2023-2024

AutoCAD
Dr. Yves Mansour

Mechanical
Department
SEM 5
The Student Committee is a group of students dedicated
to working for the student body. As the book committee,
our job is to provide for the students all the materials
they need in a specific semester, starting from the
reference books till the exams of the previous years with
their solutions, and most importantly the course notes of
each course, whether they are slides or handwritten by
the teacher of the course or typed notes based on last
year’s lectures. Every single part of the package is
reviewed yearly to add the latest exercises and their
solutions, the latest notions and tips and tricks to ace
the course. And of course, all of this is made in
collaboration with the doctors giving their lectures.

For any questions regarding the contents of the package

don’t hesitate to contact your class delegate.
 Lebanese University
Faculty of Engineering 2
AUTOCAD 1
CHAP1
AutoCAD Environment and Basic
Functions

Yves Mansour

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1 The Environment

1.1 The Drawing Area

The drawing are in AutoCAD is made of a universe of points where each has x, y and z coordinates.
You can actually draw using the coordinate system. For a line, you can define exactly what point on
the drawing area your starting point and your ending point are going to be.
For a 2D design, we will ignore the value of z in the coordinate.

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It is possible to change the background color of your drawing Area.
To change the color and the look of the drawing Area
1 – Right-click in the drawing Area and click on Options

On the Display tab, Click on the Colors icon

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2.1 Object Snap (OSNAP)
OSNAP is a tool that ensures precision while drawing. You use this to help you grab points on
existing objects.
Options that are important to us right now are: Midpoint, Quadrant, and Tangent. You need to
activate them on the list. (Right click on the OSNAP icon to have the list displayed like on the image
above)

Midpoint
Midpoint will help you achieve figures similar to the following.

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To draw the segment BA, we needed to know exactly where the middle of DE was. when Midpoint is
activated, we just have to hover the cursor close to the center of DE after activating the LINE
command for AutoCAD to help us snap the start-point at the center of DE.

Notice the Green triangle indicating the middle of the line.

Quadrant
Quadrant will be essential while working on the following example. You need to be able to hook A, B,
C and D on right points.

Tangent
Tangent will be useful if you have the following to draw

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2.2 Grid
Just for the sake of knowing, Grid displays a series of graph paper style lines that can serve as a
distance of reference.

2.3 Unit
You should know that at the beginning of every project, you need to set the unit in which you will be
drawing. To access it, simply
 Type UNITS
 Hit ENTER

You can use the LENGTH section to set the format for units of measure. For example, if you choose
Engineering and Architectural formats, AutoCAD will assume that each unit represents one inch.
You can as well set the Angle format.

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 Insertion scale helps control the unit of measurement for blocks that are inserted into you drawing. It
is recommended to select Unitless to be able to insert blocks without scaling them to match the
specified units.

3 Drawing a line in AutoCAD.

To draw a line in AutoCAD. Follow the following.
1 – Activate the LINE command with a click on its appropriate icon.

2 – Click anywhere in the drawing area to tell AutoCAD where you want the first point to be
3 – Repeat the previous step after sliding the cursor away from the first point.
4 – Press the ESC key on your keyboard to Cancel the command.
If you have more than a line to draw, you don’t have to start each by starting all over again. You might
have noticed that after step 3, AutoCAD was letting you draw another line considering its beginning
was at the end of the previously drawn line.
If you look at the object below, you will see that it has 3 points.
If we were to draw this (we do not care about dimensions and line inclinations for now), we will
1. Activate the Line command
2. Click to indicate the point 1
3. Click to indicate the point 2
4. Click to indicate the point 3
5. Click on point 1 again to close it
6. Press the ESC key

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3.1 Coordinate system
In AutoCAD, the Drawing Area is composed of a sheet in which every location has the particularity of
having its own coordinate represented by x, y and z.

Since we are going to be solely working in 2D in this series, we can forget about the z component of
the coordinate system.
Looking at the following image, you will notice that each corner of the figure has coordinates

.
We will try creating the previous image using the coordinate system and the command window. It is
simple, the concept will be to use the four points to draw the quadrilateral.
To do that using AutoCAD:
1. Type LINE and Press Enter
2. Type 9,9 and Press Enter

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 3. Type 25,9 and Press Enter
4. Type 20,17 Press Enter
5. Type 14,17 Press Enter
6. Type 9,9 And Press Enter
7. Press Esc
The first step allows activating the LINE command.
The second step allows specifying the starting point of the line and the same goes for next steps.
The last Step allows to Cancel the LINE command.
In AutoCAD stroking Esc (ESCAPE) allows exiting a command.

