AutoCAD 2017: 2D and 3D Align Tools

Guest Post by Jaiprakash Pandey

Using the ALIGN command In AutoCAD, you can move an object with respect to another and also change its orientation. Let’s take the example of the geometry shown in the image below. Here we can move geometry A to align it with geometry B so that straight line of geometry A completely aligns with the red line of geometry B.

2D Align:

Type ALIGN on the command line and press enter to start the command, you can also click on Align tool from expanded Modify panel of Home tab. The command line will prompt you to select the object, select the drawing A and press enter.

Now specify the top point of the line in geometry A as first source point then click on left point of the red line on geometry B for destination point. Similarly, specify second source point on geometry A as another end of the line and specify its corresponding destination point on geometry B which will be the other endpoint of the red line.

Select the center of the circle as third source point and click at any point above red line to specify third destination point, this point will only indicate the direction of alignment of the geometry A with respect to the geometry B.

You will notice that the geometry will now be aligned as shown in the image below.

In this image, if you will look closely you will find that the two overlapping lines of the two geometries are of varying length causing a corner at the point shown in the red callout.

You can avoid this situation by scaling the source geometry with respect to the destination geometry while using ALIGN command. To explain this, I will repeat the align process once again but this time I will only specify the first and second source and destination points. When the command line prompts you to specify the third source point press enter without specifying any points.

You will notice that the command line will now prompt you to specify whether you want to scale source object based on the first and second destination points. Select Yes from this prompt and the object will be moved at the required point and it will also be scaled properly as shown in the image below.

3D Align:

This tool can be used to align one 3D object with respect to another one. For explaining this tool I will use the geometries shown in the image below.

Here I will align geometry A with geometry B in such a way that red faces of both the geometries completely overlap each other.

Type 3DALIGN and press enter to start the command and then select the object which you want to move and press enter again.

Specify first, second and third base points on the object A. Now You will notice that the object will accompany your cursor and now you need to specify destination points on object B. Specify three destination points carefully in the same order in which you want to match the corresponding points of object A.

Once you have specified the destination points the objects will be aligned as shown in the image below.

 About the Author:

Jaiprakash Pandey is a Mechanical Engineer currently working as CAD Corporate trainer. He is an Autodesk AutoCAD certified professional and an Autodesk expert elite member. He provides training in AutoCAD, CATIA and other CAD products to corporate clients. He is a regular contributor to AUGI world magazine and he also develops AutoCAD video courses for Pluralsight and his own platform SourceCAD. You can reach him on his blog SourceCAD.

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