How to create a 3D text on a cylinder using AutoCAD

Creating 3D text in AutoCAD is a quite not known task for many beginners, and creating a text on a non-flat surface can be even trickier.

We will see in this post how you can have a word written on a circular shape of a cylinder and having theirs shape to completely match the curvy surface.

AutoCAD 3D tips for beginners

Step 1

Assuming your cylinder has already been created since that is considered here like an AutoCAD basics task we won’t go through it.

Create a text.

1.       Type MTEXT and Press ENTER

2.       Specify the first corner

3.       Specify the opposite corner

4.       Type your text 

5.       And click somewhere else in the drawing window

Step 2

At this point, we have a text and a cylinder already created.

1.       Click on the Express Tools tab

2.       Select text

3.       Click on Modify Text

4.       And click on Explode

Step 3

Extrude the text

Step 4

1.       Type UNION and Press ENTER

2.       Select the whole and Press  ENTER

Step 5

Place the text where it has to be on the cylinder and make sure it completely overlap with the cylinder

Step 6

Have a copy of the whole on the site.

On one copy, apply the INTERSECTION command to extract the intersecting geometry resulting from both. And on the other, apply the SUBTRACT command; subtract the text from the cylinder.

You should end up with the following.

Step 7

Move the text and drop it exactly where where you have gaps in the cylinder to match the subtracted geometry.

Step 8

Apply different materials to these objects to make the text more visible and here we go.

Feel free to ask any question for more clarity if in any case you happen not to understand a part of this AutoCAD tutorial.