AccuDraw This first thing many of you will want to know it how to turn Accudraw off. It can occasionally get in the way. The simplest way to toggle AccuDraw on and off is to find the compass on the Primary Tools toolbox. This button acts as a toggle, so left click (data point) on it to turn it off or on. Compass The most recognizable feature of AccuDraw is the Compass. It is a square or circular, kind of blue or purple, shaded shape with ticks. The compass is made up of three basic parts: Origin – This is the center of the compass and it is always location 0,0. Don’t confuse this with “coordinate xy=0,0”, they are not the same thing. The origin is the focal point for all AccuDraw operations. Every action you perform with AccuDraw operates from the orign. Drawing Plane Indicator – The primary purpose of the drawing plane indicator is to show the current orientation of AccuDraw’s drawing plane. It also displays the type of coordinate system in effect for AccuDraw. When the frame appears as a rectangle, the rectangular coordinate system ( X, Y) is in effect. When the frame appears as a circle, the polar coordinate system (Distance and Angle) is active. Axis ticks – The two axis ticks are oriented at right angles to one another. They represent the drawing plane X and Y axes. Typically X is red and Y is green. Dialog Box The AccuDraw dialog box can vary in appearance depending on if you are currently in a 2D or 3D file, and if you are using rectangular or polar mode. It can also be docked to the top or bottom of your application window to save space. Input focus It is important to remember that no AccuDraw shortcut key‐in works unless the focus is in the AccuDraw window. If you haven’t changed the function key assignments, the F11 key will send the focus to the AccuDraw dialog. Input focus tips Regardless of where the focus is, you can move it to the Key‐in window with F9 Regardless of where the focus is, move it to the tool settings by pressing F10 Regardless of where the focus is, move it to AccuDraw by pressing the F11 Mouse Buttons I want to take a brief moment to talk about the mouse buttons. There are terms for the mouse buttons in MicroStation. I have this picture that I stole from the envision cad website that shows the default mouse button assignments. So, when I say, left‐click or data point – I mean press down and release the left mouse button. right‐click or reset – I mean press down and release the right mouse button. tentative or chord – I mean press down and release both left and right mouse buttons at the same time. Demo Now if you were to start drawing a line, you might select the Place SmartLine tool, data point (left click) somewhere in the view and start moving the mouse around. You will notice a couple of things. As you approach one of the axes, you snap to it and lock there briefly. This is called indexing. This allows you to draw nice straight lines in either the X or Y direction quite easily. Another thing that you should notice is the fields in the AccuDraw window change as you move around. These numbers are measurements along the X and Y axis from the origin. If you move your mouse to the left or below the origin, you will see negative values appear in the fields. You may also notice that the blinking cursor bounces back and forth between the X and Y fields. This is due to the Smart Key‐In feature. The Smart Key‐in feature evaluates the proximity of your pointer to one of the axes on the compass, it then selects the nearest axis. If you drag in the X direction (or at least mostly in the X direction), the focus jumps to the X field. If you drag in the Y direction, the focus jumps to the Y field. Okay, now you know that AccuDraw is always watching your mouse. It looks for the position of the mouse relative to the origin and dynamically changes to accommodate wherever you move the mouse (as long as you stay within a view window). AccuDraw is also waiting for keyboard instructions known as shortcuts. There are many keyboard shortcuts built in to AccuDraw all designed to make your drafting experience easier and faster. To see the list of shortcuts all you have to do is key in a question mark ([Shift] + [/] = ? or Shift plus the forward slash). This key combination will bring up an AccuDraw Shortcuts dialog box. This dialog box shows you a list of all the available accudraw shortcut key‐ins. Some Basic Key‐Ins If you click on the Space bar, you will see the compass change shape. This indicates that AccuDraw is changing from rectangular to polar mode. Polar mode is really handy if you want to enter distance and angle directions. The Enter key is another AccuDraw shortcut. It will lock you onto the nearest axis. Pressing it again will unlock you. X will lock the X axis to whatever distance you are currently from the origin. Clicking X again will unlock that distance. Y works in the same way, but in the Y direction. D locks the distance and similarly A locks the angle. Keying In Values The next step in efficient use of AccuDraw is to learn how to properly key in values. Here is an example: Say you want to draw a line 10 units long along the X axis. Select Place SmartLine, data point somewhere on your screen and drag the mouse in the X direction allowing indexing to snap your line to the X axis. On your keyboard, type “10”, then data point again to secure the location. Notice I did not tell you to clear the X field, or click in the X field. (You could also have locked the line down to the X axis if you wanted to. This would have allowed you a bit more freedom of movement with your mouse.) Now let’s say we want to draw a line 10 units in the X direction and 14.9 in the Y direction. Select your drawing tool, in this case Place SmartLine. Data point in the view. Move your mouse in the X direction and type 10, don’t data point, move your mouse in the Y direction, type 14.9, now data point to set the location. You can also use the down arrow or the tab key to move from one field to another. Did you notice the X and Y buttons in the AccuDraw dialog turned sort of orangish when you keyed in your numbers? Those are locks. When you keyed in the 10 for the X value, the X button turned orange indicating the X value was locked. If you drag the mouse around, the X value will not change. This allowed you to drag the mouse in the Y direction without worrying about losing the X value. If a value is locked and you want to change it, you can type the X key on your keyboard to clear it. This will free your X value again. Another nice feature of Accudraw is that it allows you to quickly and easily repeat the values you key in to the fields. The page up and page down keys will cycle through the values you have input. Sweet Spot It also stores the last value in what I have always called the sweet spot. I guess it is really called the Previous Distance Indicator. It shows up as a small perpendicular segment near your pointer as you approach the last value you used. This can be really handy to repeat values over and over again. Now I will show you how to draw a line 25 units long at an angle of 20 degrees. Select the Place SmartLine tool, data point in the view, hit the space bar to change AccuDraw to polar mode, move your mouse in the direction you want the line segment to go. Key in 20 in the angle field and 25 in the distance field, accept with a data point. Reset (right click) to complete. Example 1 Draw Line at any angle. Place block at same angle along same plane. Tentative snap to snap to upper right of line placed at any angle. Use O to set origin of compass. Use RQ or RE to rotate compass. Move mouse cursor to the right 3 units data point to start rectangle, data point to set opposite corner. Example 2 Okay, that was a good overview of the basics, now let’s explore the efficiencies of AccuDraw a bit deeper. Here is a box with a circle in it. To draw this, let’s start with the Place Smart Line tool. Data point to start the line. Move the mouse to the right allowing indexing to snap your line to the X axis. Key in a 7. Move your mouse up, or in a Y direction again allowing it to snap to the Y axis. As you move your mouse up, you should see the sweet spot appear. Since you just keyed in a 7, the sweet spot will quickly allow you to repeat that value. Complete the square allowing indexing and sweet spots to guide your data points. Now for the circle.