AutoCAD 3D Editing Basics: Tuesday Tips With Frank

[The AutoCAD Blog]

In my last Tuesday Tip, I introduced you to some handy tools for turning your 2D shapes into 3D solids. Today, I’m going to take you just a little further with AutoCAD 3D editing and show you how easy it is to turn your extruded (or press/pulled) objects into more complex structures.

To illustrate these tools better, I will use the same simple geometry I created last time: a box and a cylinder (extruded from a 2D rectangle and a circle). However, for today’s post, I’ve moved the cylinder to the center of the box and made it a little taller.

The subjects today are the 3D editing tools, Union, Subtract, and Intersect. They can be found in either the 3D Modeling workspace or the 3D Basics workspace. I’ll be demonstrating these tools via the 3D Basics workspace, as it’s a bit cleaner and easier to see the icons.

Union

The first tool out of the box is Union. With this command, you don’t have to worry about what order you select things (more about that with the next tool). As you’ll see in the animation below, I take advantage of this by using a crossing window selection box. Quite simply, the UNION command will combine all the selected 3D solids into a single solid object. So, I no longer have a box and a cylinder, but now I have a box with some kind of a boss on top.

Please keep in mind that my examples are simply for visualization purposes and do not depict anything useful.

Subtract

On to the second tool — the Subtract command. In this animation, you’ll notice I pause for the extended tooltip when selecting the subtract icon. This is a reminder to use these, especially in the 3D workspaces, as they give you a detailed (and sometimes animated) illustration of how the tool works.

You’ll see that its workflow is to select the object(s) you want to keep, hit enter, and then select the object(s) to subtract. In this case, I’m keeping the box and using the cylinder to subtract, thus creating a hole in the box. You may also notice that I’ve moved the Command Line into frame and used F2 to expand it into the text window. I did so because, for some reason, the prompts for what to select (the kept object vs the subtraction object) are not very clear—just something for you to keep in mind.

Bonus Tip: I’m using the Orbit command at the end to show the hole better. Just hold down your Shift key, press down the scroll wheel on your mouse, and just move the mouse around! It’s a fast way to visualize your 3D work.

Intersect

The third and final tool for the day is the Intersect command. I stayed with my box and cylinder solids, but using intersect on them doesn’t do Intersect justice. It just creates a smaller cylinder. However, the extended tooltip has a terrific visual example, as shown below.

Both shapes began as 2D objects that were extruded into 3D solids. Intersect operates just as you would expect. It takes the overlapping regions of multiple 3D solids and turns the overlap into a new solid.

Much like the Union command, you don’t have to worry about the order of your object selection. In my example animation below, I selected the box and cylinder individually, but I could have also used a crossing window as I did with Union.

Summing Up

As you can see, these tools are not too terribly difficult to use, but they’re extremely powerful, especially when used together. Hopefully, even with my incredibly simple examples, you’ve been inspired to visualize how they can bring your seemingly complex project to fruition.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with keeping one foot in your familiar 2D world, but don’t be afraid to put the other into 3D. Poke around some while you’re there. Expand the Ribbon Panel and see what other tools are available in the Additional Tools area. Explore both 3D workspaces. You’ll find familiar tools (3D versions of Chamfer and Fillet) and some new ones as well.

And by all means, don’t forget to hover over them to see their Extended Tooltip. It’s a terrific method for getting a feel for how a tool works before you find a need to use it.

More Tuesday Tips

Check out our whole Tuesday Tips series for ideas on how to make AutoCAD work for you.

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