So let's look now at properties and properties in general.
Now every object in AutoCAD has properties and its properties are it can be the way it looks, it can
be the way it acts, it can be various things.
But even a basic line, just not even a polyline, just a basic line will have a set of properties.
Okay.
And you can bring those up by right clicking and going to properties.
And we have looked at this in various other chapters, but let's just look at this in more detail now.
You might notice a lot of the time I have this box, this panel permanently on the side.
Okay, You do use it a lot or I use it a lot the way I work.
And it sometimes it is easier to just leave it open.
If you if you're using a smaller screen, if you're on a laptop or something, you might want to close
it just to give you more room.
But to get it back up, you just select any object, right click and properties.
Okay, So what does it tell us?
Well, if I select the object, we've got things like the color, which is fairly obvious.
So the color of an object it can that can be changed under its properties.
Now we also have this properties box here and you'll see when I change things here, it also changes
up there.
And this properties panel, it has the, the basically the, the most used properties.
Okay?
So things like color line type, that kind of thing.
But I tend to use unless I'm just doing quick changes on layer or color.
I tend to use this panel here and we'll concentrate on that on this panel in this lesson so we can change
the color of an object easily.
We can change the layer it's on.
So if you not sure what layers are, if you look up the basic chapter on layers that will explain that
so you can change the layer.
We only have one layer in this drawing, so it's only coming up with layer zero.
We can change the line type again, we haven't loaded any in this drawing, but if I quickly load them
and don't worry if you don't know what I'm doing here.
If you haven't yet done the chapter on line types that explains how to load these in, I'm just bringing
something in as an example.
Okay.
So I can select the line type.
Okay.
I can change the line type scale.
Again, that's discussed in the line type chapter.
Plot style.
Don't worry about that.
Okay.
Line weight.
Now line weight is basically the thickness of the line.
So by default, line weights are set to by layer.
If you if you don't understand the concept of by layer, go watch the basic layer chapter.
But by layer just means it's set in the layer properties panel.
But line weight.
Is how thick that line looks.
So you can have thick lines and you can have.
Thin lines.
And you might notice when I click this line weight, if I put it on a really thick line like that,
nothing's actually changed.
It still just looks the same.
And that's because we've got an option down here.
We can display line weights or not and you can turn it on and off here.
So with that turned on, if I change this line weight option.
You will say I can change the thickness and it displays.
Now, some people don't like using line weights.
Some people do.
Even if you're using them, it might be that you don't want to show them because it can.
It can get in the way.
It can overlap things.
So sometimes you'd want to turn them off and have everything shown default, which is just a thin line
that's up to you.
That's down to personal preference And what you're working on this chapter, really, I'm just showing
my properties, but that is how we can change the line weight.
Okay, So you can set the line weight, transparency and maybe we had let me hatch this in again.
Don't worry about what I'm doing here.
If you want to learn about hatching, do the chapter on hatching if you haven't already.
But maybe I wanted this line here.
Okay?
I wanted to be able to see it.
I can click on this hatching and I can select the transparency so it's 50% transparent.
Okay, Now you can see the line running through it.
It's got it's got transparency so you can see it going through so you can set that in the properties
panel and anything can have transparency.
So a line, anything.
Okay.
We've got hyperlink.
Don't worry about that thickness.
Now thickness is, is a 3D thing.
So this basic course, don't worry about anything 3D and that generally goes to a lot of stuff down
here.
You don't need to know.
This is a coordinate.
So we've talked about the coordinate system.
This will tell us the coordinates of our line.
So we have a start and we have an end of a line.
This is a coordinate in x and y of the start, and this is a coordinate here of the end.
So we have these you do have a Z, which will be zero because it's not 3D, but generally that's the
coordinate of a start.
That's a coordinate of the end.
Don't worry about any of this either.
Okay.
That's more in depth.
Polylines.
If we do a polyline instead of a line, we get the same options basically.
But there is a few things with geometry, and this is another reason why polylines are more powerful.
Because now our polyline properties include things like width.
So.
If we don't want to use line weights.
Okay, we can give the polyline a width.
So I could set that at a width that's too wide a width of one.
And we have a wide line.
Okay.
Now, why would you do that instead of line weights?
Line weights are more of a visual thing, really.
You can control them for displaying various properties.
