Subtitles of the Movie

In this exercise, we're going to look at Point Styles, now Point Styles are classed as Reference Points on a drawing and their drawn by using the Point Command and it's literally that word, P-O-I-N-T, point because you're specifying a point that you're going to use as a reference. They normally classed as Reference Points and the Object Snap that they use is called Node, N-O-D-E. Now I've done a Zoom Extents here on the drawing so that one, you can see how small the Title Block is in comparison to the office. But secondly if you look in the top left corner of the office here you will see that there is a point there that is a Node Snap or AutoCAD Point. If I just deselect it by pressing escape and hover over it and highlight you can see that AutoCAD tells us it's a point and I've specifically put those on a layer called Nodes, because that's what they are, they are Nodes that I click to as Reference Points. I also call them Nodes because they utilize the Node Snap. So I've got one point already on the drawing specifying the top left internal corner of the office. So it tells me what layer their own which is Nodes. So let's get into good camp practice here, let's go up to our Layer Pull-Down here on our Layers Panel in the Home tab on the Ribbon there and select Nodes as our current layer, because we're going to be placing Nodes on the drawing. Now at the moment we have that one Node or Reference Point in the top left corner of the office, I need to put some onto my TITLEBLOCK. Now the good thing about these points or Node Snaps as their called is they can be utilized for Reference Points for text, for blocks, for Objects and they make life so much easier because their a Fixed Point with a known Object Snap and they can go on a separate layer which can then be frozen off later when you don't need to see them. So how do I set up a Point Style? At the moment if you look at our point here its using a circle with a diagonal cross through it. Now the AutoCAD default is a small dot that you cannot see if you put an object on top of that. So how do I change to a Point Style that I know will be seen? I go to the Menu Browser which is on the A here, so I click on the Down Arrow on the A in the corner there and I'm back to all my original AutoCAD pull-down menus, they're all on the Menu Browser now in 2009 and what I need to go to is Format and you'll notice on the Format Menu there, there is a Point Style Option. It specifies the display, style and size of Point Objects. It also gives you the keyboard entry there. I could actually just type DDP Type which is, Point Type. So I click on Point Style and my Point Style Dialog Box appears. You'll notice the highlighted one, the black one here with the black background is my current Point Style. Here the little dot that is the default AutoCAD Point Style, which you cannot see if you put objects on top of it. So select a Point Style that you are happy with. I'm going to change my Point Style to this cross here like so. Now make sure you make a note of what is at the bottom of the dialog box here, Point Size at the moment is 5 percent set size, relative to screen. So no matter how much Zoom you're point if the layer is on or thawed out will always be 5 percent of the screen size. If you set the size in absolute units as in 5 units, in this case millimeters because we're working in a millimeters drawing, they will become a fine night, 5 millimeters in size, which means when you Zoom in and out, they'll either get bigger or smaller and if you Zoom out too far you won't be able to see them. It's always a good CAD practice to set the size relative to screen. Because then their always visible and I very rarely change it from the 5 percent size there. So I've changed my Point Style there, when I click on OK watch the point in the top left corner of the office. It updates to a cross that it is 5 percent of the screen size, its still there as you can see. If I click on it, there's the grip, it is still available, I hit Escape to deselect it. So now I need to place some of these points onto my TITLEBLOCK. So let's Zoom in on my TITLEBLOCK, now there's a lovely Zoom Command that is available to you, called Zoom Object. We have a rectangle that is the outer edge as you can see there of our TITLEBLOCK, our Polyline that we didn't Explode. So if I go to the Utilities Panel here and click on the Down Arrow and then select here from the Zoom Pull-Down, I've got Zoom Object just here. So I click on Zoom Object and it prompts me to select the object. I click on the Rectangle and I press Enter, Zooms me into the Extents of that object, nice and quick. Always use your Zoom Command to your advantage, they get you into the drawing quicker, they get you out of the drawing quicker. I now need to place my two points onto the two ends of the line that I've got left over here. This one here. The reason I'm doing that is they will then act as Object Snaps for the text that I place on the drawing. So let's look at that now and let's place those two items, those two points. How do I place them? I go to the Home tab here and I look at my Draw Panel here, notice here I've got ARCs, there's all my different ARCs, notice there I've got circles, there's all my different circles and here I've got ellipses. So where do I find the Point Command? Well it's very simple; you have to go back to your Menu Browser here. If I go to Menu browser and go draw and just scroll down a little bit there is point. If I click on Point there I then get the sub-menu, prompting me for either single point or multiple point. I want multiple point, so I click on Multiple Point, brings me into the drawing area and now I use my Object Snaps, my End Point Snap, so I hover over the End Point of this line here, there's my End Point Snap, left click, and there's my point. I go to this end here there's my End Point Snap, left click and there's my other point on the end. Now if I now right click or hit Enter to escape watch what happens. It tells me it's an invalid point, which means its still waiting for an input for another point. Its one of the only AutoCAD Commands that you actually physically have to hit escape and Cancel, so press Escape and that will bring you out of the Point Command, Enter or the right hand mouse click will not work in this case. Now you'll notice I've placed those on the NODES Layer here, purely from the view point I can then isolate them by way of freezing them, thawing them, switching them on and off and so on. We do not need that line anymore, so I'm going to go to erase here on the Modify Panel, click on the Line itself and press Enter to finish off the Arrays Command. So that now shows you how to use Point Styles on a drawing and set them up by way of Object Snaps which is what we're going to start covering as we work through the next few exercises.