AutoCAD® 2010 For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Dangerous Curves Ahead

In This Chapter

• Rounding the curves with circles, arcs, splines, and clouds

• Dabbling in ellipses

• Dunking for donuts

• Making your points

Although straight-line segments predominate in many CAD drawings, even the most humdrum, rectilinear design is likely to have a few curves. And if you're drawing Audi car bodies or Gaudí buildings, your drawings are going to contain a lot of curves! Your drawings should also have a point; in fact, they may have several points, so at the end of this chapter, I fill you in on creating point objects in AutoCAD. But to begin, I show you how to use the following AutoCAD curve-drawing commands:

• CIRCLE: Draws circles. (You were expecting hyperbolic paraboloids, maybe?)

• ARC: Draws circular arcs — arcs with center points and fixed radii, not arcs cut from ellipses, parabolas, or some other complex curve.

• ELLIPSE: Draws ellipses and elliptical arcs.

• SPLINE: Draws smoothly flowing curves of a variety of shapes.

• DONUT: Draws filled-in rings and circles.

• REVCLOUD: Draws freeform "clouds," the most common application of which is to indicate revised areas in the drawing.

(Throwing) Curves

Table 9-1 lists the AutoCAD commands for drawing curvy things. It shows you the tool icons found on the Ribbon, toolbars, and menus, and gives the command name with alias (where one exists) if you like to type. It also tells you where to find or how to enter the commands using both the Ribbon in the 2D Drafting & Annotation workspace and the Draw toolbar and ...