3.2 Exercise
Use the technique we have just learned to create the following.

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3.3 The ORTHO mode
The ORTHO mode constrains the cursor to horizontal and vertical movement, which helps you draw
straight horizontal and straight vertical line easily.
Every time I need to draw an either vertical or horizontal straight line, I will make sure the ORTHO
mode is activated.
The ORTHO icon is located in the Status Bar

How do you know it is activated or not?

Pay attention to the information box that pops up when you hover over the icon. You can also use
colors to know, Blue ORTHOMODE icon for ON and White ORTHOMODE icon for OFF.

How do you activate the ORTHO mode?

Just click on the icon to toggle it. If it was OFF before your click, it would turn ON and vice versa
Now that we know what ORTHO is and how to operate it, we need to make use of it.

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3.3.1 Example: A vertical line of 50 units of length.
To draw a line with 50 units:
1 – Click on the LINE icon

2 – Click one time in the drawing area (Don’t hold your click)
3 – Activate the ORTHO mode if it is not activated
4 – Move the cursor away from the first point in the direction your want the line to have. Since we are
drawing a vertical line, you can only go either upward or downward
5 – Type 50 on your keyboard and hit ENTER
To draw a horizontal line, just change the direction in step 4 to either left or right.

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3.3.2 Practice exercise
Using what you have just learned, you must be able to complete the following exercise.

I don’t expect you to be able to draw the figure with dimensions; it is only there for information
purpose.

3.3.3 Trigonometric circle

The trigonometric circle goes from 0 degrees to 360 degrees. One lap of the circle is 360 and 360
degrees on is equivalent to zero degrees on the circle.
Here is what the circle looks like

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Page 14 of 68
 The mastery of the concept of angles is crucial to your ability do get things done in AutoCAD. You
have to be capable of quickly deducing what the value of an angle is from zero.
On the images above you will notice the trigonometric circle with angles counted respectively from the
positive side (anticlockwise) and from the negative side (clockwise)
Notice -90 degrees = 270 degrees, 22.5 degrees = -337.5 degrees… and all other similarities
One of the most important information to have in mind is that AutoCAD always starts counting angle
from zero. You will see why remembering this is important when you read further below.

3.4 Angles and lines in AutoCAD

To draw a line in AutoCAD you can use the command line length<Angle.
Caution! Enable Dynamic input before trying this

3.4.1.1 Example 1
To draw the line of 150 units, you will have to
1. Activate the LINE command
2. Click in the drawing Area to specify the start point
3. Type 150<30 and Hit ENTER
4. Press ESC
where 150 is the length of the line and 30 is the angle the line makes with zero.
If I had written 150<-330 at step 2, it will give the same result.

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3.4.1.2 Example 2
What if the figure were disposed of like this? How would you draw that 150 units line?

To draw the line of 150 units, you will have to

1. Activate the LINE command
2. Click in the drawing Area to specify the start point
3. Type 150<150 and Hit ENTER
4. Press ESC
where the first 150 is the length and the second 150 is the angle. Why 150 for Angle? Because
AutoCAD count angle from the zero angle, So to find the angle from zero, we needed to do 180-

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 30=150.

3.4.1.3 Example 3
How about the following case

To draw the line of 150 units, you will have to

1. Activate the LINE command
2. Click in the drawing Area to specify the start point
3. Type 150<210 and Hit ENTER
4. Press ESC
To find 220 we made 180+30.
Remember the flat angle is 180 degrees and we AutoCAD counts from zero.

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3.4.1.4 Example 4
And this case

To draw the line of 150 units, you will have to

1. Activate the LINE command
2. Click in the drawing Area to specify the start point
3. Type 150<-30 and Hit ENTER
4. Press ESC

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4 Circles in AutoCAD
The CIRCLE command is an important and a frequently used command, you can judge by its location
and its size.

