Learn to create elevation views and sheets with precision and accuracy. Discover the step-by-step process of setting up elevation files, using VDCI fundamentals template, and drawing viewports to ensure everything fits within the plot.
Key Insights
- The article takes you through the process of checking elevation views, making sure that hatches are of the correct scale and all elements including geometry, dimensions and texts fit within the no plot.
- Creating elevation files involves setting up two separate sheet files through the VDCI fundamentals template. Each of these files should include specific elevation views and should be saved in the appropriate folders.
- Finally, the process includes the creation of rectangular viewports, ensuring correct alignment and scale. The viewports must be locked and the no plot layers should be hidden for each drawing.
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Let's quickly check all of our elevation views before we create our elevation sheets. I'll go first into the Back view.
Let's double check. We have our hatches, and they are the correct scale. All of our geometry, including our dimensions, our multileaders, and our text fits within our No Plot.
Excellent. Nothing is out of place, and nothing is missing. I'll go to my Front view, double check the same.
Excellent. The Left view, okay, and the Right view. Excellent.
Now we can begin to create our elevation files. So I'll go to the Left view, Zoom Extents, Control+S to save, and we need to create two separate sheet files. This is going to be A301 and A302, and you'll see those names on your handouts.
So I'll go File, New, using the VDCI fundamentals template, and I'll hit open, and I'll go File, Save. This is going to go into our sheets folder, CAD 201-A301. That's 301 for the elevation file, and this will have our front and right elevation views.
I'll hit save. I'll go Insert, Reference, Attach, and I'll grab our LF model and hit open. This is an attachment, scale of one, zero, zero, zero.
Everything looks good. Let's hit okay, and you can see that it'll be placed here. I'll do a Zoom Extents.
Perfect. Let's go to our VDCI eight and a half by 11 tab. I'll go I enter to open the Blocks dialog box.
Now in the current drawing, we don't have our title block elements, because this is brand new, but you might see it in Recent. In this case, I'm just going to browse anyway, just to make sure we have the right title block. So I'll jump out of this folder, go into my Title Blocks, blocks folder, and this is the VDCI title block ANSI-A.
I'll hit open, and this insertion point is zero, zero, zero. Enter to place. The name will be your name.
The date will be today's date. The sheet number is A3.1, and the drawing title. This is why we have a multi-line drawing title.
When we click the text editor, the first line will be Front Elevation. Then I'll hit ENTER, and I'll type Right Elevation. I'll hit okay, and okay.
Perfect. There we go. A couple things we might want to check.
Our VDCI title block logo. I'll go to my XREF manager, hit my title block logo. The saved path, I'll hit the three dots.
And here, I'm already in my Title Blocks folder, but you might be in a different blocks folder. If you are, jump out and jump into Title Blocks. VDCI ACAD TTLB logo.
Perfect. Let's hit open and close our XREF manager. Now we want to draw our viewports.
So first, let's go to the Home tab, change our current layer to A No Plot, and then let's go to the Layout tab. And here, we'll draw two Rectangular viewports.
I'll come down and change my object snaps to endpoint and midpoint. And I'll draw a Rectangular from here to here. And again, Rectangular from here to here.
Two Rectangular viewports. Now we need to align this one at the top with the Front elevation, and this one with the Right elevation. So I'll jump into the top viewport.
And here, I'm going to use the ViewCube. So let's zoom in. Here, I can see front is on this side.
We need to rotate the view using this down arrow. There we go. Then I can zoom in and do a zoom window with Z, enter, W, enter, Shift+Right Click, Endpoint, to the Shift+Right Click, Endpoint.
Let's check our scale. Let's lock our viewport. And I'll double click into the bottom.
This one's the right, which I know is upside down. So I'll need to click the arrow twice, one rotation, two rotations. And then I can do Z, enter, W, enter, Shift+Right Click, Endpoint, and Shift+Right Click, Endpoint.
Check our scale, lock the viewport, and double click out. Let's go to the Home tab, change our current layer to Layer 0, and hide our No Plot layers on both drawings. Zoom Extents, Control+S to save.
There we go. We've set up the A3.1 sheet file. Let's do the same thing with A3.2. I'll go File, New, use the template, File, Save, CAD 201-A302, A302, Save.
Here, we're going to do the exact same workflow. Insert, Reference, Attach, VDCI, Elev, Model. It's going to come in at scale factor of one, insertion point zero.
Perfect. Let's Zoom Extents, Control+S to save. Let's jump over to the sheet.
Let's bring in that block. Here, I will use Recent. I'll place this at zero, enter.
Again, fill this out. Your name, today's date, today's date, the sheet number is A3.2, A3.2, and this one is going to have the Back Elevation, enter, Left Elevation. I'll hit OK and hit OK.
Once again, we can update this image file. Hit the three dots. This time, we're already in the Title Blocks folder.
I'll hit Open. Let's go to the Home tab, change our current layer to A No Plot, go to the Layout tab, draw two Rectangular viewports here and here. Perfect.
Now, the top view is the Back Elevation, so I'll jump in there first. This one is rotating the other direction. There we go.
I can do a zoom window, Z, Enter, W, Enter, Shift+Right Click, Endpoint to the Shift+Right Click, Endpoint. Check my scale, lock my viewport. Finally, we'll end with the easiest elevation, the Left elevation.
It's in the World Coordinate System, so we don't need to rotate the view at all. Z, Enter, W, Enter, Shift+Right Click, Endpoint, Shift+Right Click, Endpoint. Check the scale, lock the view, double click out.
Finally, we'll go to the Home tab, change our current layer to Layer 0, and then turn off our No Plot layers. Zoom Extents, Control+S to save. Okay, I'll close the dialog box.
We can now see our 301 and 302 sheet files are completely made. Before we print, let's make sure that everything looks correct. I notice one thing right away, our paper space line type scale.
PSLTSCALE is not set appropriately, so let's type PSLTSCALE, change that to a value of one to turn it on, and then Regen All, R-E-A for Regen All, Enter. There we go. Now we see our datum lines with those dashes.
Let's go to 302 and do the same. PSLTSCALE, Enter, a value of one, Enter, R-E-A to Regen All, Enter, Control+S to save. In the next video, we will plot these sheets and do one more double check of our other sheet files.
