Chapter 16
Making “Smart” Drawings with Parametric Tools
Don't let the term parametric drawing scare you. Parametric is a word from mathematics, and in the context of AutoCAD® drawings, it means that you can define relationships between different objects in a drawing. For example, you can set up a pair of individual lines to stay parallel or set up two concentric circles to maintain an exact distance between the circles no matter how they may be edited.
Parametric drawing is also called constraint‐based modeling, and you'll see the word constraint used in the AutoCAD Ribbon to describe sets of tools. The term constraint is a bit more descriptive of the tools that you'll use to create parametric drawings because when you use them, you are applying a constraint on the objects in your drawing.
This chapter shows you how the parametric drawing tools work and how you can apply them to your needs.
