We have a mirror command, so we'll use this as an example.
I'm going to say we want to mirror this and we want it down here as well.
Okay.
So we'll click mirror and it's asking to select the objects.
We're going to select these two and right click.
And now it's going to ask for first point of the mirror line.
So the mirror line.
The way to think of this is just think if you were to place a mirror down kind of on its end, where
would that be?
And the first point of a mirror line would be here and the second point would be there.
Okay.
And that will create this mirror image.
And if you right click to finish it.
It will create a mirror image there.
And you could do that again.
So we could select these two.
Now, right click, we'll select our first point of our mirror line there by left clicking.
Okay.
Our second point is on this end left click and what you do get, you get this option erase source objects.
So sometimes you want to change something by mirroring it, in which case you would erase the object.
Click Yes.
And now it's changed.
But other times you want to mirror something and add it.
Okay.
So you will select?
No.
And then you would get the original would stay and the new part.
And that's mirror.
So Mirror is just creating a mirror image.
And then we have scale.
So with scale, you you just change the size of an object.
So I'm going to select this whole thing.
I'm going to right click finish selection.
The base point is the point you want to scale it up from.
I'm going to go with this bottom left corner.
And now if you drag your cursor, you can see you actually it looks like you're zooming in.
You're actually scaling that object in size.
I'd say most of the time you type in a reference for.
Okay.
So the way it would work if let's put a line there.
All right.
Okay, so let's say I have this rectangle, these rectangles here.
They need to be bigger.
How big do they need to be?
Well, this line needs to go from from where it is now.
But instead of ending here, it needs to end at this point.
So we'll go scale.
We'll select them.
All right, click.
That will be our base point.
And now instead of just putting something down here, you get this option reference.
If we click that, it's saying specify reference length.
So we want the reference length is the length.
Now the existing length.
So the length now is that and now it's a specify new length for the length we want is from there.
To there and there you go.
So you didn't quite get that.
You might need to watch that again.
But that's basically that's how I mainly use scale.
I use it with a reference.
So you scale something up to fit a certain size.
Sometimes you can type in scale too, which would be to double it in size five would be times five.
So you can type in a digit like that if you go to scale.
Use that as a base point.
You'll see it's asking you for a scale factor you can type to enter.
It's just doubled it in size so you can do it that way.
But mainly I'm using a reference.
Now, one of the simplest ways to do quick edits on an object is to use what are known as grips.
So if I just left click this rectangle here, you'll see we get these blue squares in the corners and
there's also a little bit harder to see, but there's a blue square in the midpoint of each line.
We can actually left click these and just drag them around.
And you'll see we get input boxes to input the dimension if we wanted.
But you can edit objects by by grabbing these blocks.
Okay.
And you can grab the middle ones to move the whole line.
Or you can move the corners.
And harvest is usually used is just to drag it.
If you wanted to drag this corner, for instance, onto the corner of another object, you would just
do that.
And don't worry about how I selected that corner.
It's something called Oh, snap.
You look at that later in the course if you haven't already.
But I just want to show that you can use these kind of points to move objects about and to change the
geometry.
Okay, so we use those a lot grips.
And it's not just rectangles.
All objects have them in some form.
A circle, for instance, will have its center point so you can move where it is and then you can change
the diameter with these.
Okay.
And same with arcs.
When you create an arc, you can use grips to move that.
And change the radius.
So all things kind of have grips and you'll get used to using those.
It's a very fast way of changing objects.
When you get into actually creating something in the course, you'll see us using those in more detail,
but that is another modifying method.
Now, the last modified method we use a lot is copy and paste.
And you might be thinking, Well, we've already learned about copying this in this chapter, but there
are actually two different versions of copy in AutoCAD and I'll show you the differences.
Now I'm just going to draw a again, don't worry about how I did it.
I'm just going to create a rectangle.
And we've looked at this copy here.
So within our drawing, if I want multiple instances of this rectangle, I can do a copy like that.
But what if I wanted to if I had another drawing here and I wanted this rectangle in another drawing?
Okay.
And this is something we actually do all the time in AutoCAD.
It's rare when you work in industry that you will start each drawing with a blank screen every time.
What tends to happen is you find a drawing that's something like what you're about to create.
You save that as a new copy and then you edit that to the new however you want the new design to be,
if that makes sense.
So you don't always go back and start with a new drawing and set up it, set it all up from scratch
most of the time we created and we're editing existing drawings and Matt and you might want to pull
in things you've already drawn so you don't have to draw them again.
If you were creating an object that you've drawn many times, you wouldn't draw it again from scratch.
You'd just go to that drawing, you'd copy it and you bring it in.
And that is the other form of copy.
So we've looked at this copy here.
Copying within a drawing.
But we've also got under this clipboard tab.
We've got our copy which will be familiar from any other type of software.
Really, it just does the same thing, copy.
And we can copy the object and right click.
So it looks like nothing's happened here, but now it's on our clipboard.
We can paste it into the new drawing, okay?
And it will bring in any kind of layer.
If it's on a layer, it will bring that in and insert it in the draw and it will bring in line types.
It will bring in colors.
So it is actually a good way of bringing in things as well.
If we haven't looked at those yet.
You don't know what I mean by layers, line types, that kind of thing.
Don't worry, it will make sense later on.
And if we look at this pace, we have a few options.
As always in AutoCAD, you have options we can paste, we can paste as a block a hyperlink to original
coordinates, paste special.
Don't worry about them yet.
They will make sense later on.
We might start using them depending on what course you're doing and it will make more sense.
But I just want to show you these how to get something from one drawing to another.
You can copy cut if you actually want to remove it from that drawing and put it in.
Don't use that very often, but copy and paste between drawings I use all the time.
So that's just one thing to bear in mind.
There is two ways of copying, but this one should be pretty self-explanatory because it's the same
kind of process you go through in anything, whether it be word processing.
Um, you know, Photoshop, most software has a copy and cut and paste function and that's all it is
in this case.
So this is taking things from one drawing to another in separate files.
And.
You can see there's other tools in the Modify panel, but they are the basic ones to remember now for
this lesson.
That is your basic toolbox.
If you can.
If you imagine you were a builder or someone, you had a whole cabinet full of tools.
Okay.
Most of them you wouldn't use day in, day out, but you would have a tool belt with a hammer, a screwdriver,
a saw which you took everywhere and you used all the time.
That's what these commands I've just shown you are.
That is your tool belt that you carry with you.
Most of these others are tools that are going to sit in your cupboard and be shiny and possibly never
even get used.
Yeah.
So yeah, we've learnt the main tools on our tool belt and now we can go forward and learn a few more
and now we can start putting them into practice and then gradually bringing a few more as we're needed.
But as with anything, the best way to get to know these and get to learn them is just create, you
know, how to create objects.
You now know how to modify them.
Just do that.
Just sit there doing some objects, modify them, copy them, move them, rotate them, mirror them,
just do it.
And then it will become The more you do it, the easier it will become and the more of that kind of
left click, right click will get second nature as well, because that because that really speeds things
up.
The only other main tool I want to show you now is the trim and extend.
But that's going to be a chapter of itself.