Tipster Ed Galicki shares a customization he's made to the various View commands in AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop; this tip will work in standard AutoCAD as well.

"I work on parts in a solid model assembly until it's ready for part detailing. To get to certain coordinate systems more quickly, I made some alterations in the menu.

"In the view icons for Top, Bottom, Front, Rear, Left, and Right, I added the command ucs,v to the menu lines. This helps me get the UCS I want with fewer clicks. If I'm working on a surface of a part in an assembly that is off any normal coordinate system in some strange viewpoint, I click the Left icon. This takes me to the real Left view, and sets the UCS to that. Then I select Zoom Previous (which is a puck button on my system). Now I am back in the view I was working on, but my UCS is set to a normal one so I can see or move on the x, y, or z axis easily, or measure and know the directions the distance is taking."

Notes from Cadalyst Tip Patrol: In AutoCAD and its verticals, the UCS (User Coordinate System) is a means of knowing where everything is. It's a good thing, but often difficult to manage. Most of the time, users will not have to do anything to it. But from time to time, altering it will make things easier for you. Here the user is changing the view — from top to left, for example. Once changed, the customization changes the UCS to match the new view. This makes it easier to manipulate objects on a specific plane.

Dynamic UCS can perform a similar function, but more automatically. When turned on, it will automatically make your UCS match the face of a selected object. Once finished, it will return to normal.