Creating a Floor Plan in CAD 201: A201 Sheet File Walkthrough

In this video, we are going to create the CAD 201 A201 sheet file, which is for the floor plan. So let's go File, New.

Choose the VDCI Fundamentals template. Let's hit Open. Let's go File, Save.

And in this case, you'll notice that if I go to my CAD 201 file downloads folder, there is a Sheets folder. This is where we want to save all of our sheets, and it will help us understand where all of our final sheet files are. This way, if we ever need to plot all of our sheets very quickly, we can open all of the files from this folder.

So I'll rename this CAD 201-A201. And this will represent our floor plan. Let's hit Save.

And the first thing I want to do in this file is xref attach reference my plan model. We can remember that this is on the Insert tab and reference attach. We talked earlier in this course about our reference options, but here we need to choose our VDCI plan model, Open.

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And now I can see attachment and overlay, as well as our scale and all of the other information. This should be set up automatically. Please make sure that this matches your screen.

Scale factor of 1,000, and attachment are the three keys. And I'll hit OK to bring in my model. I'll zoom extents and Control-S to save.

And now this has been brought in as an xref, as a linked reference. This is in our model space, but now we want to set up our paper space. And this will include bringing in our title block and creating a viewport.

I'll go over to the 8.5 × 11 sheet file, which is paper space, as provided by our VDCI fundamentals template. And now I want to insert our title block. And this is the ANSI A title block.

Our title block has been built to work with ANSI A with full bleed. If your drawing has dashed gray lines around the outside, then the title block won't fit. It's important to use the VDCI fundamentals template for this workflow.

So I'll go I, Enter, to open up our blocks dialog box. And let's make sure we understand what we need to do over here on the screen. I can insert my block on the screen, but it will go to,000.

But what I definitely want to change is my scale. Remember, we're bringing in a paper object into paper space. So this will be a scale factor of one.

Now I can browse for my title block. And you can see I've come to the title blocks folder because we most recently brought in our note plot. In this case, I want to find VDCI TTLB ANSI A. And I will hit Open.

You can see it wants me to place it on the screen. So I will place this at 0,0, Enter. And now I need to enter in my data.

This will be your name. And please use all caps. The date can be today's date.

And the scale is already set to one quarter inch equals a foot. The sheet number is A2.1. And remember, the drawing title is a multi-line text object. So I'll click the three dots and type in floor plan.

This is because it's the only drawing for this sheet. I'll hit OK. And OK one more time.

Zoom extents, Control-S to save. There are a couple of things we might need to fix on our title block. If you come over to the side, you can see that my title block image has now been disrupted.

If I go to my XREF manager, which is under reference, and it's this little arrow here, we can see that there is a VDCI title block logo image. But the status is not found. If I go to the saved path and hit these three dots, I can find my image one more time.

It's in the folder where it's supposed to be, but I'll hit Open and close this window. And now my image has loaded appropriately. Control-S to save.

I can now close my blocks dialog box. Now we have our title block loaded in, and we have our model in model space, but I can't see my model. When I insert a block, it does not bring in a viewport automatically.

There is this line that's on the no plot layer, but it is not a viewport. It's just a place where we are planning on drawing a viewport. So first I'm going to go to the Home tab, switch my current layer from zero to a no plot, and now I can draw my viewport.

I'll go to the Layout tab and choose a rectangular viewport. This is a fairly simple process. Just trace the rectangle, click, and click, and now I can see into model space.

Remember, I'll have to double click into model space, and I can start to zoom and pan. Now, to draw my zoom extents window, I'm going to draw from the top left to the bottom right, and that way I can avoid this 3D view cube. It can sometimes get in the way when I try to snap to the top right side of my no plot.

I'll go Z, enter, W, enter, shift right click endpoint from the top left to the shift right click endpoint at the bottom right. I'll check my scale. I see that it is correct, and I'll lock my viewport.

Now I can double click out, zoom extents, and control S to save. The final thing I want to do here is I'll go back to the Home tab, and I will make zero my current layer one more time. I want to hide my no plot layers in this drawing.

They won't print anyway, but I want to make sure that they don't print in case someone comes and looks over my shoulder, and they go, what are those pink lines? If they're not showing, it won't ever be a problem, and it shows me very quickly what my finished drawing will look like. Control S to save, and at this point, I can close the CAD A201 drawing and my VDCI extraction model. We will continue with the floor plan in our next video.

See you then.