Discover the modularization of CAD detailing, focusing on creating detail borders, alignment, and the use of title blocks. Learn how to manipulate the dimensions of these details within various title block sizes, such as 22 by 34 and 30 by 42.
Key Insights
- Detailing in CAD involves the creation of detail borders, which typically house information around a detail including a graphic, text, and a title. This detailing process emphasizes alignment, especially where the text starts in the border.
- Most offices use two sizes of title blocks for detailing, a 22 by 34 and a 30 by 42. These formats provide areas for the keynotes and details, and their sizes affect the number of details that can fit within.
- The standard detail rectangle in the construction community is approximately 6 inches by 6 inches. This size is then adjusted to fit within the chosen title block size, requiring scaling and potentially dividing the rectangle to achieve the correct fit.
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Welcome to CAD Detailing. In front of us is one of the drawings we just completed in CAD 302. This drawing shows some building sections and a number of details.
If you look at the sheet, you can see that there is some modularization to the sheet. Essentially, the width of this column is the same width as the space that's provided for the details. And the module for this area for the building sections is similarly related to this.
What we need to start doing first is to create the detail borders. By detail borders, I'm referring to the format around a detail, including the area for the graphic, text, and, of course, the detail title. One thing you'll notice is that when we stack the details, there is an alignment between where all of the text starts off in the detail border.
So let's begin working on our drawings themselves. Most offices have two sizes of title blocks, a 22 × 34 and a 30 × 42. So you can see that the formats are relatively similar.
There is an area over here on the right for the keynote section. There's an area here for the details. If I go back to the 22 × 34, I have a similar format, an area for the keynotes, and an area for the details.
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So let's begin. Within the construction community, details are usually housed inside a rectangle that's around 6 inches by 6 inches. So let's see how this 6 inch by 6 inch standard works within our title block.
I'm going to draw a rectangle from this bottom left corner and type @6,6. Control-S to save. I'm then going to array the border.
I'm going to do a rectangular array. I'll say 6 columns and 6 rows.
Distance between columns is 6 inches. Distance between rows is 6 inches. I'll turn off the associativity and close the array. You can see I've put in too many, as expected. I'm going to erase crossing up here and erase right here.
I'm also going to erase these rectangles in the area to the left. So it appears that on this title block, we can get a total of 12 details. I'm going to save this.
Now I'll go into the 30 × 42 sheet. I'll draw a rectangle from this corner using dimensions @6,6. Save the file. I will array the rectangle: 6 columns, 6 rows.
Distance between rows is 6 inches. Between columns is 6 inches. Associative is turned off.
Close the array. I'm going to erase out the top row, and I will also erase these rectangles. Actually, I'm going to erase this one too.
You can now see that I can obviously fit more details in a 30 × 42 sheet using a 6 × 6 border than I can on a 22 × 34 sheet. What I need to do now is to begin figuring out the size that my final detail borders need to be. So I'm back in my 22 × 34 sheet, and I'm going to begin by doing some reference scaling.
I'm going to Scale, Crossing selection, Base point at this corner, R for Reference. The reference distance goes from this corner to this corner, and I'm going to scale them up to match this width and save the file. Now I can see that the width is over 6 inches.
It's around 6 and 15/16 inches wide, but I have a gap up here. So what I need to do is stretch these rectangles vertically. The easiest way to do that is by using the Divide command.
I'm going to type Divide and divide this into three segments. I'm going to erase this rectangle out. I'll draw a rectangle from this corner to this node here.
I'm now going to erase my nodes and erase the original rectangles. I'll copy this rectangle three times vertically and then copy these rectangles four times horizontally. Now I have the initial layout for my detail borders on a 22 × 34 sheet.
I'm going to save the file, and now I will go to the 30 × 42 and do the same thing. Scale, Crossing selection, Base point at this corner, R for Reference, current distance from this corner to this corner, going to the end over there. Again, I have a gap at the top, and I'm going to type Divide into four rows, draw a rectangle from this corner to this node here, erase out these rectangles, erase this and this, erase the nodes, and copy multiple times vertically and horizontally.
So again, you can see the detail borders on the 30 × 42. What we're going to start doing next is working on the final format for a one-by-one detail border. We will begin that process in the next video.
If you would please get this far, that will be terrific. And again, I'll see you in a few minutes.
