Discover how to incorporate a building elevation into a VDCI A3.1 drawing by navigating the model space environment, adjusting zoom levels, and repositioning elements using an overlay x-ref. This guide provides step-by-step instructions to seamlessly integrate a 3D model into a pre-existing plan, ensuring consistent visibility and accurate scaling.
Key Insights
- The integration process starts by activating the model space environment in the A3.1 drawing, which initially might appear blank due to zoom settings.
- An overlay x-ref is used to introduce the elevation model into the drawing. It is important to position it logically, often requiring movements of significant distances like 100 or 200 feet, to avoid overlap with existing elements.
- After adjusting the placement, viewport locking and regeneration are required to correct line type scale factors and ensure accurate visualization of all elements in both paper space and model space environments.
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Let's bring our building elevation into our VDCI A3.1 drawing. Again, I'm in my elevation model. If I Zoom Extents, I can see the house and I can see the elevation that we're working on.
And just remember that when we X-ref detached the house, we brought it in as an overlay X-ref. So I'm going to go into my A3.1 drawing. You can see here's the roof plan.
I have a Model Space environment there. If I go into the Model Space environment up here, you don't see anything. That's because I have done a zoom so that you can't see anything.
If I were to go Zoom Extents, you could see that in fact we have the model file being displayed within that viewport. So I'm going to go over to the model tab down here on the bottom left. And I'm on layer zero.
I'm going to roll back. And what I'm going to do now is I'm just going to turn on my X-ref plan model, no plot layer, just so we can see everything. And I'm going to now bring in my elevation model.
So Insert tab > Reference > Attach, and I'm going to slide down and choose my elevation model. And you can see that it remembers that the last attachment was an overlay format. So I want to bring it in as an overlay.
For right now, I'm going to say bring it in at 0,0. And you'll see a problem in just a second. But again, the reference type is an overlay.
I'm populating it at 0,0, a scale factor of 1, real-world coming into real-world. Okay. So what you can see happening is if I select it, you can see that I have the model of the house up here, but it's not visible because it's an overlay X-ref.
The geometry that I really want is down here. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say move the X-ref a logical distance.
And so I'm going to say move, choose the X-ref, Enter to say I'm done, arbitrary base point, Ortho is on, and I'm going to move it over 100 feet. Because what I was trying to do was to get this image out of the way of any possible needs for what I'm going to be seeing on this drawing. But what we've got to remember is that this larger image here is our 96 scale factor for our roof plan.
So moving the elevation over 100 feet is not enough. So I'm going to say move this guy, arbitrary base point, an additional 100 feet, Zoom Extents, Zoom Real Time, and save the file. Now, by moving at a logical distance, as you start getting more experience with CAD, you will be looking at moving geometry out of the way distances that relate comfortably to you.
It might be 10 feet, 25 feet, 50,100 feet, or some logical increment. So by moving it 200 feet, I'm working off of a base move distance of 100 feet. Again, 100 feet over, nothing up or down.
I'm going to go back into my Layout environment, go into my Model Space environment, and I will go to View, and I will say Zoom Window from the end of here, Shift + right-click, end of here, to Shift + right-click, end of here. But what you can see, look at my finish floor line segments. Can you see that the centerline linetype is showing up, but they are spaced very unexpectedly? Because what's happening is that when we initially X-ref'd in the elevation model file, the computer did an automatic regeneration, which did a linetype scale presentation based upon the current Zoom level.
Because we're simply panning around, we're calling it Zoom Window, but essentially we're panning around that the computer has not yet recalculated the paper Model Space relationship for the linetype of the finish floor line itself. So I'm doing my Zoom Window from top left to bottom right, and I'm going to go in and lock the viewport down here. I'm going to go to Paper Space, but if I go up to View, and if I do Regen All, it's going to be regenerating Paper Space and the two layout environments, and you can see that my plate linetype scale factor now looks correct because the computer has regenerated the linetype scale factors.
If I go Format > Linetype, you can see again this is a deliverable sheet file. The deliverable sheet file has a global scale factor of 1, and it's using Paper Space units for scaling, which is why when I do a Regen All, it's regenerating Paper Space and Model Space. So I will do CTRL+S to save, and the last thing I'm going to do right now is I'm going to go on and turn off my no plot layers.
So go to Home, go to Layers. I have my xref no plot layer. I'm going to turn that off.
I'm going to slide down. On my keynotes, I've already turned off the no plot layers there. In my plan model file, I will turn off my no plot layers there.
CTRL+S to save. I'm going to double check in here, front elevation ¼", Z Enter, E Enter, CTRL+S to save. We have this image up here at ¼".
We have this image down here at ⅛". The sheets are appropriately laid out for 1:1 plotting, and so now we can save the file and go back and continue working on our elevation.