Drawing geometric objects

You can draw all main geometric objects: points, lines, arcs, circles, ellipses, elliptical arcs, regular polygons, fillet and chamfer features, Bézier curves, as well as free hand drawings. You can also write text, fill patterns and insert graphical images.

Each geometric object has its own special attributes, such as, among others, length, radius, angles against the coordinate axes.

Notes

• To cancel a drawing mode, press ESC, or in the graphical area, right-click anywhere and click Cancel Mode on the context menu.
• During drawing, a highlighted sample of the object being drawn appears, according to the values you have specified for its attributes and the motion of the mouse pointer.
• When you are using a mode for drawing a series of concatenate objects, you need not cancel it to switch to another drawing mode.
• In a contextual edit bar, to switch between multiple edit boxes, press TAB or ENTER to move forward, or SHIFT+TAB to move back. If the edit bar has only one edit box or if you have already set the minimum number of attributes needed for the definition or repositioning of an object, pressing TAB or ENTER will confirm the entered value, positioning the object accordingly. This does not apply for the Axis Line and Circle modes, in which you need a final click to position the object.
• In a contextual edit bar, if you have entered a specific value in an edit box and want to clear it but do not want to cancel the current drawing mode, in the box delete the value, and then press ENTER.
• In the Objects toolbar, the buttons which control more than one drawing mode feature a small arrow in their lower-right corner — for example, . Only one mode is visible at a time. To switch between modes, click the button, start dragging the mouse in any direction, and from the list of buttons that appears, select the one you need. As the mouse pointer runs over the buttons, a tooltip appears displaying the mode's name.
• For help on how to use the Select Quadrant button on the contextual edit bar, see Automatic computation of angles.