This article offers an in-depth look at how to add additional plan views, like a roof plan, structural foundation plan, and electrical plan, to your CAD model. It provides step-by-step instructions on creating new layers on top of the architectural layers, including how to use layer states to toggle between different layer visibilities.
Key Insights
- The article guides learners through the process of adding a roof plan, structural foundation plan, and electrical plan into their CAD model, specifically using the VDCI plan model drawing.
- One of the main tips shared in the article is the use of layer states, which allows for the easy toggling between different layer visibilities, locked and unlocked layers, and certain layer colors and options.
- The article also provides specific instructions on creating new layers for a foundation plan and a roof plan, along with how to name and color-code these layers according to CAD standards.
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Now that we are done with our floor plan, we want to move on and add the rest of our plan views. We mentioned earlier in the course that a plan view might be a floor plan, but it could also include other views.
In this course, we will add a Roof Plan, Structural Foundation Plan, and Electrical Plan. We are going to add all of those into our Plan Model. So I will save our CAD 201 A201 drawing and close it, and you will see that I have the VDCI Plan Model still open.
If you do not have this open, please go File, Open, and open the VDCI Plan Model drawing. In this Plan Model drawing, we are going to add new layers, and all of these layers are going to be directly on top of our architectural layers. We are able to do this because we can toggle layer visibility independently in our sheet views, but as we are modeling, we want to introduce Layer States.
Layer States allow us to quickly toggle back and forth between different layer visibilities, locked and unlocked layers, and even some layer colors and other options. In this course, we are only going to focus on layer visibility in our Layer States, but please explore this on your own if you would like to figure out more about Layer States. Before we begin with Layer States, I would like to add new layers for our Foundation Plan and our Roof Plan, and we will start with our Roof Plan.
We are going to add our Power layer for our Electrical Plan later in the course and see how that impacts our Layer States. So, for now, please follow along in adding new layers. I am going to go to Layer Properties.
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I am going to select Layer 0, not make it my current layer, but just have it selected so that when I go New Layer, it becomes a copy of Layer 0. We can see the color is white and the linetype is continuous. Let's start with our foundation layers, and these are going to be, again, in all caps: S-FNDN for foundation. The foundation layer is going to be white, so I will click off into space to set the S-FNDN layer, and I will use it as my reference and make a new layer.
Now, this one is going to be named S-FNDN-DIMS. Now, we're used to seeing DIMS as dimensions, but so far, we've only had architectural dimensions. In AutoCAD, according to CAD standards, you can link these descriptors together in a chain of two or three or sometimes four. As long as they are preceded by their discipline, you can link them together in groups of four letters.
So, I can now tell that this is the Structural Foundation Dimensions layer. This layer is going to be a color of 61. I'll hit OK.
I'll go back to S-FNDN and make a new layer, and this one is going to be called S-FNDN-TEXT, and this can stay a color of 7 or white. I'll go back to Layer 0 to start on my A-ROOF layers. So, New Layer, A-ROOF.
A-ROOF is going to be a color of 2. I'll go New Layer, A-ROOF-DIMS. We'll make this the same color as our architectural dimensions—this is a color of 31.
I'll hit OK. I'll go New Layer, A-ROOF-OUTLINE, which is O-T-L-N, for outline. This one's a light color, so we're going to use our 253 color, which is the same that we've used for patterns in the past.
Speaking of patterns, I'll go New Layer, A-ROOF-PATTERN, P-A-T-T. We'll keep that as a color of 253. Next, let's add symbols and text again, like we've done for our floor plan.
A-ROOF-SYMS—that will be a color of 120. And our last layer will be A-ROOF-TEXT, and we'll go back to white or a color of 7. I'm going to close my Layer Properties and quickly open it back up. That will automatically sort these alphabetically.
So, if you want to check your layers against these layers, please go ahead and do so. For now, we're going to start with the Roof Plan, so I can make A-ROOF my current layer, and I will close Layer Properties. Control + S to save your drawing.
In the next video, we will set up our Layer States in our Layer States Manager to prepare for drawing the Roof Plan, Electrical Plan, and Structural Floor Plan.
