AutoCAD Tutorials About Working With Arrays

In our previous entry in this series of AutoCAD Tutorials, we were still discussing arrays, and we left off with how to edit path arrays. You will remember that a path array is a pattern of entities, along a path that you define, such as a spline or polyline.

If you right click in the graphic area, the contextual menu offers additional editing selections for the path array. We can make it associative, set a base point, edit the number of items, the number of rows, the levels of the items, we can align the items, and set parameters for the Z direction. If we select Enter, we’ll close the tool.

To edit the array, just select it with a left click in the graphic area. You can change many parameters using the input fields at the top of the graphic area, such as the number of items, the total distance and so on. If you want additional rows of items to appear beside the first row, enter a numeric value representing the distance between the rows. To get the second row to appear on the other side of the first row, you’d just enter a negative number.

You can also adjust the base point. This is the point from which the array starts, as in the center of the first entity included in the array. When you readjust the base point, the path arrays will be positioned relative to the new base point.

At any point, you can type ARRAY EDIT in the command prompt to enter array editing mode, and you can also press F1 whilst in array editing mode to get additional help from AutoCAD.

This concludes this entry in our series of AutoCAD tutorials. We’ll finish up with arrays in our next entry.