Now, why would you want to divide the line, which I prefer if I want a thickness?
I do prefer to use a polyline and give it a width.
Okay.
That's my personal preference.
Some people choose line weights.
To me, line weights is more.
It's something you would use indicatively.
So if you wanted to select, let's say.
You wanted the line to look thick and thin for.
So you want to differentiate between one line and another.
So maybe the external walls you want it to be with a bit of a thick line and the internal walls thinner.
You could use line weights and it goes back to the old days where we used to draw with pens and you
would have different width of the pen nib, so you'd have thick lines and you'd have thin lines and
the thin lines would be faint to show little details.
And then the main objects, like your external walls would be nice, big thick lines, and that would
be line weights with a poly line width.
It's actually it's in units.
So if you wanted if you were drawing a pipe and that pipe was 50mm wide or maybe it's six inches wide
or something, you can actually select that.
So if this if this was a let's say it was a pipe and it was.
Five units wide.
Okay.
Whether that's millimeters, inches or whatever, it's five.
5mm or 5in wide.
You can actually give it a width of five.
So you're working with units.
So it's actually to scale the width is to scale, whereas with a line weight, it tends to be more of
just a display, a visual thing.
This is actually five units wide.
Also what you can do with the poly width, you can have a different start and end width.
So if it was something like a pipe gradually getting larger for whatever reason, you could start it
at one and finish it at five and you can do objects like that, but it's all to correct coordinate correct
dimensions.
That's the thing.
This is five units and that's one unit.
So it's accurate.
It's not just a visual thing.
And I just for that reason, I prefer to use Polylines with widths whenever I'm giving it a width.
Okay.
Um.
You can also wear properties also comes in handy if you have a rectangle.
If that was let's say that was a room.
Okay.
So.
It's a bit small to be a room.
Let's do it.
Let's do a bigger one.
So it's.
It's just about that size.
Okay, So, so if you click on it, you can get an area.
Okay.
You can also get a link for the whole of a perimeter just by clicking on it so it gives you the information
you might need.
If someone came along and says, measure the area, tell me the area of that room.
You can just if it's not already, draw a polyline all around the outside and click on it and it'll
tell you the area.
Okay, just remember it's in your unit.
So if if this room was drawn in millimeters, when you go on the area, it's millimeters squared.
Okay.
So.
You need to do a conversion.
You need to bring that decimal point.
If you wanted it in meters squared, you would have to bring that up.
But yeah, you can get that information in the properties and different objects will have different
properties.
So a circle, it will have radius and diameter and circumference area and you can change it.
You can put in if you wanted to change the radius, you can type it in and it will edit it so you can
edit it in this properties panel.
Okay, You have the center, the coordinates of the center point.
All that, as well as the usual things like layers, colors, thickness, that kind of thing.
So that's properties.
It's one of those things.
It's kind of a go to panel for information and to change things quickly.
Sometimes you'll see it open on my drawing as we go through lessons.
Sometimes it won't be because I use it a lot.
Sometimes I tend to even forget it's open and I use a fairly big screen as well, so I've got plenty
of room in the drawing spaces.
So sometimes I'm working away and I forget it's even open, so it might be there even when I'm not using
it because I'm using a big screen.
But if you're short on screen space, just close it.
You can always bring it back up with a right click.
Properties.
Okay.
So what would you do if you had one object and you wanted to have another object with the same properties?
It can get a bit tedious and long winded to kind of select an object and put it on the door.
Maybe this.
Maybe I had a just a rectangle here and I wanted this to have the same all the same properties as this
door here.
So.
I could put it on a double layer.
But maybe it was already set to a different line type.
You see, it's not set to by layer, so I've got to change it by this.
So you've got to go through and you've got to change all these settings.
But there is this button here which I use all the time.
It's called Match Properties.
And what that will do, it will just say, okay, I want you to take the properties of this object and
apply them to that object.
It's just a simple I'll do that again.
So you can left click, left, click.
And now.
This one will take on all the same properties.
Of the object you selected first.
And it's great if you've got a lot of objects you want to change.
It's something, like I say, I use all the time in terms of making your drawings onto a standard.
It makes things so easy because you can just select multiple objects and match them to the properties
of another.
So you'll see me using this in the example when we get onto the example chapters.
In the course chapters, you'll see me using this a lot.
That's match properties.