Presentation and Viewing

The appearance of 3D drawings can be changed using Visual Styles.

You can open the Visual Styles Manager from the Visual Styles toolbar, View ribbon or entering Visual Styles at the command line.

AutoCAD has a number of preconfigured Styles that are available. Double click on a Style to change your drawing.

You can also create your own styles and add them to the palette. The Styles can be modified with the lower fields.

The normal style in the editing screen is 2D Wireframe.

Other options include 3D Hidden and Realistic. Realistic will create a photo like rendering of your model.

The flanged OS&Y gate valve above is shown in the normal 2D Wireframe Style. All lines, including those in the back of the valve, are shown.

The view above is the result of using the 3D Hidden Style.

For more information on this topic, see Visual Styles in AutoCAD Help.

3D Orbit allows you to quickly rotate an object in 3D space.

Start the command, press the left mouse button and move the move to change the perspective.

Press the Esc keyboard key to exit from 3D Orbit.

The AutoCAD View Cube also offers an easy way to change the drawing model perspective.