Cadtales

AUTOCAD 2007
Rotating viewport views
Civil plat diagrams and architectural building outlines seldom (or never) line up with the Cartesian coordinate system in AutoCAD, and it is often desirable that we maintain the relationship between the design and the underlying geography. To reconcile this real-world condition to the right-reading scheme of sheet design and publishing we can leave the model view as-is and rotate a view of the plan in a viewport. See the real-world view (below).

Before starting the view rotation process select (or draw) a line that you would like to be horizontal after the view rotation. Use the Mirror command with a horizontal mirror line to create a construction line to use for a basepoint and view rotation angle. In the illustration below we used the inside wall line as the reference object.

We also need to identify an object (or use the line selected above) that can be used to locate a new user UCS and to indicate the direction of the X-axis to align the UCS Icon (User Coordinate System Icon) in the view.

Here is a summary of the steps necessary to rotate a viewport view:
-Start the MVSETUP command.
-Select the Align option
-Select the Rotate view option
-Pick a basepoint in the viewport
-Indicate the rotation angle
-Setup a user UCS location
-Indicate the direction of the X-axis

Using the MVSETUP command
Start the MVSETUP command by typing it at the keyboard and pressing Enter. Select the Align option. Then select the Rotate view option. The system will prompt you to “Specify basepoint in the viewport with the view to be rotated:” (For some reason, AutoCAD clears all running OSNAPs and turns off the noun/verb selection setting during this process. Use OSNAP Overrides for this exercise and reset your running OSNAPs later. To turn noun/verb selection back on, go to the Options>Selection tab and put a check in the box before noun/verb selection). Pick a basepoint by picking the same point used above for the Mirror operation.

The next prompt is, “Specify angle from basepoint:” Pick the other end of the construction line to indicate the rotation angle. This will rotate the view. See the rotated view with the World UCS in the figure below.

Set up a new UCS in the active viewport. Double-click in the viewport to make it active. Start the UCS command. The system prompts: “Specify origin of UCS or [options].” At this point select the OBject option (type OB for “object”) and select the left side of a horizontal line in the view. The UCS will move to the left endpoint and align the X-axis with the object automatically.

If you move the UCS to a location in open space the system will prompt: “Specify a point on X-axis or <Accept>.” To return to the World UCS at anytime, type UCS, then “W” and press Enter).

Now Zoom, Pan and Scale the view to fit the viewport and your print objectives. Remember to lock the viewport to prevent accidental changes to the viewport setup. (In paperspace highlight the viewport frame(s). Right click and select Display Locked > Yes. (With the display locked you can size the viewport by editing the viewport frame Grips. Unlock the viewport to change the zoom, pan or scale settings).

You are now set to continue the project design work utilizing the rotated view and the new user UCS. All edits must be done through the rotated viewports. This can be limiting at times when areas to be edited are beyond the viewport boundary. AutoCAD has provided a Maximize viewport feature to alleviate this limitation.

     This button is on the Status Bar.

Just press the Maximize viewport button and the viewport opens up to the full extent of your drawing display and is surrounded by a red-dotted frame. You can zoom and pan to any region of the drawing for editing. When finished, just press the Maximize viewport button again and your viewport settings are restored. The left/right arrows on either side of the button allow you to navigate between viewports without leaving the Maximize viewport feature.

Another way to execute the Maximize viewport command is to double-click the viewport frame to maximize the viewport. Double-click the red-dotted frame around the maximized viewport to return to normal mode.

Changes to the ESC Key
The ESC (Escape or Cancel) key in AutoCAD has long been used to both cancel an operation and to exit certain dialog boxes. In AutoCAD 2007 the ESC key is designated for “cancel” rather than “exit.” This means that your changes or settings in the Layer Manager dialog box will not be saved if you ESC (or Cancel) out of the operation. (To save your changes in the Layer Manager you must press the Apply or OK buttons and exit gracefully). This is also true in the Multiline Text editor and several other edit/settings dialog boxes.

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