ZWCAD history

ZWCAD Software Co., Ltd. (shortname as ZWSOFT) is a CAD/CAM software provider with HQ in Guangzhou, China.

It's founded in 1998 as Guangzhou Chinaweal Longteng Technology Co., Ltd. and changed the name as "ZWCAD Software Co., Ltd" in 2007. In the same year, the company became a founding member of the ODA (Open Design Alliance). It has three R&D Centres, separately located in Guangzhou, Wuhan and Melbourne, Florida (USA).

Introduction

Design: is creating a real product from an idea

Drafting: is the production of drawings that are used to document a design

ZWCAD: can be used to create 2D and 3D computer models

Why should we use CAD

Traditional drafting is repetitious and can be inaccurate but using CAD we can make complex drawing more efficiently

In the traditional way it is not possible to do changes on the same drawing but in CAD it is very easy to do changes/modifications

Status tool bar

Snap(F9): controls the movement of cursor If it is OFF then cursor will move smoothly If it is ON, the cursor will jump in an

incremental movementIncremental spacing can be changed at any

time using: 1) tools-> drafting setting->snap and2) Give a right click on snap

Grid(F7): is a visual drawing aid. We can change the grid spacing by using:

1) tools-> drafting setting->grid and2) Give a right click on grid

Ortho(F8): when ortho is ON, cursor movement is restricted to horizontal or vertical

When ortho is OFF cursor movement is free

Polar(F10): creates ‘alignment paths’ at specified angles

ESANP/OSNAP(F3): specific object snap can be set to stay active until you turn them OFF

OTRACK(F11): creates ‘alignment paths’ at precise positions using object snap locations

LWT(LINEWEIGHT): display the width assigned to each object

MODEL: switches your drawing between paper-space and model-space

DYN(DYNAMIC INPUT)(F12): displays the dynamic command input by the cursor

Tablet: Calibrates the tablet with a paper drawing or photograph. Calibration is digitizing points on the drawing and mapping to them to their real coordinate

Special key function

Escape key: cancel the current operation

Enter key: ends a command, or will repeat the previous command if the command line/prompt is blank

Space bar: same as enter key, except when entering text

Methods of entering a commands

For example: circle Pull down menu

(draw->circle->center radius)

Tool bars Select the circle option from the draw tool bar

Keyboard Type C and <enter>

Shortcut menu

To activate a shortcut menu, press the right mouse button when the bracketed options appear on the command line

First select a command then press right mouse button then shortcut menu will be visible

Command-erase

3 methods to erase Select the ERASE command first and then select the

objects Select the object first and then select the ERASE

command from the shortcut menu Select the objects and then press the DELETE key

Methods of selecting objects

Pick box

blue window: we have to cover whole objects

Green window: if we are covering even a part of a object whole object will be selected

Grid and limits

Format->drawing limits-> 0,0(enter) -> 420,297(enter)

In command line Limits->onGrid setting: unmark display limits beyond

limits