Discover how to use AutoCAD software to create detailed architectural designs such as a fireplace. Learn useful techniques such as offsetting, trimming, creating rectangular corners, and drawing diagonal lines with polar relative coordinates.
Key Insights
- The article provides a step-by-step guide on how to draw a fireplace, starting with zooming into the drawing to see the dimensions and using the offset feature to create the rectangular bump out for the fireplace.
- It further elaborates on techniques such as using fillet to create rectangular corners, trimming the exterior edges, creating interior sections, and drawing diagonal lines using polar relative coordinates.
- The guide also emphasizes the importance of frequently saving your work, and outlines that the following lessons will focus on creating door and window openings within the same architectural design.
This lesson is a preview from our CAD Certificate Course Online (includes software) and AutoCAD Certification Online (includes software & exam). Enroll in a course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.
I hope you have your A202 drawing open so that we can see the zoomed in detail dimensions on the view of the fireplace. I'm going to zoom in on that part of the drawing and we can see that to create the rectangular bump out for the fireplace, we need to come in from this edge three feet ten and one half inches and then the width of the fireplace is three feet and four inches.
So I'll go O, enter for offset, three feet ten, point five, enter. I'll choose this line, come to the left and click, enter to say I'm done, enter to go back in, and the next distance is three feet four, enter. From this line to the left and click, enter to say I'm done.
We also need to go up from this exterior edge one feet ten inches. So I'll go offset, enter, one feet ten, enter. Click the line and up, click, enter to say I'm done.
Now to create the rectangular corners up here, I'm going to use fillet. I'll go to fillet, here and here, and fillet here and here. Now we can trim out using the exterior edge, TR, enter for trim, T, enter for cutting edges.
My cutting edge will be the exterior part of the wall, enter, and then I'll trim out these two lines, enter to say that I'm done. Now we need to create the interior sections of the fireplace. To begin, let's start with the offsets of these side walls and you'll notice that they're actually angled, but in the wall itself, they are straight here and here.
Learn AutoCAD
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
So let's first offset, O, enter, a total distance of six, enter. I'm going to bring this in and this in, enter to say I'm done, and now I want to extend both of these down to the front edge. Okay, so now we know that is where the corners are going to be for the opening in the fireplace and we can go TR, enter, and trim out this front edge.
Okay, we also need to trim out the lines here and here, hit ENTER to say that we're done. Now we can see that the points here and here will be used to make diagonal lines in towards the middle of the fireplace. Before we go any further, I'd like to trim out this line so we can see it a little bit more clearly.
I'll go back to TR, enter, and I'll choose from the middle first one and then one on this side and one on this side. So I hope we can see that there's going to be kind of an angled shape in here. Okay, to first draw the back edge of our wall, we can offset this edge down eight inches.
You can see that dimension on the handout, O, enter, eight, enter, I'll bring that down, enter to say that I'm done. Now there's a couple of different ways we can draw this diagonal line. I'm going to use polar relative coordinates and the line tool.
I'm going to go line, I'm going to choose this point right here, and I'm going to start to draw my line. Now you can go at, control 2 to make the at symbol, and that means relative to the point I just clicked, I'm going to go to the right 4, so 4 comma 1 feet 2. That's positive 4 comma positive 1 feet 2. And that's going to go 4 in the X, positive X to the right, and 1 feet 2 inches in the positive y. That's going to go up. When I hit ENTER, we can see that the diagonal line has connected with our 8 inch offset, and that confirms that it's in the right location.
I'll hit ENTER to say that I'm done, enter to go back in, and now we can start at this point. From this point, I'll go at negative 4 comma 1 feet 2, and that will go in the negative X direction, so to the left 4 inches, and it'll go up 1 feet 2, positive in the y, but remember to put your at symbol in to make it relative from the previous point. I'll hit ENTER, enter to say that I'm done, and now we can fillet these two locations.
Fillet does not have to be done with lines that are at right angles from each other. It just makes a radius of the value you have specified, and when I go fillet, we can see that radius is 0, so it still makes a sharp corner, enter to go back in, but it does not have to be a 90 degree angle. Alright, I'll go zoom extents, and control s to save.
In the next video, we will begin our door and window openings, starting with our window openings as we work around the building. We will draw our windows and doors in in later videos, so we will continue to work in the A wall layer until our door and window openings are created. I'll see you in the next video!
