Understand how to detail your architectural design and give it character using different features and tools in AutoCAD. This article guides you through creating and modifying headers, applying insulation, and giving your design a more realistic wood-grain finish.
Key Insights
- The article provides a step-by-step guide on how to add character to your designs by creating headers, applying insulation, and customizing dimensions to fit standard lumber sizes.
- The writer demonstrates the use of different commands such as offset, trim and match properties, and saving changes using Control-S in AutoCAD. They also show how to use polyline and splines to create a more realistic wood-grain finish.
- Instead of using standard lumber presentations, the author suggests using a wood-grain presentation for finished wood, which can be created and modified within AutoCAD.
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Well, let's start giving the detail a little bit of character. I will always have a header above the window. So, I'm going to offset by five and a half inches.
And there's my header. I'm going to draw a line and a line. This is how we typically represent a header in section.
And then I'm going to match properties, source and destination. Control-S to save. Now, I could put insulation in here.
So, I'm going to draw a line from the mid of here up to there. Trim that out. Format line type.
I want to load the line type batting. Okay. Pick the line.
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Go to the line type. And assign batting to it. Control-S to save.
I'm going to go back and choose the line. Do a right button properties. And I will give it a line type scale factor of two.
Just to better match what's happening in the other drawings. No, I believe the scale factor is four now, isn't it? Yes. Pick on the line right button properties.
Give it a scale factor of four. That looks better. It looks sort of short.
So, what's happening is if I stretch crossing arbitrary point, I can now see more information. I'm going to choose this. It was on zero.
I'm going to put it on my medium layer. Control-S to save. So, we have the header.
We have some insulation. We'll come back and work at some of those details later on. Down here, I'm going to offset by an inch and a half.
Because we typically have two plates below the window. So, align from end to end to end. From end to end to end.
Pick these. And put them on the medium layer. And save.
I'm going to back off a bit. And save again. Now, while we're in this area, I'm going to look a little bit more closely at my detail here.
If I check my distance here to here, it's right about an inch. I'm going to say how about if we offset it by half an inch. Trim.
Pick here and then here. Trim here to there. I'm going to say what's the distance from here to here.
And delta X is over four inches. I'm just going to draw a line from here down. I'm going to offset by three and a half.
See how that works. Because three and a half inches is a normal dimension I can find in lumber. And so, rather than calling out something specific, I'm using a three and a half inch.
Trim crossing. Match properties. Source destination.
Erase this. I'm going to check my distance here. Three inches.
I'll stretch it down by another half an inch. Because if you're going to purchase the wood, there's no reason at all to have to purchase wood that is longer or wider and you have to trim it down. Again, I'm just going to double check this dimension.
That's the one. Fill it here to here. Erase this.
Control S to save. What I would like to do is to put a hatch pattern inside this wood. I'm just going to go and go to my light layer.
Make the light be a color that shows up better on the screen. I could go with my typical 120. I think that I'll go with color 40.
And I'm going to draw a polyline. Ortho off. Osnap off.
Polyedit. Spline. Spline.
I'm using the PE command for polyedit. Spline. Spline.
Now what's happening is Sierra Pacific actually did use a hatch, but this hatch does not ship with AutoCAD and so I'm making my own. So trim. Select this line and that line and this line segment here.
Do a crossing. A crossing up here. And this.
Trim that. When you have finished wood, you don't use the regular lumber kind of presentation. Instead you tend to have like they have.
More of a wood grain. So polyline. I sort of enjoy this kind of thing.
Polyedit. Spline. Spline.
Spline. And then I can always go around and pick some of the grips. And if I'd like to modify the hatch density in some fashion, I can do that.
So trim. Those are my cutting edges. This one as well as this.
Crossing. This. Crossing in there.
Control S to save. If you would please get your drawing to this point, then we'll continue on in the next video. And again, I hope you're enjoying yourself.
