Once you start working with AutoCAD's default materials, you'll soon realize that you don't really have a large selection. What if you need a white stucco material for a wall? Or grass for the lawn, or brushed aluminum, or... well, you get the picture. What you need to do is create your own materials.

submitted: 5 years and 3339 days ago

When working in 3D, it sometimes necessary to change the plane that you are drawing on. For example, if you need to add some detail to the side of a wall, you would want to draw on that plane. It's like taking a sheet of paper up off the floor (WCS) and taping it onto the wall (UCS).

submitted: 5 years and 3339 days ago

For the next few lessons, you should switch to the 3D modeling workspace. Look for the icon in the bottom right of the AutoCAD screen.

submitted: 5 years and 3355 days ago

Working in 3D usually involves the use of solid objects. At times you may need to combine multiple parts into one, or remove sections from a solid. AutoCAD has some commands that make this easy for you. These are the boolean operations as well as some other helpful commands for solids editing.

submitted: 5 years and 3355 days ago

Topics covered in this lesson: revolving objects, bevsurf and revolve.

submitted: 5 years and 3355 days ago

In this lesson you'll create the same chair by drawing lines and then giving them thickness. Think of thickness as the height of the line or how tall it is (like a fence in your yard). This is different from the width of the line that you learned in the polyline lesson. This is a quick, simple way of achieving some degree of 3-D feel. Once again, remember that in some instances, simple concepts may do the job. This is also a good technique for AutoCAD LT users, who don't have the option to draw in true 3-D.

submitted: 5 years and 3360 days ago

The purpose of this lesson is to look further at the EXTRUDE command. As you saw in Lesson 3-7, it can be used to create a 3D solid from a closed 2D shape. Two other ways you can extrude (which you may have seen as options on the command line) are to taper the extrusion and the extrude a shape along a path. If you need to, you can also combine the two options and extrude along a path while tapering the shape.

submitted: 5 years and 3360 days ago

In this lesson, you'll begin using true 3D commands. First you will create a 2D region and then extrude it into a 3D solid. Then you will add 3-D surfaces to the tops of your previous drawing (line thickness) to close the back, sides and seat.

submitted: 5 years and 3360 days ago

In this lesson, you will be drawing two objects. First, you will draw the shape from the isometric exercise (refer to that exercise for dimensions) using the same line command that you have always used. Then you will draw a simple chair using the same method. This exercise is good practice to work on the XYZ co-ordinate system. Wireframe models are the simplest form of true 3D drawings. They can be used for conversion to other programs or other simple uses. Still, this is not a common way of drawing in 3D these days.

submitted: 5 years and 3360 days ago

AutoCAD has a few ways for you to view an object other than the plan view that you have used for your 2-D drawings.
Topics covered in this lesson: vViewports and perspective views.

submitted: 5 years and 3360 days ago