Discover the process of creating ceiling light symbols in AutoCAD, an essential skill for architectural and engineering design. This article elaborates on how to use construction geometry to create these representative symbols that are not actual fixtures but serve as indicators for the placement of light fixtures.
Key Insights
- The creation of ceiling light symbols in AutoCAD involves the use of construction geometry, specifically circles and construction lines, to form the symbol. The symbol represents the placement of the light fixture, not the fixture itself.
- In this process, two circles are used to understand and represent the actual dimensions of the ceiling light symbol. The distance from the center of these circles serves to represent the one-half inch distance mentioned in the project's handout.
- The trim tool in AutoCAD is used efficiently to define the cutting edges and clean up the construction geometry. This process involves selecting the circles as the cutting edges, and trimming where the line touches or crosses the cutting edge.
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In this video, we will work on the ceiling light. The ceiling light is a symbol, not a fixture in this case, because the symbol is purely representative.
The specific light fixtures or ceiling fixtures will be outlined in a separate schedule or chart. For this project, it is just a symbol. Let's go File, New.
Use our template and File, Save. This is ceiling light. Enter to lock it in.
I'll go to Layer Properties and make the new layer. E-SYMS. The color will be 61.
And let's make it our active layer. CTRL S to save. If we look at the handout, we can see the ceiling light is a circle, which is a one-eighth inch radius, and then four lines coming off of each quadrant.
The total length of that line is one-half inch. Let's use some creative construction geometry to create this symbol. Let's start with the circle.
Circle, zero comma zero. Enter to lock it in. And it does show a radius of one-eighth of an inch.
One over eight. Enter. Zoom extents.
And I'll zoom out. CTRL S to save. Now in this case, we're going to use a second circle to help us understand that one-half inch distance.
The great part about circles is they are always the same distance from the center. If you are trimming using quadrants, it is half inch from a vertical diameter and a horizontal diameter. So let's see what I mean.
I'll go circle. The center point will be zero comma zero. Enter.
D-Enter. Point five. Enter.
Now, if I go to measure distance from the shift-right-click quadrant at the top to the shift-right-click quadrant at the bottom, we can see that distance is one-half inch. If I hit distance again, shift-right-click quadrant on the left to the shift-right-click quadrant on the right, we can see that this is also a one-half inch distance. We can use these two circles as our cutting edges to clean up our construction geometry.
But first, let's draw that construction geometry using construction lines. I'll go to the draw panel and choose construction line. The construction line is at zero comma zero.
And in this case, I can either choose the quadrant or turn on ortho. I'll choose to turn on ortho and I'll click to make a horizontal line and then move my mouse and click again to make a vertical line. Enter to say that I'm done.
Now we can see that the points we want to save are this line segment, this line segment, this line segment, and this line segment. And we want to do this efficiently using the trim tool. When we click trim, we can see that the cutting edges are all automatically selected.
And this is not the case in older versions of AutoCAD. If I come into the center, you can see that I would have to click four separate times to trim out these objects. Now that might not be too many for this workflow, but it does add up quickly with larger workflows.
In this case, I want to select our cutting edges and define them as only the two circles. You can see that's the letter T or you can click cutting edges here. And I will choose the circles as my cutting edges.
And this is required in older versions of AutoCAD. I'll hit ENTER to lock it in. And now when I go into the center of my circle, you can see that the line is only cut where it touches or crosses the cutting edge.
So I can click here, click here, go outside my circle, and click, click, click, click. I'll hit ENTER to lock it in. And now all I need to do is delete my construction geometry.
I'll select this outer circle and hit the delete key. In the next video, we will move on to our real world fixtures.