Drawing circles in AutoCAD

Drawing an ordinary circle is quite easy in AutoCAD. All you have to do is

1. Click on the CIRCLE icon (shown on the image above)
2. Specify the center of the circle with a click in the drawing area
3. Specify the radius of the circle with another click

Example

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 Drawing the circle above, we will
1. Activate the CIRCLE command
2. Specify the center of the circle
3. Type 30 and hit ENTER
as simple as that.
Sometimes the information you have about the circle you want to draw is neither the center of it nor
its radius. This is where comes other option of the CIRCLE command.

Center Diameter
If you are using this option to draw a circle, you will simply need to repeat what we did earlier with the
only different that at step 3, you will have to enter the value of the Diameter of the circle instead of
entering the value of radius.

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 2 points
This option helps you draw a circle using two endpoints, where the 2 points will form the diameter of
the circle.
To use this
1. Activate the CIRCLE command
2. Select the first point
3. Select the second point

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3 points
This works absolutely like the preceding one at the difference that instead of 2 points you have to
indicate 3 points.

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Tan Tan Radius
This one uses 2 tangents and a radius to draw the circle.

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 Tan Tan Tan

 The tan tan tan uses 3 tangents to draw the circle.

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5 RECTANG (Command)
Creates a rectangular polyline.

Summary
Creates a rectangular polyline from the specified the rectangle parameters (length, width, rotation)
and type of corners (fillet, chamfer, or square).

List of Prompts
The following prompts are displayed.
Current settings: Rotation = 0
Specify first corner point or [Chamfer/Elevation/Fillet/Thickness/Width]: Specify a point or enter an option

First Corner Point

Specifies a corner point of the rectangle.

Other Corner Point

Creates a rectangle using the specified points as diagonally opposite corners.

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 Lebanese University
Faculty of Engineering 2
AUTOCAD 1
CHAP2
Modifying Functions

Yves Mansour

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1 Trim in AutoCAD

This command helps trim objects to meet the edge of other objects. If I have two lines
that cross each other and want to trim one/both at the point where they intersect, Trim
will help me do it.

the last image shows the final result.

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To Trim in AutoCAD
 Click on the TRIM icon
 Select objects that intersect each other and hit ENTER
 Select the part (or parts) to be removed

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Page 29 of 68
2 EXTEND in AutoCAD

The Extend command is not much used compared to the Trim command but can be very helpful at
time. It helps extend object(s) to meet the edges of other objects. It is used the same way Trim is
used.

one of the cases where this command is helpful is the following.

Let suppose being in the following position. We need to extend the line for it to meet the vertical bar,
but we do not know the angle it makes with the horizontal. If not because of the Extend command, it
will require a lot of effort to have this right.

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Using the Extend command, we can easily extend the line and get the following.
We have just learned how to Trim and Extend in AutoCAD,
Exercise .

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3 Chamfer and Fillet

Chamfer and Fillet are two of the most used tools in the Modify ribbon.

3.1 Chamfer in AutoCAD

To use the Chamfer command

Click on the Chamfer icon
 Type D and Press Enter
 Specify the first chamfer distance and Press Enter
 Specify the second chamfer distance and Press Enter
 Select the first line
 Select the second line
On the image below the first distance is 20, and the second distance is 30.

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3.2 Fillet in AutoCAD

To use the Fillet command

 Click on the fillet command icon
 Type R and Press Enter
 Specify the fillet Radius and Press Enter
 Select the first line
 Select the second line
 The image below shows an example of Fillet with R=20.

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3.3 Move an object in AutoCAD

The MOVE command will help change the location of an object in the drawing area.

To use the MOVE command

 Select the object to move (or objects to move)

 Click on the icon shown on the image above
 Select the base point with a click (don’t hold)
 Move and drop

Notice that when Moving an object, you can activate the ORTHO mode and use the command area
to enter the exact distance you want to move the object with. The ORTHO mode will ensure you
are moving in a straight line.

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Example
Let’s Move the 6 circles below to the right

Step 1
Activate the ORTHO mode to constrains the cursor movement orthogonally
Step 2
Select circles

Step 3
Click on the MOVE icon
Step 4
Select the base point

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Step 5
Move your cursor to the right, leave the mouse in that position and Enter 55 and Hit
Enter

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Final figure

3.4 Copy an object in AutoCAD

The COPY command works similarly to the Move command with the only difference that it leaves
a copy of the original object in its position.

It works as it would in other windows application, and feel free to use the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to
copy and paste objects in AutoCAD.

