Learn about the process of creating an elevation drawing for a building plan. This article discusses the meticulous process involved, such as the use of the design center, importing information from other drawings, layer management, working with XREFs, and aligning different parts of the plan.
Key Insights
- The elevation drawing is created using a quarter inch equals a foot scale, similar to the floor plan, ensuring consistency across different elements of the building plan.
- The use of XREFs is essential in the process, allowing the user to import information from another drawing. This is particularly useful when needing to pull in 'no plot' views for the elevations.
- Layer management is crucial during the elevation drawing creation, with careful attention paid to switching between different layers such as 'A. Heavy', 'A. Light', 'A. Medium', and others for different aspects of the drawing.
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We have been working very diligently on our floor plan, our enlarged plans, and our roof plan, and it is now time to begin seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and to start working on our elevation drawing. Now, I am in my A3.1 deliverable sheet file, and you can see that this is going to be my holding spot for the elevation. If you remember, the roof plan was presented at an eighth inch equals a foot, whereas the floor plan was presented at a quarter inch equals a foot.
So, when we do the building elevation, we will also be presenting it at a quarter inch equals a foot. So, let's start working on our elevation model. I'm going to go to File > New, and I will use our template, and I will save the file with the name CAD 301 Elevation Model.
I will go to Save and overwrite my existing file. What we will do next is use the Design Center. I'm going to go to the Insert tab, since I will be importing information from another drawing, and I will go over to Design Center.
Now, you can see that it remembers the last drawing that I was in, which was my CAD 301 Extraction Model, and I'm going to select some layers. I'm going to choose A-Anodems-48. I will hold down CTRL.
I will choose A-Anosims-48 and A-Text-48. So, Anodems, Sims, and Text-48. I'm going to choose A-Finish-Floor, A-Heavy, A-Light, A-Medium, and A-No-Plot.
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Again, I'm holding down CTRL. I'm lifting up on CTRL while I pull down the slider bar. I'm once again holding down CTRL.
So, we have the heavy, the light, the medium, and the no plot. I will choose the pattern layer and C-Ground, and I think that's good enough for us. Well, I'm also going to add the Shake-Heavy and the Shake-Light.
So, again, I have chosen A-Anodems-48, A-Anosims-48, A-Text-48, A-Finish-Floor, A-Heavy, A-Light, A-Medium, A-No-Plot, A-Pattern, A-C-Ground, A-Shake-Heavy, and A-Shake-Light. I will then move my mouse over any of these icons, hold down with the left button, drag my hand over the interface, come up onto my actual drawing where you can see my arrow in the suitcase. I've lifted up.
I will close the Design Center, go back to Home, look at my layer list, and there they are. I'm going to choose A-Heavy as my current layer and press CTRL+S to save. We will be creating this elevation in a manner similar to what we did in CAD 201.
And by that, I mean we’re going to initially bring in our model file. So, I'm going to go up to Insert, go over to Reference Attach, and I'm in my CAD 301 folder. I'm going to slide down and choose my CAD 301 plan model.
I'm going to click OK. I'm going to pop it in as an overlay at 0,0. So, I'm bringing it in at 0,0, a scale factor of 1—real-world information coming into real-world information—and as an overlay. And again, the reason we're using an overlay compared to a standard attachment is that when you overlay an XREF, you will only be able to see back one XREF.
So, what we're going to be doing is when we get into our A3.1 sheet file, we will be able to see the contents of the elevation drawing, but not the plan model file that was XREFed into the elevation drawing that is XREFed into the A3.1 sheet file. So, I'm going to click OK and press CTRL+S to save the file. Next, I'm going to go to the Home tab, and you can see that A-Heavy is my current layer.
I'm going to select the XREF, and of course, what it's done is take me into the XREF Management panel, but I'm going to select the XREF, go back to Home, and move the XREF from being on the A-Heavy layer to being on the 0 layer. I will go back to the Layer Properties. I'm going to choose all of the XREF layers on the CAD plan model with the exception of A-Wall, and I will turn them off and close the interface and press CTRL+S to save.
Now, the next thing I need to do is start getting ready to pull in my No-Plot view for my elevations. So, I'm going to go to and turn on the No-Plot layer, which is on. I'm also going to turn on the XREF No-Plot layer so I can have some alignment, and if you remember, we have the No-Plot title block going on for the eighth-inch roof plan, and that’s again at the two-thirds size, and then we have a full size here for the floor plan at 48.
So, I'm going to go ahead and bring in a third-size horizontal. I’m going to go to Insert > Block Insert. I will go to Browse, slide down, and choose No-Plot View Horizontal One-Third. I'm going to bring it in at a scale factor of 48 and click OK.
Specify insertion point on screen. It is not exploded. OK, and I'm going to pop it in right about here, and then I'm going to zoom in and move the new third-sized one to the bottom of the two-thirds-sized one.
So, now what’s happening is I will have consistent left-right alignment at both of the quarter-inch plans. Press CTRL+S to save. Because this two-thirds is XREFed in, I'm going to turn that off because I don’t need it in front of me now, and I’m going to get ready to start populating the drawings for the elevation. Again, I'm on the A-Heavy layer.
I'm going to draw a line from the end, with Ortho on, straight down. I'm going to do some zooming in, and I will say copy this line from the end to the sides of all the openings and wherever the building is protruding in and out—the edge of the garage and both sides of the garage doors. Press CTRL+S to save.
We’ve now brought in the pull-down lines we need for our elevation. I'm going to draw another line from the innermost to the innermost, and that’s again my innermost line of the No-Plot view. Then type M and press ENTER for Move, type L and press ENTER for Last, press ENTER. Arbitrary base point, I'm going to pull it up 24 inches. Press CTRL+S to save.
What I’d like to do now is define my ground line. So, my ground line will be six inches below my plate line. I'm going to Offset by six inches, and then Offset again by 8'-1", and I now have my plate lines.
I'm going to select these two lines. I will put them on the A-Finish-Floor layer, and hit Escape. I will choose my ground line and put it on my C-Ground layer.
Now, one thing that's happening is that my template file is showing a line type scale factor of 1. So, I'm going to go to Format > Line Type. I will show the details and assign my line type a global scale factor of 48. I will not use Paper Space, and I will click OK. You can now see, when we zoom in, that the finish floor line is in fact showing its centerline properties.
It’s now time to do some trimming. I'm going to go to Trim, set the ground line as the cutting edge, press ENTER, and just cross across these lines. Press ENTER, then press CTRL+S to save. One of the last things I’d like to do before stopping the video to give you some time to work on this yourself is extend my extension plate lines four feet on either side of the building.
I will go into Offset, type in 48, pick the wall, go out, pick the other wall on the right, go out, press ENTER, press CTRL+S to save. Trim, choose my cutting lines, press ENTER, and I will trim, then press CTRL+S to save. I will now erase the pull-down lines that I had over here. Once again, press CTRL+S to save, and we’re getting ready for our elevations.
Before I finish, I’d like to use the upper plate line to trim out this information. I’ll go to Trim, choose my upper plate line, press ENTER to say I’m done, and I will select and drag across. Press CTRL+S to save. We are now at a good point to stop this video. We will come back in a minute and start working on integrating our elevation model file into our deliverable sheet file.
So, have fun with this, and I will see you in a few minutes.
