Creating Finish Legends with Floor, Wall, and Base Symbols in Sheet View Using AutoCAD Tools

Learn how to draw and label custom finish symbols directly in sheet view, using circles, lines, and polygons to represent wall, floor, and base finishes in your AutoCAD legend.

Constructing a clear and comprehensible legend for architectural sheets is crucial for ensuring everyone understands the symbols representing floor finishes, base finishes, and wall coverings. This piece explains the process in detail, from selecting the appropriate location on the sheet to crafting each symbol with the correct measurements.

Key Insights

  • The article guides through the process of creating a legend on an architectural sheet, which is crucial for indicating the symbols for floor finish, base finish, and wall covering.
  • It emphasizes the importance of precision in constructing each symbol, with specific examples demonstrating how to create a wall finish circle, a floor finish line, and a wall base triangle using specific commands and measurements.
  • The process also includes details on how to fine-tune the symbols' placement on the sheet, delete unnecessary lines, and change their layer properties to ensure they are correctly categorized, thereby making the legend clear and easy to interpret.

This lesson is a preview from our AutoCAD for Interior Design Course Online (includes software) and Interior Design Professional Course Online (includes software & exam). Enroll in a course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.

To make this sheet easier to understand, let's finish up a legend that shows everyone what the floor finish symbol looks like, the base finish symbol, and the wall covering symbol. So let's zoom out to see our whole sheet. And let's activate the sheet.

We have two ways to do it. One is to double click somewhere out away from the view or type in the word PSPACE, PSPACE, and then Enter. Either way gets us there.

We are no longer working in our view, but we're out in our sheet. And if we zoom in now to the finished legend right here, we will see that we have a finished legend, but it has no symbol. It just has the name of our wall finish, floor finish, and wall base.

Let's create each symbol. And let's zoom in nice and tight here. The wall finish, what is that? It's a circle.

So let's start with the circle command, C for circle, and we'll kind of center our cursor right around that W and go to the left. We will click one time, pull that away. And the size we want is small because we're now on the paper space or in the sheet view.

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It's just three sixteenths and then inches and Enter. So there is our wall finish circle. Now we want our floor finish.

So let's go ahead and draw a line, L-I-N-E, and we'll start at the center point of that circle and go straight down. I'm going to turn on ortho, and I want to kind of get to the middle of the F, which is about half an inch. So type one divided by two inches, Enter.

Now let's go ahead and draw another line while we're at it. One half an inch, Enter. Okay, now let's do our floor finish symbol.

So let's go ahead and type in a polygon, P-O-L-Y-N-E. Y-G-O-N, polygon, Enter. And the first prompt we get is enter the number of sides.

In this case, it's six. We'll click six and Enter. And we will click right on that dot, that end point of the half inch line we drew, click.

And we get another option to select, inscribed in circle or circumscribed. Let's go with inscribed. Pull our cursor away.

And again, type in three divided by 16, Enter, for three sixteenths of an inch. Click Enter, and there we go. Now let's do our wall base, and it's a triangle.

But we'll use the polygon tool again, P-O-L-Y-G-O-N, Enter. Number of sides, three, Enter. Click right there on that line, click.

Select inscribed circle again. And I'm gonna move my mouse up, straight up. And you guessed it, I'll type in three divided by 16th inch, Enter, and there is our wall base triangle.

Now let's delete these lines. Let's select all of these, and I might move them up just a little bit, so they're more centered about the floor finish. That looks pretty good.

Let's also select them and go to Properties, and change their layer. They're on the I Anno Finishes layer. Let's drop that down, and let's change it to G, G Anno Note, G Anno Note, and that'll do it.

Zoom out to see our awesome work, and it's a great time to hit that Save button.

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Reid Johnson

Reid isn't just someone who knows CAD and BIM; he's a licensed architect and contractor who deeply integrates these technologies into every facet of his career. His hands-on experience as a practitioner building real-world projects provides him with an invaluable understanding of how BIM and CAD streamline workflows and enhance design. This practical foundation led him to Autodesk, where he shared his expertise, helping others effectively leverage these powerful tools. Throughout his professional journey, Reid also dedicates himself to education, consistently teaching university courses and shaping the next generation of design professionals by equipping them with essential CAD skills. His unique blend of practical experience, industry knowledge gained at Autodesk, and passion for teaching positions Reid as a true specialist in BIM and CAD technology, capable of bridging the gap between theory and real-world application.

  • Autodesk Fusion Certified User
  • Autodesk Revit Certified Professional
  • Autodesk Certified Instructor
  • Licensed Architect
  • Licensed General Contractor
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