Thursday

OTRACK (Object Snap Tracking)

Let’s now look into the details of OTRACK I talked about in our last lesson.

“Activating OTRACK mode enables you to track an object’s axis along t the x and y axis and to snap them.” as I said earlier. You can activate it either from the OTRACK button on the status bar or by pressing the F11 key on your keyboard.

Let’s see this feature on an example:

Lets have two lines at hand. Imagine that there were X and Y axis passing from the endpoints f these lines. We could have easily drawn a circle with the center point coincident with the intersection point of these axis. But we do not have the X and Y axis drawn for us, and we don’t need to draw them! All because we have OTRACK. All we have to do is (while the OTRACK mode is active,) hold the mouse over the endpoint of the line for a second or two, until a yellow cross appears at that point, and then do the same for the other end point, and then slide the cursor easily to where the intersection point of the lines’ extensions might be, without losing the crosses. Once you see that vertical and horizontal axis are traced for you, you’re about done. Click to select the intersection point. As simple as that.

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You can do a lot more with object tracking .

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The feature can be set to also track intersection points, extensions of lines, and paralells. Simply check the boxes beside them in the Osnap settings.

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By right-clicking on the OTRACK button and selecting Settings..you can access the Drafting Settings window.

From the Polar tracking tab in the window, you can find to features:

Track Orthogonally Only: allows you to track only vertical or horizontal lines.

Track Using All Polar Angle Settings: Allows you to track lines at preselected angles. By default it is 45 degrees, and thus you will be able to track along at a 45 degree angles.

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Have a nice day…