ZWCAD is a CAD software company founded in 1998 in China that provides 2D and 3D modeling software. It has research and development centers located in China, the US, and Australia. The document discusses the history of ZWCAD and provides an overview of the software's tools and functions for drafting, including snap, grid, ortho, polar, object snaps, layers, and commands.

1. 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).

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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
movement
Incremental spacing can be changed at any time
using:
1) tools-> drafting setting->snap and
2) Give a right click on snap

5. Grid(F7): is a visual drawing aid.
We can change the grid spacing by using:
1) tools-> drafting setting->grid and
2) Give a right click on grid

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

11. 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>

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Grid and limits
Format->drawing limits-> 0,0(enter) ->
420,297(enter)
In command line Limits->on
Grid setting: unmark display limits beyond
limits