Help moving the edge of a circle precisely to the edge of a line

[berol]

Using Autocad 2000LT and trying to locate as many 1.5" diameter circles as I can within a 21" diameter circle keeping all the circle .500" apart from any other circle and .500" away from the outer edge. Am using the aray function. Trying to bring the first circle up to the line thats .500" in from the 21" outside diameter. First when I zoom the 1.5" circle looks like a series of lines, not a smooth round circle. First how do I smooth out the appearance of the circle. Second, what comands do I use to move the edge of the circle to just tough the line so that when I measure from the outside dia to the far edge of the small circle I get 2". Thanks

[Jack_O'neill]

Not sure I entirely understand what you are trying to do with all the circles, but you can smooth out the appearance by changing the "viewres" variable. Just type in "viewres" and follow the prompts. It has a maximum setting of 20000, but unless your drawing is very small, you'll see performance degrade considerably with that setting on a larger file size. Start at 2000 and see if that takes care of it. You can change it up or down at anytime.

[JD Mather]

... move the edge of the circle to just tough the line so that when I measure from the outside dia to the far edge of the small circle I get 2". Thanks

Where did the line come from?

[Tankman]

A bit confusing, 1.5"Ø or 2" diameter small circles? "viewres" will make the dia appear round like Jack points out.

Array command, polar, will make as many small circles need.

[eldon]

Firstly, you can improve the appearance of the circle by doing a REGEN.

If you offset the 21" circle inwards 1.25, and then draw your 1.5 dia circle centered on that line, it will be perfectly placed.

You do not say whether you are using the array in Polar or Rectangular fashion.
I can get 85 small circles inside. Any advances?

[nestly]

I'm unclear whether the goal is to fit as many small circles as possible inside the large circles, or to fit the maximum number of circles inside the perimeter? My method was slightly different than eldon's as I increased the small circles by 1/4" and reduced the large circle by 1/4" to maintain the 1/2" spacing.

[nestly]

Something like this?

[jwkilgore]

To directly answer the original question, I would draw a line starting a the center of the small circle and ending perpendicular to the large circle (or other line). Then move the small circle using the intersections of the new line as snap points.

[Jack_O'neill]

Maybe you could post a screen shot of your original set up (or attach the drawing itself). You know the old saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words". If we could see how you are starting out, perhaps your description would become clear.