This comprehensive guide takes you through the process of setting up an elevation model file in a CAD program, starting with a reference to the plan model file. The guide thoroughly explains how to create and assign various layers including 'A Heavy', 'A Medium', 'A Light', 'C-Ground', 'A-Floor-Level', among others, all of which represent different elements in the model.
Key Insights
- The elevation model file creation begins by referencing the plan model file using the VDCI Fundamentals template. The elevation file begins similar to a sheet file as it will generate a drawing based on the plan model.
- Various layers such as 'A Heavy', 'A Medium', 'A Light' are created, representing different pen weights instead of elements like wall, door, window. These layers represent the distance between a geometry and its adjacent geometry, adding depth to the drawings.
- Additional layers like 'C-Ground', 'A-Floor-Level', 'A-Dims', 'A-Pat-Lite', 'A-Pat-Heavy', and 'A-Text' are added and assigned specific colors. For instance, 'C-Ground' represents the ground and is assigned the color red, the thickest line that can be added.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
So let's get started with our Elevation Model file. Remember, in this course we will only have a Plan and Elevation Model file, and this Elevation Model file will actually reference our Plan Model file.
So that's why it was important to finish our Plan Model file first. Let's go File, New, using the VDCI Fundamentals template, and let's go File, Save, and save this in our C drive, CAD 201 File Downloads. Here we see VDCI Plan Model. This one will be called VDCI-ELEV-MODEL.
VDCI-ELEV-MODEL. Again, this “VDCI” would typically be replaced with a project number or project title, but in this course we're just calling it VDCI. Let's hit Save. This Elevation file begins similar to a sheet file because we are going to generate our drawing based on our Plan Model.
So with Layer 0 active, let's go Insert, XRef Attach. I'm going to grab my VDCI Plan Model. I'll hit Open. In this case, we are going to use the Overlay option.
Now, we talked about this earlier in the course. I do not want this Plan geometry to be brought into my sheet files. I only need my Elevation geometry in my sheet files, so this XRef floor plan can be an Overlay.
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Now we are bringing it in at a scale factor of 1 and an insertion point of 0, and I'll hit OK. Zoom Extents, Control + S to save. It does not really matter what layers are on in our drawing because we are going to go in and turn them all off anyway—except for our VDCI Plan Model walls.
So let's go into the Layer Properties. I'll grab all of my layers and turn them off, and then find A-WALL and turn it back on. So here is our base geometry that we need to begin our Elevation file.
Control + S to save. Now let's go in and add our layers for our Elevation geometry. Elevation layers and section layers work differently than floor plan layers because our floor plan layers are all assigned to specific categories that represent real-world objects.
In an Elevation or a Section, there might be geometry that is closer to the camera—or closer to the person looking at it—and geometry that is further away. We differentiate these by using different colors, or in this case, different lineweights or shades of gray. That helps add depth to our drawings at a glance. If you look at the PDF handouts, you can see that the outline of the building and the outline of the roof are darker and thicker than our doors, windows, and other geometry.
This implies that there is distance from where a wall meets empty space, or above and below the roof where it overhangs past the wall geometry. Because of this, our layers are going to be named A-HEAVY, A-MEDIUM, and A-LIGHT. This just assigns three different pen weights to the layers instead of naming them things like WALL, DOOR, or WINDOW.
That way, our geometry can be placed on layers that represent the distance between it and the adjacent geometry. So let's get started. I'm going to go to Layer Properties, and using Layer 0, we're going to add many layers.
New Layer: A-HEAVY. That's our heavy layer. That's going to be a similar color to what we've used before—Color 2. Very familiar.
Let's go New Layer: A-MEDIUM. This is going to be a color of 120.
Again, very familiar. New Layer again: A-LIGHT, and this will be 253. Next, let's add a slightly different layer: C-GRND, or C-GROUND.
This is a civil layer representing the ground, and this is going to be a color of 1, which is red—and that's actually the thickest line that we could add. In our color table file, these go from thick to thin across the first 9 colors. Okay, so that's our C-GROUND layer. Let's add a new layer: A-FLOR-LEVL (Floor Level).
These are the datum lines that you can see running across at the floor level and top of plate on your handout. This will be a color of 7, or white. Okay, now we can add some more familiar layers: A-DIMS, and that's going to be the same color as our floor plan—Color 31.
Here we go: A-PAT-LIGHT. This is a light pattern layer, so we'll do 253. Then we'll add another pattern layer: A-PAT-HEAVY (H-E-V-Y), and this matches with a color of 2. If you look at the handout, you can see that the stucco has some light dots and dark dots. That provides a slightly different texture than what's generated automatically with the AutoCAD hatch, and so we want to provide it on two separate layers.
Finally, let's add an A-TEXT layer, and we'll put that on 7 as well, or white. There's our layers. I'm going to close and open Layer Properties so you can see them alphabetically, and there is one final change I want to make before we are done setting up our layers.
This Floor Level line you can see is a dot-dash-dot-dash, so we want to change the linetype. I'm going to grab A-FLOR-LEVL, change its linetype, and we have to load a new linetype. This is going to be the CENTER2 linetype.
CENTER2. I'll hit OK to load it into my drawing, and then I have to choose CENTER2 and hit OK to assign it to that layer. I'll close my Layer Properties, and we are ready to begin drawing our geometry. In the next video, we will set up our floor level and ground lines.
See you there.