To copy Objects in AutoCAD you need to select them first, and you can as well use the technique we
used above to place the copy at a certain distance and angle from the original item.

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4 Exercise

4.1 Exercise1

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4.2 Exercise2

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 Lebanese University
Faculty of Engineering 2
AUTOCAD 1
CHAP3
Modifying Functions 2

Yves Mansour

Page 40 of 68
1 Move an object in AutoCAD
The MOVE command will help change the location of an object in the drawing area.

To use the MOVE command

1. Select the object to move (or objects to move)
2. Click on the icon shown on the image above
3. Select the base point with a click (don’t hold)
4. Move and drop

Notice that when Moving an object, you can activate the ORTHO mode and use the command area to
enter the exact distance you want to move the object with. The ORTHO mode will ensure you are
moving in a straight line.

Example

Let’s Move the 6 circles below to the right

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 Step 1

Activate the ORTHO mode to constrains the cursor movement orthogonally

Step 2

Select circles

Step 3

Click on the MOVE icon

Step 4

Select the base point

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 Step 5

Move your cursor to the right, leave the mouse in that position and Enter 55 and Hit Enter

Final figure

The ARRAYRECT will help distribute identical objects in rows and column, The ARRAYPOLAR will
help distribute objects in a circular pattern around a center point and the ARRAYPATH will help
distribute objects along a path.

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2 Arrays in AutoCAD

2.1 Polar
The Polar Array is the most used of these and the command corresponding to it is ARRAYPOLAR (If
you type ARRAYPOLAR and hit ENTER it will activate this command)

How would this help you?

This command will help you get the following done.

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Page 45 of 68
 Notice how nicely, we copied the reference object and displaced copies around the circle, this is what
the Polar array will help you do.

How do you use the ARRAYPOLAR?

Before the use of this command, you will need you reference object, it could be anything.

To use the Polar Array command

1. Click on its icon (Shown above) or type ARRAYPOLAR and hit Enter
2. Select the reference object(s) and hit Enter
3. Specify the center point of the array
You will then have access to the following tools

Where the most interesting for now are the following.

As you can see on the image of the polar array we created above, we have 6 elements. You can
Enter the number of items you need in the provided box shown on the image below.

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The maximum fill angle is 360. You can decide to rotate items on the circle or not to rotate them.
(Fig 2 shows rotated items and Fig 3 shows item not rotated), The Direction features helps you
rotate items clockwise of counterclockwise, this makes more sense when the fill angle is less than
360 degrees. The Associative feature unites all items in one block.

The following image shows a polar array with 6 items bull fill on 180 degrees.

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2.2 Path Array
The Path Array corresponds to the command line ARRAYPATH.

It works just like the polar Array but will distribute objects along a path like on the image below.

2.3 Rectangular Array

Last but not the least, the rectangular array will help place objects in rows and columns like shown
below.

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3 Copy an object in AutoCAD

The COPY command works similarly to the Move command with the only difference that it leaves a
copy of the original object in its position.
It works as it would in other windows application, and feel free to use the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy
and paste objects in AutoCAD.

4 Explode

The Explode command allows to break an object into its component objects. Sometime in
AutoCAD you have a group of objects all locked in a single object. We can use the same analogy to
say that a rectangle will be formed by 4 lines.
If you use the command line RECTANG to draw a rectangle, you will notice you can not select a line
of the rectangle without selecting the whole rectangle. We will, in this case, say that the rectangle is
formed by its 4 lines. If you wish to break the rectangle into 4 lines in a way to allow you to use each
line individually, you will need to use the EXPLODE command.
This command can also be used after creating an ARRAY that has Associative elements. To be able
to remove the associative feature of the array, the EXPLODE command can be used.

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5 Erase in AutoCAD

Erase is the command that allows you to erase objects in AutoCAD. But this command erases the
whole object, not part of it.
To Erase an object in AutoCAD
1 Select the object to erase
2 Click on the ERASE icon (shown on the image above)
3 An alternative way to use this command is the following
4 Select the object to erase
5 Hit the DEL key of your keyboard

6 MIRROR

This command will help create a mirrored copy of a selected object.

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On the example below I have used the vertical line to illustrate the mirror line.

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 To use the MIRROR command in AutoCAD
1. Select objects
2. Click on the MIRROR icon
3. Specify the first point of mirror line
4. Specify the second point of mirror line
5. Hit Enter
The first point and second point of the mirror line can be the bottom end and the lower end of the line
or Vice Versa.

