- [Instructor] We're starting a new chapter now
in our AutoCAD essential training course.
And we're going to take a look at navigating in your drawings.
Now, in this particular video, we're going to be looking
at how we use a thing called the ViewCube
and a thing called the navigation bar.
And they're both over on the right hand side
of the drawing area of the screen in AutoCAD.
Before we start, you need to download a particular drawing
for this particular video, it's called simple 3D object.DWG.
And all you got to do is open that drawing up in AutoCAD
once you've downloaded it from the library.
When you first open up the drawing,
you'll see it looks like a rectangular shape with a circle
and we are in the model tab.
And I must stress that we need to stay
in the model tab for this particular video.
Now over on the right hand side of the screen
you can see there's our ViewCube.
When I hover over it it activates.
There's our navigation bar
when I hover over it, it activates.
Now you probably don't have this little icon here
on your navigation bar.
I use a lot of 3D connection technology
and that's for a space mouse when I'm working in 3D
which at the moment isn't connected to my computer,
the drivers are there, but it's not on my computer.
Okay, so let's have a look at the ViewCube first.
Now, AutoCAD has a whole load of preset 3D views.
And as this drawing quite rightly says,
it's a simple 3D object that we're working with.
So if I go and hover over the ViewCube like so,
and click on this corner here like that,
can you see, it takes me into a 3D view,
which is the southwest isometric view.
How do I know that that's the southwest isometric?
Because over here on the left hand side
I've got my view controls.
If I click there, it tells me
that I'm in the southwest isometric view
and I'm using a parallel view.
If I change that to perspective,
it'll change slightly
and it looks like I'm actually looking through a camera lens
at it now.
So what I can do is I can click there again
and convert that back to parallel.
And you'll see that the colors change sometimes as well
when you're working in 3D
which is always quite interesting.
And what you'll find when you're working in 3D
different views have different background colors and so on.
Now at the moment,
it's in what they call wire frame visual style.
If I go up here to the ViewControl
and click here and go to Conceptual,
it actually looks a bit more like a 3D object.
You'll also get this possibly popping up
about 3D display performance.
Depends on your graphics card
and the amount of power your machine has.
Now, the ViewCube is great because I can jump in and out
of any of the preset AutoCAD views.
So I can look at it from the left hand side.
And if I click on this arrow here,
I can look at it from the front, keep clicking on the arrow,
right hand view, back view and so on.
If I go here, I can look at it from the top again
which is where we were when we started.
But you'll notice the ViewCube's upside down.
Use these arrows here, just rotate round.
Remember, it is a 3D object that you're working with.
So you have to keep clicking
to get back to that particular view like so.
So that's how we work with the ViewCube.
Now, something you can do as well, which is quite nice,
is let's say I went to that southwest isometric again
by clicking on the corner there like that.
If I hover over the ViewCube now,
can you see there's a little home option?
If I click on that home option, can you see that?
It takes me to the parallel view
with the gray background that we had a moment ago.
If I go back over here, you see it says custom view.
I can switch that back to southwest asymmetric.
And I also want that to be back in the parallel view
like I had before.
So if I want that to be my home view
let's say I zoom in or zoom out
using the wheel on the mouse and get it centralized
on the screen a bit,
I can just right click over the ViewCube.
And I can set this current view as my home view.
So I click there now, and that is now the home view.
So if I go to the top view like before
let's use those arrows to rotate round,
and then I click on home here.
Can you see, it goes back to that isometric view
with the settings in the view controls that I set as well.
So the ViewCube is very useful,
sometimes though it might not be switched on.
So just type ViewCube like so
and you've got display ViewCube in 2D
and display ViewCube in 3D.
That is a simple toggle on, off.
So if you set that variable to one, the ViewCube is on.
If you set that variable to zero, the ViewCube is off.
So it's either of these.
So if I go display ViewCube in 2D,
can you see it's on at the moment?
So if I set that to off in essence making it zero,
the ViewCube will turn off in 2D.
