Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published August 2004

Real-Time UCS

Found under the Tools section of the Express pulldown menu, the Real-Time UCS utility enables you to graphically reorient the UCS by dragging the coordinate system around the current axis of rotation.

Note: For the sake of clarity, I've set the Shademode variable to 3D for the rendered UCS icon.

When launched, the RTUCS command displays 3 long axes, with the X-axis highlighted. The highlighted axis is the one around which the rotation occurs. The default option is <Drag to rotate>. The natural tendency is to try to make your cursor go around the axis in an effort, albeit feeble, to rotate the others. In fact, the most effective method is to click and drag your cursor horizontally or vertically.

As you drag your cursor, you will notice the coordinate system incrementally rotate about the X-axis. The default increment value of 15 degrees can be changed with the Angle option.

To change the Origin of the UCS, type O but don't press <Enter>. Contrary to other option strings in AutoCAD, these options initiate as soon as you type their letter. To use another axis for rotation, use Tab. As you might suspect, the Tab key will cycle through the axes repeatedly.

[Save/Restore/Delete/Cycle/Angle/Origin/View/ World/Undo]

You will notice a similarity between these options and the normal UCS command options. The one unique feature in the RTUCS command is the Cycle option. Type C to cycle through the 6 predefined positions of the UCS: World (Top), Front, Right, Back, Left, and Bottom. These positions will be displayed on the left side of the status bar.

For an exhaustive review of the Express Tools for AutoCAD 2004 (all of which will apply to AutoCAD 2005), go to the following link and download Chapter 47 from the AutoCAD Instructor book, by James A. Leach. Jim asked me to update this chapter from the old Bonus tools so I reviewed and extensively edited the text to reflect the Express Tools as they appeared in AutoCAD 2004.

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