This article provides a detailed walk-through on creating layers for a floor plan using the VDCI Fundamentals template. The guide includes step-by-step instructions on setting up layers, assigning colors, and beginning with the basic structure of a building floor plan.
Key Insights
- The article demonstrates how to create layers for a floor plan project using the VDCI Fundamentals template. The layers are created alphabetically and include layers for kitchen counters, dimensions, doors, fixed elements, glazing or windows, patterns, symbols, text, and walls.
- The importance of assigning appropriate colors to each layer is also highlighted in the article. For instance, the color for the kitchen counter is 30 (orange), dimensions are 31, doors are 7 (white), and walls are 2 (yellow).
- By starting with the larger rectangle representing the overall size of the building, the article suggests working from the outside in and always starting any project by finding the bounding box and working your way in. The building floor plan used in the article is 24 feet wide and 20 feet tall.
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Now that we have reviewed the PDF of our floor plan, and we have a general idea of where we're going from here, let's begin. Let's go File, New.
Let's choose the VDCI Fundamentals template. And let's go File, Save. This will be named Floor Plan.
I'll hit Save. And now we have an interesting question. Do we create all of our layers at once, or do we add them one at a time as we go? Sometimes even, you'll have a template or a reference file where you can bring in layers from earlier projects.
This will depend on where you're working, and it'll depend on your project. In this case, because we know the layers we're going to use, we might as well make them all at once. So let's go to Layer Properties.
And starting with layer 0 as our base layer, let's go New Layer. And we will create these layers alphabetically. The first will be A-CNTR.
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Enter. And this is going to be our kitchen counter. I'll pick a new color.
And this will be a color of 30. 30 is right here. It is this orange color.
Okay. Let's go New Layer again. And this will be A-DIMS.
D-I-M-S. These will be our dimensions. You'll notice that this copied the color from A-CNTR.
And that's because we had A-CNTR selected. In fact, every single time we create a new layer, it copies the layer we had previously selected. If you have gone through the course and accidentally had A-NOPLOT selected when you created the new layer, it would have also copied the plot information.
And you can see that, of course, this is our NOPLOT layer. This layer is set to not plot. Towards the end of the course, if you do not see some of your geometry, it might be because you have this plot option set to not plot.
The name A-NOPLOT does not impact this option. We just have it built into the template. So our A-DIMS layer does not have a color of 30.
It has a color of 31, which is right here. Let's go New Layer again. This is going to be A-DOOR.
A-DOOR has a color of 7 or white. New Layer again. A-FIXED.
And we know this color well. This is 120. New Layer again.
This one is A-GLAZ for glazing or windows. This color is going to be a color of 130,130, not 120. New Layer.
A-PATT, P-A-T-T. That stands for patterns, and it's where we usually put our hatches. This will be a color of 253, which seems like an odd number, but it's this one right here.
And these gray tones are very important for hatches in patterns. New Layer. A-SIMS, S-Y-M-S.
We also know this one. This is our color of 120. New Layer.
A-TEXT, T-E-X-T. This is going to be our annotative text. This includes our room labels.
That'll be a color of 7, white. And finally, A-WALL. A-WALL.
This is going to be our current layer, and we will make this layer yellow, which is a color of 2. Okay. I can see that I have A-WALL as my current layer. I can close my properties window and CTRL S to save.
We haven't drawn anything, but we have done a lot of work. If I come up to my layer dropdown, I can now see all of these layers in my dropdown window. We know that we are going to work outside-in on this project.
That's how we should start every project. Find the bounding box and work our way in. This building floor plan is 24 feet wide and 20 feet tall, and the base point will be at the left corner, so that all of our geometry is in the positive X and positive Y quadrants.
So let's get started with our rectangle. It's a much larger rectangle, but it's the same principle. We can go Rectangle, choose our base point, which will be 0,0. And we could use absolute or relative coordinates here, because we're starting at 0,0. But we can use dimensions as well.
So I'll go D, Enter. The first dimension will be 24 feet, and again, that's the apostrophe or tick on your keyboard. Enter.
Our width, which in this case is the height, is 20 feet, 2,0, and the tick marker. I'll hit ENTER, and now you can see it says specify other corner point, which is choosing our quadrant. I will make sure to click in the top right corner of my screen.
Let's do a zoom extents and Control S to save. Let's make sure that we used feet and not inches. I'll go to my measure geometry, my quick measure tool.
I'll bring my mouse in, and I can see that I have 24 feet wide and 20 feet tall. Additionally, let's check our ID point to make sure that this is at 0,0. I'll go to utilities, ID point, and I'll come down and choose this endpoint here. And I can see that that endpoint is at 0,0, and 0. Zoom extents, Control S to save.
Now, we talked on the floor plan how most of the walls are 3.5 inches typical. This means that all exterior walls for this project are 3.5 inches, and that offset comes to the inside. I can make sure that I offset to the inside by doing a zoom extents before my offset.
I can easily still pick one of the sides of my rectangle, but if I accidentally offset to the outside, the top and bottom of the new rectangle will be cut off. Let's do this offset together. Offset 3.5, enter.
I'll choose the left side here, and again, I can make sure that I'm pointing to the middle and click. If I had accidentally offset to the outside, that would have made the rectangle go off the screen. Control S to save.
In the next video, we will continue with the interior walls.
