In this step you will learn how to use the keyboard to quickly drawing a polyline and then create some fillets and chamfers.

1.You only need the Top View displayed for this exercise so if you have multiple Viewports displayed, double-left-click on the Top View tab to change the display to that Viewport.

2.Alternately you can right-click on the Top View tab and select Single Viewport.

3.If you do not see the Top View tab on any of your Viewports, simply double-left-click on any viewport tab to set the display to that single Viewport and then select the Top View icon from the View Toolbar.

4.For visual purposes, we are displaying the construction Grid and the Grid options are set to those in the Preferences Exercise.

5.If the Grid is not displayed you can toggle it on by selecting Hide / Show Grid from the View Toolbar.

6.Scroll the middle mouse button to zoom in/out so that you see the World Origin WCS triad toward the bottom left of the screen.  If you do not see the X (Red) and Y (Green) axes displayed, make sure you are in the Top View.

7.Now we can start curve drawing.  From the Curve Modeling tab, select the Polyline command.

8.The command prompt says:
Polyline:: Pick point or enter coordinates x,y and z
For the start point of the polyline, enter 0,0 in the command window and press <Enter>.  
 
You will see the polyline is starting at the XY origin on the left.

9.For the next point in the Polyline, enter 6,0 and press <Enter>.  This is in Absolute World Coordinates, 6 units in X and 0 units in Y measured from the World Origin.

10.Now if you are drawing and you do not know the exact absolute coordinate values you can enter Relative Coordinate values in the command window.  
 
For the next coordinate enter @0,3 in the command window and press <Enter>.  This will place the next point in the polyline 3" from the last point in the positive Y Axis direction.
 
Listed below are the absolute and relative coordinate values for the entire polyline.  Use them to complete the polyline, pressing <Enter> after each coordinate entered.  If you make a mistake, just Undo and start again.
 
Polyline Absolute (Relative) coordinate values
0,0
6,0 (@6,0)
6,3 (@0,3)
3,3 (@-3,0)
3,2 (@0,-1)
0,2 (@-3,0)
0,0 (@0,-2)
 
Your polyline should like this:

Note: In the future you can also specify a point at an angle and length from the previous point using the following format: @6<45 where the length of the line segment is 6 and the direction is 45 degrees from the previous point.

11.Always Save your work!  Select the Save or Save As command from the Home tab or the VisualCAD Main Menu or press <Ctrl+S>.

12.Now let's add some fillets.  From the Curve Modeling tab select the Fillet command.

13.For the fillet radius, enter 0.5 in the command window and press <Enter>.

14.For the two lines to fillet, select the lines marked in the illustration below.  For filleting it is best to select the line on the end furthest from the end you want to fillet.

15.Press <Enter> to repeat the Fillet command.

16.The default fillet radius is now 0.5 so proceed directly to picking the two lines to fillet and press <Enter>.

17.Next we will chamfer the three remaining outer corners.  From the Curve Modeling tab select the Chamfer command.

18.For the chamfer length, enter 0.5 in the command window and press <Enter>.

19.For the lines to chamfer, select lines marked in the illustration below.  For chamfers it is best to select the line on the end furthest from the end you want to chamfer.

20.Currently our curves are still are one polyline.  For this next step we need to explode the polyline.  From the Curve Modeling tab select the Explode curves command.

21.Select the polyline and the right-click the mouse or press <Enter>.  The polyline is now individual curves.

22.Now from the Curve Modeling tab select the Extend Curves command.

23.Select the change line marked below to extend it to the horizontal line.

24.Now from the Curve Modeling tab select the Trim Curves command.

25.Pick the line segment to trim.  When using the Trim command, you do not need to select the trimming curve.  Just select what curve you want trimmed.

26.Next, delete the unneeded line.  Just select it and then press the <Del> key or select the Cut command icon from the Quick Access Toolbar.