Delve into the intricacies of inserting blocks in AutoCAD with a focus on the no-plot view block. Understand the importance of setting up an insertion point and the concept of blocks as drawings inserted into another project or drawing.
Key Insights
- The process of inserting blocks in AutoCAD involves setting up an insertion point for the precise location of the block. Blocks are essentially drawings inserted into another project or drawing, usually taking the form of simple objects.
- A special focus is laid on inserting the no-plot view block. The steps involve drawing a line from one corner to the opposite to identify the midpoint for the perfect center of the geometry. The block is then inserted at this midpoint.
- The blocks dialog box and the classic insert dialog box in AutoCAD function in a very similar manner with certain options like insertion point, scale, rotation, and explode present in both. However, the new blocks dialog box also includes the repeat placement option which is useful for door and window symbols.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Before we create the A201 sheet file, I want to spend a video talking about inserting blocks. Inserting blocks is slightly different than reference attaching files, which we'll talk about in the next video.
We want to spend a little time talking about blocks. What are blocks? Well, blocks are just drawings that have been inserted into another project or another drawing. Those blocks are drawn as simple drawings or even more complex geometry, but in most cases blocks exist as simple objects.
We have already drawn most of the blocks we'll use in this course, including the drawing symbols and the fixtures. They become blocks when we insert them into the drawing. In this video, we're going to focus on inserting the no-plot view block, which was included in the file downloads for this course.
In order to do that, I'd like to set up an insertion point so that we know exactly where it's going to go. Let's go to the line tool, and I'll draw a line from this bottom corner here to this top corner here. Enter to say that I'm done.
This line is perfectly from the bottom left to the top right of the drawing, and if I insert the block at the midpoint of this line, it will be the perfect center of all of the geometry we have drawn so far. I'll control s to save, and now let's open the blocks dialog box. If I go to the insert tab, and I see this insert button here, if I choose any of these three options, it will open up the block insert dialog box.
You'll notice that I was playing with some recent blocks, but most likely you don't have any recent blocks, and if we go to the current drawing, we can see that there are definitely none in our drawing right now. If you're on an older version of AutoCAD, you might have opened the classic insert dialog box, and I can open that as well by typing in classic insert, and that will look like this. I want to point out that these are, in essence, the same.
At the top, there's a list of blocks that you have already brought into your drawing, and here there's just the arch tick, which is included in our dimension style. There's also a browse button, which means find more blocks, and that button has been replaced here. Additionally, there's the insertion point option, the scale option, rotation, and explode.
Those exist down here, insertion point, scale, rotation, and explode. Additionally, in this new blocks dialog box, they have added repeat placement, which we will use later in the course for our door and window symbols. Classic insert and the blocks dialog box work very, very similarly, so I will use the blocks dialog box moving forward.
If you have any questions about using the classic insert dialog box, please message your instructor. In order to bring in a block, let's hit the insert or browse button here. I will scroll down and find noplotview.dwg, and I will hit open.
You'll notice that it automatically adds a block preview on my cursor, and in order to add it to the current drawing, I'll just click anywhere on the screen, and then I will select it and hit delete. We can see now in the current drawing, it has included the no plot view as an available block, but before we really use it in the drawing, let's discuss these options. Insert point, when checked, means insert by clicking or specifying on the screen.
If this is unchecked, you'll notice that some coordinates pop up. This is the same in the classic insert dialog box, but in this case, we do want to insert it on the screen by clicking, because we're going to click on the midpoint of the line. Scale has two options, uniform scale or scale.
In this case, we can do uniform scale, and that will be a scale of 48. When we do a scale of 48, it will become 48 times larger, which will help us when it needs to be scaled back down by the printer to be one quarter of an inch equals a foot. If this was checked, it would allow us to specify the scale on screen.
The same would be for rotation and the rotation angle. It is very rare when you want to explode a block, but it could happen, and again, we'll use repeat placement later in this course. So, we are inserting on screen with the checkbox, and we have a uniform scale of 48.
So, now I can click this icon one more time and come over and find the midpoint of my diagonal line. Notice I'm hovering over the white line down here and not in here, because I might accidentally grab one of my yellow lines. So, I'll come out to the side and click on the white line when I see the triangle midpoint snap.
Now, I can zoom extents, select the line, delete, and CTRL S to save. Blocks allow us to place as many instances as we would like, and blocks include attributes. We talked a little bit about attributes when we talked about the drawing symbol and door and window symbols, and we will talk about attributes in the next video as well when we place the title block.
For now, this is all we need in order to set up our sheet file. So, let's CTRL S to save and close the blocks dialog box, and in the next video, we will create the A201 sheet file.
