Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published April 2005

Saving Views with the UCS

If you use named views in your drawings, you will be able to more effectively zoom to an area you frequently access. This is particularly useful in mapping applications or those drawings with multiple angles. In the Basics article of my June 2003 column I presented the fundamentals of named views.

To kick it up a notch, what if you have rotated the drawing view by repositioning the UCS as discussed in my lead article in the August 2004 column [Ditto, thanks]. Now let's combine the two features. After rotating your drawing view by changing the orientation of the UCS, save the UCS by name as well as the View. By doing so, when you restore the view, the UCS position will also be restored.

Note: The naming of a UCS can only be done from the UCS command line. Curiously, this is still the case in AutoCAD 2006; there is no dialog box in which you can click a "New" or a "Save" button to name a new UCS position.

In the following procedure, you will need a drawing with at least one line at a non-orthogonal angle. If you're starting from scratch, just draw a diagonal line and go from there.

Instructions to save a UCS position with a named view

1. To rotate the display to be parallel with a diagonal line, select ToolsNew UCSObject, then click on the diagonal line you wish to bring parallel to the X-axis.
2. To reorient the view of the drawing, select View3D ViewsPlan ViewCurrent UCS. Because this procedure incorporates a ZoomExtents, you may now need to zoom closer to the area.

3. At the command line, type UCS and press [ENTER]. To save a UCS position with a name, type S and press [ENTER].
4. Enter a name for the UCS, then press [ENTER]. In the example, I named the UCS "Grid".
5. Once the UCS position has been named, select ViewNamed Views, then click the New button. You will see that the name of the UCS is displayed at the bottom of the New View dialog box and the default setting of "Save UCS With View". Enter a name for this view. In the example, I named the view "Planting Grid".

6. Click OK after you have entered a View name and you will see the view name and the associated UCS in the list. Click OK to close the View dialog box.

7. To text your procedure, use ZoomPrevious to go back to the original display of your drawing. To set the UCS position back to World, select ToolsNew UCSWorld.
8. Now check your View and UCS by going to ViewNamed Views and select your named view in the list, then click Set Current. You could also double-click the name; as long as the little pointer moves down to your view name.
9. Click OK and the drawing display returns to that view… and the UCS comes with it!

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