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Chapter 24: Editing and Visualizing 3D Solids > Understanding Solid Modeling
Solid modeling is a way of defining 3D objects as solid forms. When you create a 3D model by using solid modeling, you start with the basic forms of your model—cubes, cones, and cylinders, for example. These basic solids are called primitives. Then, using more of these primitives, you begin to add to or subtract from your basic forms.
3D Solids Are Not Available in LT
LT users don’t have solid-modeling capabilities. However, you can take advantage of the region objects and their related editing commands described in the sidebar “Using 3D Solid Operations on 2D Drawings” later in this chapter.
For example, to create a model of a tube, you first create two solid cylinders, one smaller in diameter than the other. You then align the two cylinders so that they’re concentric and tell AutoCAD to subtract the smaller cylinder from the larger one. The larger of the two cylinders becomes a tube whose inside diameter is that of the smaller cylinder, as shown in Figure 24-1. Several primitives are available for modeling solids in AutoCAD (see Figure 24-2).
