Solid Primitives

Solid primitives can easily be drawn from from the 3D Modeling panel, Solid Panel .

What is a Primitive Solid?

A primitive solid is a 'building block' that you can use to work within 3D. Rather than extruding or revolving an object, AutoCAD has some basic 3D shape commands at your disposal. For those basic primitives, you can start building your 3D models. In many cases, you get the same result from drawing circles and rectangles and then extruding them, but doing it one command is generally faster. Using these with Boolean Operations can be a very effective way of drawing in 3D. There are eight different primitives that you can choose from and are on the Home --> Modeling tool panel ( when in the 3D workspace ).

You can use primitives to either begin building a model, or it can even be a finished object on its own. Many of these commands are similar to 2D commands, except with an extra coordinate in the Z axis. Here is a summary of working with these commands.

SHAPE	COMMAND	ICON	DESCRIPTION
BOX	BOX		Creates a solid box after you provide 2 opposite corners and a height.
SPHERE	SPHERE / SPH		Creates a solid sphere from a center point and radius.
CYLINDER	CYLINDER / CYL		Creates a straight cylinder from a center point, radius and height.
CONE	CONE		Creates a tapered cone from a center point, radius and height.
WEDGE	WEDGE / WED		Creates a triangular wedge from 2 opposite points.
TORUS	TORUS / TOR		Creates a torus (donut shape) based on center point, radius and tube radius.
PYRAMID	PYRAMID / PYR		Draws a solid object with a polygon (3-32 sides) base that rises to a central point.
POLYSOLID	PSOLID		Draws a solid object with width and height as you would draw a polyline.