Discover the intricate process of working on a model in AutoCAD, including zooming, offsetting, trimming, extending, and saving geometry. This detailed guide covers each step of the process, from working on doors and windows to dealing with tricky brick veneers and threshold lines.
Key Insights
- The article emphasizes the importance of precise geometry in models, demonstrating how to offset, trim, and extend lines using commands like 'T, R, enter' and 'shift to extend, release to trim'.
- When working with doors and windows, it's important to remember to trim out in front of the doors but leave the brick veneer in front of the windows. The article also highlights how to handle potentially confusing lines that appear to be in the same plane.
- The importance of using the correct layer for different elements is highlighted, with emphasis on ensuring that threshold lines are drawn on the 'A door layer' and not on the masonry or wall layers to clearly distinguish them in the model.
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Let's continue working around our model on the veneer. Let's zoom in at the doors here, and we'll use our offset.
O, enter. 2 is already set, so I'll hit ENTER to lock it in again. I'll offset up and down from our wall geometry.
Enter to say I'm done. T, R, enter. I'll hold shift to extend and release to trim, and I'll hold shift to extend and release to trim.
Now, up here, we left both of those lines in front of the window. Down here, I want to trim out the lines. For now, I'm going to choose this interior masonry polyline, the one that traced right around our wall, and I'm just going to move it to the A, no plot layer.
For now, I don't want to erase or trim or edit any of that geometry, but I also don't know what we're going to use it yet for. So, it's good to save it, and I'm going to turn off the A, no plot layer so that we don't have to accidentally clean it up. Okay.
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Now, I'll trim one more time. T, R, enter. T for cutting edges, and I'll choose this edge and this edge.
Enter, and then I can trim out the brick veneer. Enter to say that I'm done. Now, we can see the door opens cleanly, and there's no brick in the way.
Let's keep going over here. Now, this one's a little strange because a two-inch offset, we'll see, will align up exactly with this polyline. So, let's see what we want to do here.
To start, let's do our offsets for all three of these geometries. Offset, two, enter. I'll grab this one to the left, this one to the right, this one to the left, this one to the right, this one to the left, this one to the right, and why not? Let's do this door as well.
Okay. Now, like I said, this one's a little tricky, but we'll go T, R, enter for trim. We'll extend the line, release, and trim it out.
Now, this brick veneer will just run straight down into the wall, and that's okay. Let's keep going, and we'll come back and clean that up in a second. I'll hold shift to extend, release shift to trim.
Hold shift to extend, release to trim. Go ahead and practice that workflow as you go around your entire model, holding shift to extend and releasing to trim. Of course, if you used the extend tool, it would be holding shift to trim instead of the other way around.
Okay. Let's clean out our doors. T, R, enter for trim.
We don't want any geometry in front of the doors, but we do want some in front of the windows, and we'll talk about that when we talk about the hatch. Now, over here, I just want to clean up this geometry. This line and this line appear to be the same line.
They're in the same plane. They're collinear, but this is actually a polyline turning to the right. That is confusing from an AutoCAD perspective.
We'd much rather prefer these two lines to be the same and this to be a separate line. So in this case, I'm going to choose this L-shaped polyline and explode, and then I'll choose this edge and this edge and do J, enter for join. These two lines are now joined into one straight line, and then this is its own separate bit of geometry.
There we go. All right. Let's continue with the windows over here.
Offset, enter, 2, enter. To the left and right and up and down. Enter to say I'm done.
T, R, enter for trim. Shift to extend and release to trim. Okay.
These are windows. We can leave the polyline in front of them. Let's do these two windows next.
Offset, 2. Make sure you're going away from the windows every time. Enter to say I'm done. T, R, enter for trim.
Holding shift to extend and releasing to trim. Again, these are windows. We can leave the brick veneer in front.
How about this door? Offset, 2, to the left and to the right. T, R for trim. Shift to extend.
And in the same trim command, I can now clean out in front of the door. The same thing will happen down here in front of the garage doors. Offset, 2, to the left and to the right on each of these openings.
T, R, enter for trim. Shift to extend and release to trim. And then I can clean out in front of each garage door.
All right. Front door, same operation. Offset, 2. Left and right.
T, R, enter for trim. Shift to extend and release to trim. Make sure you remember to trim out in front of the door itself.
Okay. Let's move down to these windows. I'll go offset, 2, to the left and to the right, and to the left and to the right.
T, R, enter for trim. Holding shift and releasing shift to extend and to trim. And make sure you leave the brick line in front of the windows.
Again, we'll talk about why later. I'll go offset again, 2, up and down on these ones. T, R, enter for trim.
Shift to extend and release to trim. And again, I'll leave the brick veneer in front of the windows. Zoom extends, control S to save.
Now, if you look at the handout, you'll notice that there are some lines in front of each door, but they're not always on the brick veneer line. If we zoom in on this door here, the line is actually at the back of the door hinge, but here it's on the brick veneer. So what's really going on there? Well, those are actually the door thresholds, not the brick veneer.
That's why we trimmed out on the A wall masonry layer. But now we want to draw those back in on the A door layer. So I'll go to A door, activate my line tool.
And this one is from the hinge to the hinge. If you check your handout, enter to say we're done. These ones go from the brick veneer to the brick veneer.
Again, I'm using enter to say that I'm done and enter to go back in. The ones on the garage doors are actually from the front of the structure across. Enter to say I'm done.
Enter to go back in to the front of the structure. And the front door is on the brick veneer. Zoom extends, control S to save.
Why is it important that those were drawn on the A door layer and not on the brick veneer layer or the wall layer or any other layer for that matter? Well, I'm going to make A masonry, my active layer one more time, and I'm going to turn off the A door layer. Now we can clearly see that these are door openings when the A door layer is off. If those threshold lines had been on the masonry layer or any other layer, it would be hard to see where those thresholds were compared to the masonry.
Now you might notice in some of your projects in your office that there's a threshold layer or a floor layer. These are all other acceptable layers for that type of threshold geometry, but it should never be on a masonry layer or a wall layer. I'll turn the door layer back on and control S to save.
In the next video, we are going to add our wall hatches for our regular walls and for the brick veneer. I'll see you there.
