Learn how to set up and organize architectural elevation views in a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software. This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on aligning views, setting up "no plots" and importing elements such as door and window lines.
Key Insights
- The tutorial walks through aligning left, front, right, and back views of an architectural design in a CAD software.
- "No plots" are added to the design by importing them as blocks, allowing for effective organization of multiple views onto the sheet.
- Door and window lines are added to the design as placeholder geometry and are placed on a specific layer ("A medium") for better organization and visibility.
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In the previous video, we outlined our four elevation views. As you can see here at the bottom, this is going to be our left view because this is our front door and our back door.
So this is the left view, front view, right view, and back view for the back door. In order to know how to organize our views onto our sheets, we need to add our No Plots. So let's import our No Plots as blocks.
I'll change my current layer to Layer 0, the assembly layer, and I'll go I, Enter to open my Blocks dialog box. Here we want to browse for our blocks, but first let's change our scale. These are going to come in at a Uniform Scale of 48, and they can come in at an angle of 0 for now because we're going to focus on the left view.
Now we can browse. I'm already in my Title Blocks folder, but if you can't find your Title Blocks folder, make sure you go to CAD 201 File Downloads > Blocks > Title Blocks. Here we want to find our No Plot for the ANSI A Half Horizontal.
We're going to put two views on each sheet, as you can see in your PDF handout. So once you've found VDCI No Plot ANSI A Half Horizontal, let's hit Open. Here, I'll just do a Shift + Right-Click Midpoint and choose this top line.
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Now that's clearly not going to work very well because the bottom of our drawing is sticking out on the bottom side of the No Plot. In order to align this with our drawing, I want to place this ground line on one of my No Plot outlines. To do that, let's move the No Plot from this second line using our Shift + Right-Click Midpoint to the Shift + Right-Click Midpoint of this red line.
So I'll go Move, pick my No Plot, Enter to lock it in from the Shift + Right-Click Midpoint right here on that second line to the Shift + Right-Click Midpoint of this red line. Okay, now the red line and the pink line are on top of each other, and it's hard to see which is actually on top—the red or the pink. So I'm going to grab my No Plot, right-click, and choose Draw Order > Send to Back.
This will put my No Plot definitely behind my ground line, and now I can see that red ground line. Excellent. Now we need to place the No Plot on the other views, and to do this, I can actually copy the existing No Plot.
So I'll grab my No Plot, choose my center grip to activate it, right-click, Copy. I'm simply going to turn off Ortho, and then I'll place a copy here, a copy here, and a copy here. Enter to say I'm done. Notice I did not try to get that perfect because we are about to do a point-to-point move going from a Midpoint of my No Plot to the Midpoint of the ground line.
So none of these have to be perfect. Let's zoom in over here on our front view and get this No Plot set up. I'll grab my No Plot, click the grip to make it hot, right-click, Rotate, and now I can type in a degree angle of 90, Enter, and now my No Plot is rotated into the correct orientation.
Now I'm going to do a point-to-point move from the Midpoint right here to the Midpoint right here. Before we do that, let's change our Object Snap to turn off Endpoint and to turn on Midpoint. That’ll make it very easy to choose our point-to-point move.
Now I'll go Move, picking my No Plot, Enter to lock it in. I'll grab the second Midpoint here on the second line, and I'll go over and choose my ground line. Now this No Plot is on top of my ground line, so I'll pick my No Plot, right-click, Draw Order > Send to Back.
There we go. It's the same workflow over here on the back view. Click the No Plot, click the grip to make it hot, right-click, Rotate.
That's an angle of 90, Enter. My No Plot is already pre-selected, so when I go Move, I can see in the command prompt it says "Specify base point." That will be the second Midpoint here—again, the second from the middle of the No Plot—and I'll choose the Midpoint here. Once again, I'll choose my No Plot, right-click, Draw Order > Send to Back.
Let's pan up here to the top. This No Plot is already in the right orientation, so I can simply pick the No Plot, Move—again, the second line from the middle—picking my red Midpoint here. Click the No Plot, right-click, Draw Order > Send to Back. Now I can Zoom Extents and Control + S to save.
Okay, so we have now set up our four views with our No Plots.
The last thing I want to do in this video is to bring down our window lines and door line geometry. Now these are just going to be placeholder lines, but I want to place them on the A-MEDIUM layer. So let's change our current layer to A-MEDIUM, and we're going to use a similar workflow as we did for our wall geometry lines.
We're going to use the Ray command and bring rays down through our geometry. So I'll turn on my Endpoint Snap, I'll turn off Midpoint, and I'll turn on Ortho. Okay, I'll zoom in here, I'll go Draw > Ray, I'll click the Endpoint of this window opening, drag down and click. Enter to say I'm done. Enter to go back in.
I'll grab this Endpoint, drag down and click. Enter to say I'm done. That is the location that's represented in my elevation. I know my window will go somewhere right in here—right between those two lines.
Let's go over to this front view. Now there are many more openings, so in this case we're going to use Copy. Draw > Ray, pick this point and go to the right and click. Enter to say that I'm done.
Now I can Copy this line up to each one of these Endpoints on both sides of my window and door openings. So I'll go Copy, pick my Ray, Enter to lock it in, starting from this Endpoint—this is my base point—to each destination point: here, here, here, here, and here. Enter to say that I'm done.
Okay, there are no windows or doors on my right view, so we can go straight to the back view and finally draw my Rays here to the left and click. Enter to say that I'm done.
And I can Copy this three times. Copy my Ray, Enter, from this Endpoint: down, down, and down. Enter to lock it in. Zoom Extents. Control + S to save.
All right, great! In the next video, we will clean up those lines and work on our floor level lines and ground line. I'll see you in the next video!
