week of 10/31

I've been recently working on one of the practices of this week to get an idea on how to do the lab.  I've been able to successfully   complete the in door model but I haven't gotten started on the actual lab yet.  The lab i'll be thinking of working on will be based on a circuit.

After watching one of the videos of last week, I've figured out how to change the view scale for a layout and how to lock the layout in place.  I've also been practicing on the exercises for last week without looking at the videos first and so far had no problem with creating the objects as shown.

Seventh Week

The second Lab is finished but I haven't turned it in yet to the teacher.  Hopefully will be done this Monday.  I've learned to have to array form objects from left to right and up and down, but the array couldn't form objects around the main one and required some time to form the array that's in the middle of the object.  Not much this week I guess.

Sixth Week of DRFT 4A

The previous lab was completed without much hassle.  I didn't remember the object having to be made exactly in model space until Thorenburg checked it.  I couldn't figure out how to zoom in and out of the view and have the info section to lock in place.  Luckily I had already made in one model space which he found and accepted.

Today I went over some of the things covered in the videos this week.  One of them was the copy feature that I used for the rows of circles that are to be drawn on the lab this week.  I tried copying the tiny circles on the upper left of the figure and found it a bit tedious to work with using lines with certain length and offsetting them each.  I decided to use the array feature on the video I saw but found it as tedious as the previous method since the array only seems to make groups with the chosen object on the bottom left of it and the array can't be moved like one entire object.



Everything else, the fillet, chamfer features were easy to use and very precise.  I haven't been able to get the teacher to check it yet and couldn't make it to the class on Wednesday.

Fourth Week 9/5 & 9/7

I've been tinkering with the extend methods and the circle commands.  The commands include a center, radius command which allows you the exact radius of a circle that you wish to insert, a center, diameter command which sets the circle depending on diameter.  There is also a two point and three point command that allows the user to set up a circle by selecting either two or three places on the virtual graph.  There is also a Tan, Tan, Radius and Tan, Tan, Tan command that can set a circle to touch exactly two or three points on a line.  It would actually seem like a lot on paper, but overall, it's not something you can't easily learn in a couple of days.

There was also the trimming and extend effects that I've learned, but haven't gotten around quite yet, which I will as I start the lab today.  Looking at the lab, the class is now starting get less easy since  a lot of the stuff over the weeks that we've went over are to be used here.

Also been trying to edit the title of my blog which I've posted "Second week".  No success in changing it yet.

EDIT:  It's been changed.

COPYMODE - this command allows you to set a value of either 1 to create a single copy or 0 to create mutiple copies when using the command

CIRCLERAD - this command set the default radius for the circle when pressing enter

EDGEMODE - this command determines what boundaries the TRIM and EXTEND can trim or extend, respectively

OFFSETGAPTYPE - Controls how potential gaps between segments are treated when closed polylines are offset

CAD

So far, the software is not very hard to use and has been made easier to use thanks to the videos posted on the moodle site.  So far, we've learned about the use of dynamic input when on and off.  Turning on dynamic input results in producing a line, for example, depending on the coordinate (x,y) that is inserted in the command, x determining how many points it crosses on the x axis, and y on the y axis which I find easiest to do because the other option requires that you type the exact coordinates and seems like more time is required to determine coordinates . It is required to put @ in the beginning of the command in order to perform this action. When this setting is off, the exact coordinates of the point where you want to insert the line must be typed.  I've been able to actually do the tasks that I was required to do this week within ten minutes.

DYNMODE - a dynamic feature that can be turned on and off.  This feature is off when the numerical value is set to a negative number and the setting is stored.  DYNMODE has four corresponding values:
0 - all dynamic features are off
1- pointer input is on
2- dimensional  input is on
3- both pointer input and dimensional input is on

ZOOMFACTOR - controls the amount of magnification in the software.  This can be changed either by moving the mouse wheel back and forth or by putting a value from 3 to 100.  This could be useful for focusing  and placing small figures or large figures.

DYNPICOORDS - controls whether to use the relative or absolute formats by putting either corresponding values 0 or 1.

LAYERDLGMODE - sets a mode for the Layer Properties Manager for the LAYER command