7 ROTATE an object in AutoCAD

The ROTATE command will simply help rotate an object.

You need to recall the AutoCAD tutorial where we learned how to draw lines and angles, it
will be important to remember the idea of angle in AutoCAD and the trigonometric circle.

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 On the image above you can see how the trapezoidal object has been rotated 120 degrees.

To rotate an object in AutoCAD

1. Select the object to rotate

2. Click on the ROTATE icon
3. Specify the base point
4. Specify the rotation angle (positive angle for anticlockwise rotation and negative angle for clockwise
rotation) and Hit Enter

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8 EX1

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9 EX2

10 EX3

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Page 56 of 68
 Lebanese University
Faculty of Engineering 2
AUTOCAD 1
CHAP4
3D Function Basics

Yves Mansour

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1 Region & Boundary

1.1 Region
Converts objects that enclose an area into a 2D region object.

Find
Regions are 2D areas that you create from closed planar loops of objects. Valid objects include polylines, lines,
circular arcs, circles, elliptical arcs, ellipses, and splines. Each closed loop is converted into a separate region. All
crossing intersections and self-intersecting curves are rejected.
REGION deletes the original objects after converting them to regions unless the system variable DELOBJ is set to
0. If the original objects were hatched, hatch associativity is lost. To restore associativity, rehatch the region.
After you have converted objects to regions, you can combine them into a complex region using union, subtract, or
intersect operations.

1.2 Boundary
At the Command prompt, creates a region or polyline from an enclosed area.
If you enter -BOUNDARY at the Command prompt, the following prompts are displayed.
Internal Point
Creates a region or polyline from existing objects that form an enclosed area. Specify a point inside the area.
Advanced Options
Sets the method BOUNDARY uses to create the boundary.

Boundary Set
Defines the set of objects the -BOUNDARY command analyzes when it creates a boundary from a specified point.
For information about defining a boundary set at the Command prompt, see the HATCH Command prompt option.

Island Detection
Specifies whether -BOUNDARY uses objects within the outermost boundary as boundary objects. For information
about specifying island detection at the Command prompt, see the HATCH Command prompt option.

Object Type
Specifies the type of object that -BOUNDARY creates.

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2 Creating basic 3D AutoCAD drawing

Before fully diving into this, you should make sure all tabs are activated. (Right click to show the menu)

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2.1 Creating a Cylinder

To create a cylinder

1. Click on Cylinder
2. Specify the center of the base
3. Specify base radius
4. Specify the height of the cylinder
Other routes you can use to create a cylinder are the following.

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2.1.1 Using the EXTRUDE command

Create a Circle
Use the extrude command to obtain the cylinder

to do that

1. Create a circle the way we learned

2. Type EXTRUDE and Press ENTER
3. Select the circle and Press ENTER
4. Specify the height of extrusion

2.1.2 Using the REVOLVE command

1. Create a rectangle
2. Use the REVOLVE command to obtain the cylinder

to do that

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 1. Create a circle the way we learned
2. Type EXTRUDE and Press ENTER
3. Select the circle and Press ENTER
4. Specify the height of extrusion

2.1.3 Using the REVOLVE command

1. Create a rectangle
2. Use the REVOLVE command to obtain the cylinder

2.2 3D Subtraction in AutoCAD

Let’s consider the two objects

Using the SUBTRACT command, we will need the two objects to overlap.

To use the SUBTRACT command in AutoCAD

1. Type SUBTRACT and press ENTER

2. Select solids, surfaces and regions to subtract from and press ENTER
3. Select solids, surfaces and regions to subtract and press ENTER
If we select the circle at step 2 and the rectangle at step 3, the red object is the result of this command.

The resulting object comes from the subtraction of the rectangle from the circle.

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Contrary to the previous selection order, if we decide to select the rectangle at step 2 and the circle at step 3. Here
is what we end up with.

Caution: this command works only with regions, surfaces and solids.

Here is what this will help you achieve in 3D

After rendering:

On the left: image before subtraction

On the right: Image after subtraction

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2.3 Exercice
2.3.1 Exercice1
Here are the dimensions you will need to consider for the project.

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2.3.2 Exercice2

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2.3.3 Exercice3

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2.3.4 Exercice4

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2.3.5 Exercice5

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