Making a drawing without coordinate values

So far, we have used different coordinate systems to make a drawing, but it is generally not the ideal way of making drawings in AutoCAD. Generally, we would use direct distances and angles instead. In this section, we will learn how to use this method to make drawings. To explain this example, I will use this triangle:

In this drawing, there is no coordinate information provided and we will use only the dimension values, such as the length and angle, provided here to make it. We will make this triangle performing the following steps:

1. Open a blank drawing and start the line command by clicking on the Line tool in the Draw panel, or by using the L command.
2. Click at a point in the drawing area to start the rubber bending line and move your cursor toward the right side. Type 10 in the command line and press Enter.
3. Press Enter again to exit the command.

4. Click again at the starting point of the line (point A) and type <30, and then press Enter. Notice the < angle sign before 30. In this case, entering the angle sign before 30 will tell AutoCAD to take the numeric value as an angle and not a distance. Once you press Enter, you will notice that the line will be locked at an angle of 30 degrees with respect to the positive side of the X axis.
5. Move your cursor in the direction of the 30 degrees line and type 14, and then press Enter again. This will make a line at an angle of 30 degrees with a length of 14 units.
6. Click on the B point, as in the preceding diagram, and press Enter again to exit the command.

In this case, you saw that geometry can also be made by entering values of the distance and angle directly in the command line. This method is relatively easy when compared to the coordinate entry method. This is also the most common way of making drawings in AutoCAD. There are also some status bar modes that help you to generate references that can be used to make precise drawings. These modes are Dynamic Input, ortho, and polar tracking, and we will discuss them in the next section.