3D Snap

[AlexNeale]

Hi guys,

 

I was hoping one of you might be able to help me. I am working on Autocad 2012, and am having a problem drawing on faces under another face, whilst working on 3d objects. I have the view set to 2d wireframe, and can select objects underneath whilst not drawing/modifying anything, however as soon as i try to draw it just selects the uppermost face to draw on.

 

Is there a button to allow me to snap to different layers whilst drawing?

 

Thanks!

[Tiger]

Place your UCS on the face that you need to draw on - command UCS and follow the prompts.

[AlexNeale]

Everyone else at work using the same version as myself, can lock onto background layers without setting the layer each time they wish to draw, is there not a button that turns this on or off?

 

edit: I should add thank you for your solution it did work, it is just more long winded than I was hoping for!

[Tiger]

I suspect you come from Photoshop? :wink:

 

Layers there is not the same as layers in AutoCAD I suspect, from what I have read over the years here.

 

UCS is the way to go to get your stuff at the correct place in the model, you'll soon get the hang of it. You can save UCSs too so you can return to commonly used ones.

[AlexNeale]

I have included a photo of the problem described above, I am sure what Tiger says is true, however there are numerous people at my office who are not having this problem.

As you can see from the image I can't snap to anything below the initial surface, is there a way to fix this? I presume it is a setting of the UCS I have accidentally set, but I've only been drawing in 3D for a couple of weeks so my knowledge is poor at best!

[rkent]

Try setting CULLINGOBJ and CULLINGOBJSELECTION to zero. No guarantees.

[eldon]

Isn't there a Snap that sets Z to zero

[AlexNeale]

Try setting CULLINGOBJ and CULLINGOBJSELECTION to zero. No guarantees.

 

I tried setting both of those to 0, but no luck, same as before. Thanks for trying though!

 

Eldon, I have no idea if there is or not, or even if that would help, I wish I knew!

[Dadgad]

Type OPTIONS at the commandline > ENTER

in your OPTIONS DIALOG BOX select the DRAFTING tab, and check your object snap options.

Compare the settings of one of your coworkers with your own. I believe that you may have the yellow highlighted option checked, and that unchecking it may solve your problem, enabling you to snap to negative z values.

 

OSNAPZ has two settings, I believe the value you want is 0.

[AlexNeale]

Dadgad you're an absolute star!

 

Worked a dream.

 

Thanks buddy!

[Dadgad]

Glad to help. When you find yourself with some spare time, go through those tabs in the OPTIONS dialog, and give some thought to the various settings available.

Right hand clicks is a powerful area.

If you are just tracing in 2D set your OSNAP option to set Z value to current.

Adaptive degradation sounds like a good title for Charlie Sheen's next sitcom, or the first course at the bootcamp through which he mentors his goddesses, but it is much more than that on the SYSTEM tab in the 3D Performance Settings.

Explore the possibilities.

So much to learn, so many ways to get there.

[AlexNeale]

It was this very fiddling you speak of that led to this problem, but now I've found this website and all you helpful folk I can fiddle in the confidence that someone will help me... or try to help me fix it!

 

Thanks again everyone who helped.

[Dadgad]

It is probably a good idea to keep a pad of paper handy, and keep track of any changes you make, just in case you find something has changed for the worse. But by all means, if you don't fiddle, you don't learn. Be open to improvement.

 

if you are not familiar with it, you might enjoy the LAYERS 2 toolbar. LAYERWALK is a really helpful command, one of a few which you will find there. It lets you quickly flip through your layers, to see what is on them. You can just scroll down the list of layers using your keyboard arrows.

the viewbase command is also spectacular, not on layers2, but on the ribbon.

[AlexNeale]

I currently use the ribbon that autocad 2012 comes with but am quickly beginning to hate it. Do experienced users tend to use the autocad 2008 layout and before of easy to access toolbars?

 

Sorry for so many questions!

 

I will go and try the layers 2 command shortly. Thanks again!

[Dadgad]

It was this very fiddling you speak of that led to this problem, but now I've found this website and all you helpful folk I can fiddle in the confidence that someone will help me... or try to help me fix it!

 

Thanks again everyone who helped.

 

If you want to try using the toolbars instead of the ribbon, just type RIBBONCLOSE at the commandline, and you can set up different workspaces using the toolbar configurations that suit you.

 

In all fairness, the same can be done to customize the ribbon. When I took my basic training in 2009, the DASHBOARD was the new thing. I prefer using the oldstyle toolbars, but plenty of people choose to use the ribbon.

Totally your decision, there is no right answer for everybody. The ribbon puts your controls closer together which reduces mouse mileage, but it takes up a very substantial bit of real estate when fully opened. Of course it can also be run collapsed, but standing by too.

My guess is that a majority of those who were weaned on autocad using the toolbars still prefer them. You don't have to choose. You can set up different workspace environments for different tasks, and some of those may be ribboned, and some old school with toolbars. In a pinch your ribbon can be accessed by the command RIBBONOPEN, and closed as mentioned previously.

[Tiger]

Glad that you got your problem sorted

 

I am one of those that "grew up" on toolbars but mostly I typed shortcuts for all commands. I also did not like the Ribbon at the start but once I made the effort to go through it and find the logic behind it, it made sense to me pretty quickly. As Dadgad said, it takes up space though - when I am not in the office with two 24" screens but instead on just the laptop screen I have them collapsed all the way down.

 

There is no right or wrong, just how You like it.