Learn how to effectively add multiple elements to your design with fewer steps in AutoCAD. This article provides a detailed guide on how to utilize the array command to expedite your design process.
Key Insights
- The array command in AutoCAD allows for a simplified process when adding multiple identical elements, like parking stalls, to a design. This command lets you specify the number of elements you want to replicate, reducing the need for manual placement.
- While initially, these elements are grouped together, AutoCAD provides an option to ungroup them. This additional step ensures each element can be individually adjusted if needed in the future.
- The array command, however, does not allow for retrospective changes to the number of elements. Therefore, careful planning and accurate counting of the required elements are necessary before initiating the array command.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Now we're going to go ahead and add the rest of these stalls in, and you may be thinking there has to be a better way to do this, right? Because, you know, we are adding quite a bit of different individual elements, and there is a better way, so I'm going to show you from this perspective here. These look like they're nine-foot stalls, and so I could take my nine-foot type here and I could place one, and then I'm going to mirror it to place this next one here because that one's kind of unique. What I could do is I can use my array command. If I were to select this parking stall here, I could go to Array, and then I can tell it to go to the second one. If I want it to array from, say, this point—which is my center line, which is very important—make sure you select that center line to the next line from AutoCAD of our parking stall, then I could specify the number of items to array. So this is 1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 7,8, 9,10,11. If I set that to 11, then it'll drop in 11 stalls, and then we're all set. The one thing it does that I'm not a big fan of—and I'll show you why—we leave it that way in the settings, but we end up with a group here, and that doesn't help us in any way here, except for the fact that if I wanted to adjust it after the fact, I can go in and say, oh, wait—it was actually 12, or, oh, you know what—it was actually 15, or something like that. And in this case, because it was 11 and we counted it ahead of time, we're okay. But what I would do is I would always go back after the fact here, and I'm going to go ahead and I want to make sure that these are ungrouped. When you select it, you can go ahead and say Ungroup on these. It's a little odd because of the way that they're set up, but if I get them all selected here, and where it says "Model Groups, " then I can go in and ungroup all of those.
Learn Revit
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
If I were to do this in a way where I planned it out like I did just now but said, okay, I have 1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 7,8, 9,10,11,12 spaces that need to go in here, then I could take this one, I can add it in, and it's facing the wrong way, so I'll turn it and move it to the right spot here. And when I do my array, knowing that I believe it was 12—1,2, 3—knowing that it's 12, I can do my array doing the same thing where I go to Second. So I'm going to say Second, and then I can set that number to 12 here. But I want to uncheck this Group and Associate, and then it won't do the model group thing. But the difference is that after I do the array, that’s it—there's no going back and making changes to the number. I'd have to do it all manually, which really isn't too bad because it's still probably better than placing each one of the spots individually.
