How to make isometric drawing in AutoCAD including text and dimensions

Isometric drawings are not actual 3D drawings, they are made with 2D geometries but they appear like 3D.

Isometric drawing in AutoCAD can be made by tilting viewing angle to 30 degrees for all of its sides in the 2D plane.

In this article, I will show you methods of making an isometric drawing in AutoCAD.

For explaining this feature I will use the geometry shown in the image above.

Here is a video as well for this tutorial but if you prefer article instead of video then scroll down to continue reading.

Starting Isometric mode

To enter the isometric mode select the ISODRAFT option from the status bar as shown in the following image.

If you don’t have that option on the status bar then click the three dash lines icon at the far right corner of the status bar and then activate the “isometric drafting” option as shown in the following image.

After activating it an isometric plane will activate.

You can press F5 function key to switch the isometric plane to top, right or left. 

Press F5 key to activate Isoplane top and then select line command and click anywhere in the drawing area to start your line.

Specify a direction and type 5 on the command line then press enter, repeat this process by changing directions of line to make a closed square as shown in image A below.

Now press F5 again to change the Isoplane to right or left.

Start line command again and make lines from three corners of the square of length 5 units towards downward direction as shown in the image B above.

Again change Isoplane to Top by pressing F5 key and join all three end points of the vertical lines to make a complete cube.

In a similar way, you can make other isometric drawings as well.

Making isometric dimensions

For explaining this feature I will use a simple isometric cube with dimensions as shown in the image below.

If you prefer the video then the step by step method of making isometric dimensions and text is in the following video. 

If you prefer the article then read on.

Making Isometric Dimensions

Make aligned dimensions A, B and C on the geometry as shown in drawing A above using DIMALIGNED command.

Now type DIMEDIT on the command line and press enter, select oblique from the command line as shown in the image below.

Now click on dimension marked A from drawing shown above and press enter.

Command line will prompt you to select an angle to align this dimension type 30 and press enter again.