How To Draw A Star In Autodesk Inventor

half-dozen.976 FANS

• i.221

• 5.046

• 709

Mark Sadler, BestCADtips.com

Mark Sadler is an, Architect, Designer and much respected CAD consultant and Blogger.

If you similar this mail, you can get more great tips from Marking at his blog – BestCADTips.com

If you'd like to contribute a post to Cadsetterout.com click here!

Over to you Mark…

Y'all are an AutoCAD Star!

Let me make you a Star

In this post, I volition demonstrate how to make a five-pointed star using AutoCAD.

In the procedure of making a star, we will impact several AutoCAD tools, including the polygon tool, the block tool, the hatch tool, and the trim control.

I've ever liked stars. I live in Texas, USA, and we're very large on stars hither.  We write songs about them and put them on our flags.  As a kid growing upwardly, I enjoyed using a stick to make a star shape on the ground virtually my house by scratching five lines in the sand.  It looked something similar this:

Now that I've grown upwards (some would argue the signal), I use multi-thousand-dollar software and a laptop reckoner to brand an electronic cartoon of a star that is accurate to the ten-thousandth of an inch—or centimeter, if you prefer.

A educatee in one case asked me in ane of my AutoCAD classes,

Doesn't AutoCAD have a tool to make a star?

I answered, No, not really, but it does have a polygon tool that we can employ to make a great star.

Let'due south become to AutoCAD.

The first step in making our star is to brand a circle.  Why, y'all ask?  Because the polygon tool uses an imaginary circle in the process of making a polygon, and I'd like to clarify what'southward going on with that.

Everyone knows the circle tool. Give AutoCAD a middle point (anywhere) and blazon in a radius length, and you get a circle.  Allow's use a radius of 36 units.

By the way, I don't use the standard AutoCAD hotkey "C" to make a circle.  The standard circle tool hotkey is "C," but I prefer to take "C" set to initiate the COPY command, which I use much more frequently than the CIRCLE tool.  I use the Control Alias Editor to fix C to initiate Copy, and set CI to initiate CIRCLE. It saves a lot of time.

The Polygon Tool

Quick question: What is the smallest number of sides that a polygon tin can accept?

(Insert thinking music hither . . .)

If you guessed three, you're right. Six sides makes a hexagon, five sides makes a pentagon, four sides makes a square, three sides makes an equilateral triangle, and if you endeavor to go less than three sides it's no longer a polygon, it collapses to become a line.

Going the other direction, what is the largest number of sides a polygon tin accept?  An infinitely large number.  And the larger the number of sides gets, the more the polygon resembles—you guessed it– a circle.

Side by side we'll create the polygon.

The polygon tool is in the Domicile tab, Depict panel, nether the Rectangle pull-down arrow.

Starting the Polygon tool, we detect that nothing happens until y'all tell AutoCAD how many sides yous want your polygon to have.  The control line says:

The default number is iv, simply since it is shown between pointy brackets, you must either keep it or change it and so hit [ENTER] to continue.  Type 5 and [ENTER].

Next AutoCAD directs you lot to specify the middle.  With your OSNAP tool turned on, use the Center snap to click in the exact center of the circle.

Now comes an interesting question.  AutoCAD wants to know if you desire the polygon Inscribed in circumvolve, or Circumscribed well-nigh circle.

Note that if we had non drawn a circumvolve, there would be no circumvolve in our drawing.  All the same, AutoCAD is referring to an imaginary circle in its interior procedure.  It uses the imaginary circle to set the size of the polygon we're about to create.But information technology wants you, the designer, to tell it which of ii methods to use.

Let'south take a quick time-out from our star projection for a study of AutoCAD'due south methods.  Using a triangle every bit an example of a polygon with only iii sides, here'south a cartoon of a triangle Inscribed inside a circle:

Now, we will create another triangle which is Circumscribed most the same circle, using exactly the same two snap points:

Wow!  Evidently the second triangle, using the Confining choice, is much larger.  It is also "upside downwardly," compared to the first triangle.

Generally, when using the polygon tool,I just hit [ENTER] to take the "Inscribed in circle" option, which is the default.  I recall it'southward always good to sympathise what AutoCAD is doing behind the scenes, and why the polygon tool requires so many steps.

Creating the Star

And then, back to our star project.  After choosing the Inscribed option, click the center betoken of our circle for the pentagon'south heart.  AutoCAD now asks for the Radius of the imaginary circle.

Merely click on the top quadrant snap (at the 12:00 position on our circumvolve) to provide a radius point for the pentagon.

I've fabricated the pentagon yellowish for improved visibility.

Next I'll connect the 5 corner points, going effectually the pentagon, skipping a vertex each time, just like when I was scratching a star in the dirt:

At present nosotros can delete the pentagon, which has served its purpose.  Go on the circle, though, because we volition use it in a infinitesimal to set the exact center point of our star block.

Next we'll employ the TRIM control to remove the interior lines. TRIM gives you lot the option of either choosing cutting edges by selecting them, or just hitting [ENTER] to use all of the lines in your cartoon as cutting edges.  I'll utilize the latter method here, letting all lines be cutting edges.

Click on the five interior lines as shown above. Y'all now have a cute star in a circle:

Permit's hatch in the circumvolve with a solid white hatch.

Creating a Block from the Star

At present let's make a block of the star.  We volition use the heart point of the circumvolve as the base point of the block, and we will non include the circle in the cake's objects.

Commencement, I'll select all of the objects in the cartoon, using Ctrl-A.

At present I can remove the circle from the selection set past holding down the SHIFT key and clicking on the circle.  Merely the star linework and hatch objects now remain selected.  Type Cake.  The Cake Definition dialog box appears.  For the cake name, let'southward apply STAR.

Use the Pick point button to place the base betoken.  Employ snap override (Shift+Right-click) to open the snap override options, and cull Center snap.  Click on the circle'due south linework to choose its center indicate every bit the cake'south base of operations point, then hitting OK.

Now you have a cake which includes the star'slinework and the white hatch, and ithas a base of operations point EXACTLY in the center of the star.  You can now erase the circle.

In case yous're wondering, the white hatch of our star does have a grip point that is nigh the centre of the hatch, only information technology is notlocated at the exact center of the star.  Finding the verbal geometric center of a v-pointed star like this, without having a circle to become by, is not an easy trick.  Try it sometime.

Past having a star block with an verbal heart base of operations betoken, yous can now accurately identify this star into a grid system or other geometric pattern.

Promise you enjoyed this lilliputian project.  Cheers over again to Paul for letting me provide this guest post.  Cheers, and "Go along on CADDing!"   J

Marking

Marking Sadler is an builder, designer, higher instructor, blogger, and musician.

Marker enjoys having fun with family and friends, traveling, playing guitar, seeing and photographing animals, woodworking, and exploring new places.

Source: https://cadsetterout.com/autocad-tutorials/autocad-star/

Posted by: pritchettdout1969.blogspot.com

Share this post