an endless number of ways to view a 3D model, while AutoCAD LT offers a basic set of 3D navigation tools for viewing a 3D model. I cover all the available 3D navigation tools in this section.
Using preset views
Both AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT offer some standard preset views that can help you view different sides of a 3D model quickly. The presets include being able to view a 3D model from the top, left, and southeast. If the presets don't offer what you need, you can use the Viewpoint Presets dialog box to get a little more control over the viewpoint.
Specifying a standard view preset
AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT have a total of ten preset views. Six of these preset views are parallel (or orthographic) to the current UCS — top, bottom, left, right, front, and back — and four are isometric views — southwest (SW) isometric, southeast (SE) isometric, northeast (NE) isometric, and northwest (NW) isometric. The presets are available in several ...
Get AutoCAD® 2009 & AutoCAD LT® 2009 All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies® now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
