Creating a drawing in AutoCAD® usually requires you to select hundreds or even thousands of points. You pick start points, end points, center points, base points, insertion points, and dozens of other kinds of points from the moment you launch AutoCAD until you shut it down for the night. In many cases, you can use the AutoCAD object snap tools or drawing aids to make selecting points easier, but in a vast number of cases you must actually enter coordinates at the command line. Occasionally you even have to create construction geometry to identify precisely the point you want to select. The AutoCAD Release 14 Direct Distance Entry and Tracking tools make you more efficient by making points easier to place and by reducing the need for construction geometry.

Direct Distance Entry dramatically reduces the number of coordinates you have to enter at the keyboard. Instead of specifying a distance and direction using polar coordinates (@2<90), you can simply move your mouse toward the point you want to select and then enter a distance. You use this most often with Snap enabled.

The new AutoCAD Release 14 Tracking feature reduces the construction geometry you create in order to position points. Tracking lets you construct points based on existing geometry. Using Tracking, you can find the middle of a rectangle or the center of an open space without using any construction geometry.

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