Gradient fills gradually change from dark to light or from one color to another. They often are a nice alternative to shading because they can be more flexible. To apply a gradient fill, select Gradient from the Draw toolbar or type Gradient at the command line. The Hatch and Gradient dialog box will open with the Gradient tab displayed.

Caption: Gradient tab is shown in expanded form.

Your first decision is whether to apply a one-color or a two-color gradient. When you select One Color, you can click on the ellipsis next to the color box to bring up the Select color dialog box.

Caption: Select Color dialog box.

Then use the Shade/Tint slider to set the gradient range lighter or darker. Your adjustments will be previewed in the gradient options below the slider (see example above). If you choose Two Color, AutoCAD displays two color swatches. To adjust the Shade/Tint slider with two colors, you will need to click on One Color temporarily to display the slider.

Caption: Two-color gradient. Note how the gradient focus changes when the Centered box is unchecked.

Next, select one of the nine gradient styles shown below the color selection area. Check the Centered box if you want the gradient to be symmetric. Uncheck the Centered box for an asymmetrical gradient. What this choice entails becomes more apparent when you proceed to the Angle box. When the Centered box is checked and you enter an angle, the gradient rotates around its center and remains symmetrical. When the Centered box is not checked and you enter an angle, the gradient rotates around the edges. Watch the gradient style styles to see the effects of your various angle choices. Note that you can type in any angle not on the pull-down menu.

Caption: Examples of gradients at 45° uncentered (left) and 90° centered (right).

The final step is to indicate where to place the gradient in your drawing. Select Add: Pick Points to pick inside a closed area. Use Add: Select Objects to pick a closed object. As with hatches, you can have a gradient fill be annotative or associative. You can also select Inherit Properties to use the properties of an existing gradient fill. There’s also an option to Preview the gradient before applying it. Press the <Esc> key after previewing to return to the Hatch and Gradient dialog box.

Caption: Hatch preview.

As with hatches, gradient fills provide a Gap Tolerance setting via the Boundary command, which is invoked to create a temporary boundary to guide the fill. You may need to expand the Hatch and Gradient dialog box to see these options.

Caption: Set a Gap Tolerance to fill not-quite-closed areas.

If you check Retain Boundaries, the boundary will be drawn as an object and can be either a region or a polyline. When this box is not checked, the boundary is erased after you place the gradient. To fill an area that is not quite closed, enter a value for Gap Tolerance that is larger than the size of the opening in the boundary. Allowable values range from 0 to 5000.

Caption: Boundary Definition Error appears when your Gap Tolerance value is too small for your gap.

You may need to experiment when filling an area to see whether picking points or selecting objects provides better results. With either option, an Open Boundary Warning message appears.

Caption: Open Boundary Warning error message.

Select Yes to proceed with the fill. Note that the fill is not associative, so you will have to update it manually if you change the area in any way. Also note that this turns off associativity, so subsequent fills and hatches will be nonassociative until you turn associativity back on.

Users of Autodesk Design Suite 2011 (Standard, Premium, or Advanced versions) will be unable to create deployments of these products because certain components of the suites (Showcase 2011, Alias Design 2011, and Alias Sketch 2011) do not support deployment. You can create deployments for the remaining two suitemates (AutoCAD 2011 and 3ds Max Design 2011) if you use separate media. You can request DVDs from your reseller.

If you purchase one or more Design Suites at different times, you may also run into an issue in which you don’t have access to all of the product licenses you have purchased (those can be either licenses included in the Design Suite or licenses of stand-alone products that are also included in the suite—for example, AutoCAD 2011). Basically, when confronted with multiple installation dates for Design Suites, the license manager provides only the number of licenses specified by the last suite installed. To fix the problem, you’ll need to contact your reseller or Autodesk to regenerate the original product license and the new suite license so they have the same issue date. To find the issue date, you can open your license file and search for ISSUED= in each increment.

Beginning with AutoCAD 2008, you can insert inspection dimensions that specify how often you want a part manufacturer to check its measurements (and, optionally, to what tolerance). For example, you might want 25% of parts checked for accuracy to within 0.1 mm. In AutoCAD, you indicate this by adding a label and an inspection percentage to an existing dimension. First, select an existing dimension. Then launch the Inspection Dimension dialog box by choosing Inspection from the Dimension toolbar or Diminspect from the Dimensions control panel.

Caption: You can launch Inspection Dimensions from the Dimension menu.

In the Inspection Dimension dialog box, you can choose Round, Angular, or None for the shape of your inspection dimension. If you want to include a text label, select the Label check box and enter the label text in the window. Enter the inspection rate in the Inspection Rate window (the check box for this option should already be checked by default).

Caption: Inspection Dimension options.

If you haven’t yet selected a dimension, click on the Select Dimensions button at the top left. Select OK when you’re done, and your inspection dimension should appear.

To edit an existing inspection dimension, select it and launch the Properties palette. Look for the inspection dimension’s properties under Misc in the Properties palette.

Caption: Inspection Dimension properties can be edited in the Properties palette.