I'm not in 2D right now, I'm in 3D.
So what I need to do now is do ViewCube again,
and let's select the 3D one and turn it off there as well.
And now it's off and you'll see the navigation bar,
the other bar has moved up the screen there
on the right to the top right corner.
So now if I type ViewCube again, like so,
and go to the 3D setting and say that I want it on, like so,
it comes back.
And then if I go to say the top view here like that
and just rotate round, we're now in a 2D view.
So what I can do now is make sure
that we are in something like 2D wire frames.
Let's go over here, set this to 2D wire frame
and you'll see the ViewCube disappears
because we're now in a 2D view in AutoCAD.
So I need to type ViewCube again like so.
And if you just type ViewCube
these pop up automatically on the suggestion menu.
There's the 2D option
and I'll say that I want that on again, press Enter.
There's my ViewCube again, in a 2D view.
Now, the other thing that you've got
in this particular setting is your navigation bar.
Now your navigation bar has various tools available.
So pan, if I click on pan and come into the drawing area
I get a little hand, left click and hold.
I can pan around in the drawing.
Go back over here to zoom, click on the fly out there.
I've got all the different zoom options.
So if I did zoom extends, for example,
that zooms to the extent of the visible drawn objects.
If I zoom, let's say a zoom window
and I zoom in on this area here, click, drag, and click,
it zooms into that area within the window.
Now it's kind of zoomed in a little bit too far there.
So I'll just roll back on the wheel
a couple of notches, for example.
And what I can also do is I can just do a zoom
all a zoom previous which is my previous view there
and so on.
So I can just move around
and do zoom extends again like that.
Or I can just use the mouse by rolling back on the wheel
to zoom out or up on the wheel to zoom in.
So there's various tools available
on the navigation bar as well.
This one's quite useful when you're working in 3D.
If I click on the fly out there
and I want to do a free orbit, for example.
That then allows me to click and hold and drag
with the mouse.
And as you can see, I can spin on that pivot
which is the little globe in the middle.
If I click on one of these though
I can pivot around and can you see, I'm pivoting around
in the circle off of one of the quadrant circles there.
And then you can see the ViewCube is obviously joining in
as you can see, so I can right click and exit that.
But before I exit, you can see I can settle my view settings
on the right click shortcut menu as well.
So I'll just exit that orbit.
I can go back to the top view on the ViewCube like that,
quick and easy.
Now there are other tools available as well.
You've also got here, you'll notice your navigation wheels.
So if I go for the full navigation wheel and come in here,
I can click and hold on orbit like that and release.
I can zoom like that moving up and down.
It's a bit fast.
Be careful with that one.
I can also rewind and go back with views
that I've used previously, which is quite useful, actually.
And you'll notice there, can you see,
it says the empty thumbnails are added
to the rewind history as I go back
which is really rather clever.
I can also pan, just pan around like that using the wheel.
And then when I don't want the wheel anymore,
I just click on the little cross there like so.
Navigation bar, again, can be turned on and off.
So if I type NAVBAR like so, you've got NAVBAR display.
Click there, and can you see it set to one?
Which means it's on.
If I sit that to zero it's off.
So if I type NAVBAR again, like so,
and go to NAVBAR display, set it to one again.
And the NAVBAR's back.
It's that quick and easy.
Now those settings are really quick and easy to remember.
If you remember ViewCube or NAVBAR,
that's all you've got to type in your dynamic input.
The settings to turn them on and off
come up on the suggestion menu very quick and easily
but they're also quick and easy to pick out.
So it's things like, if you type ViewCube,
you've obviously got the ViewCube display either on or off.
And you've got the NAVBAR.
If you type NAVBAR and NAVBAR display,
and it's either one or zero.
So those are your ViewCube and your NAVBAR in AutoCAD.
I don't want to go into too much depth there.
I'd rather you got used to those yourself
and worked out your own little workflows and processes
to work with the ViewCube and the NAVBAR
in your AutoCAD drawings.