Explore the process of creating enlarged plan areas in AutoCAD using reference attachments, layout environments, and model view windows. This professional guide takes you through preparing sheet files, changing the size of the environment, and populating the drawing with viewports, helping you to format your drawings correctly and efficiently.
Key Insights
- Creating enlarged plan areas involves saving different scale dimensions of the area, such as the Jack and Jill area, guest bath area, fireplace area, and kitchen, and then preparing an A2.2 sheet file.
- The process includes creating new layout environments for different paper sizes, using the Page Setup Manager, and adjusting the plot origin, scale factor, and orientation. A specific model file is then attached or xref attached into the model space.
- Finally, the drawing is populated with drawing titles and no plot view elements in various areas of the layout. The drawing is then correctly formatted using title block information and saved in the no plot layer for later use and modifications.
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Hello, welcome back. As you know, we've been working on our enlarged plan areas, and you can see, looking at the jack and jill area, that I have my 48, my 24, and my 12 scale dimensions showing in the jack and jill area, the guest bath area, the fireplace area, and also in the kitchen. And again, we've done this purposely just so I can show you something fun.
Okay, so I'm going to zoom extents and save the file. We are now getting ready to create our A2.2 sheet file, so let's all go File, New, and let's use our template, and let's save the file with the name vdci-a202.drawing. The first thing I'm going to want to do, again, this is a sheet file, is I want to reference attach or xref attach my model file into model space. So I'm going to go to the Insert tab.
I'll choose Reference Attach. I'm in ACAD 301. I will slide down.
I will choose my CAD 301 plan model file. I'm going to pop it in as a standard attachment at 00, scale factor of 1, and go OK. So there's everything as it is right now.
The next thing to do is to start working on the layout environment. You can see, looking at our template file, we only have layout environments for the 8.5x11 and the 11x17. So I'm going to take my mouse, go on top of the layout icon, do a right button, and choose New Layout.
I pick with the left button. You can see it says Layout 1. We always want to rename our layout environment to match how we're working, so I will go on top of the layout, pick with the left button to make it active, do a right button. I will choose Rename, and I will type VDCI 22x34, and I'm just clicking on the space up here.
Now, again, this is an 8.5x11 environment with a pre-built model view window. I'm going to take the model view window and delete it. The next thing we want to do is to start changing the size of the environment, so I'm going to go on top of the icon down here, do a right button, choose the Page Setup Manager, choosing with the left button.
You can see it's saying VDCI 22x34. I want to modify it, so I'll pick with the left button. It's going to be printing to the PDF, which is perfect.
The first thing I want to do is change my paper size. I will choose an ANSI D expanded 34x22, so I will pick here. I look at the icon.
It says 34x22, so I've said ANSI D 34x22. Plot origin is 0. That's fine. The scale factor is 1. I want to make sure it's going to be using our VDCI standard 0,1 color table file, and it's a landscape orientation.
Beyond that, I'm fine, so I will go OK. I can now close the interface. We need to now get ready for what we're going to be doing, so the first thing we want to do is to XREF attach in the title block, so I'll go Reference Attach.
I will slide down, and I will choose my VDCI TTLB 22x34. I will go Open. Make sure it's an attachment.
Scale factor of 1. Insertion point of 0,0. I'm going to go OK. I look at the screen. I see that the crop marks are on the extents of the paper.
Everything's fine. Control-S to save, so I have reference attached the title block. I now want to insert the TBTX file, which again will be a block, so I will go to Block.
I will go up and over to Insert. I'm going to go choose Browse because it's not in the drawing. I will slide down.
I will choose VDCI TBTX 22x34. I'm going to go Open. Specify insertion point on screen.
This is from the last time we did it, so I will deselect because again the TBTX file perfectly registers with the TTLB file, so we're golden there, so pop it in at 0,0. Scale factor of 1. Make sure it is not exploded and go OK. The dialog box will populate, and I will type in drawn by you, checked by the boss, scale as noted, and my sheet number will be A2.2, and I will go OK. Control-S to save.
You can see that the information is down here. Zoom extends. Control-S to save.
Now, we're going to be populating the drawing so that we will have four viewports in this area, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to start in the bottom left and work my way in a clockwise direction just because it's going to be easier based on how our attributes are currently set up. So, the first thing I'm going to do is again I'm going to be populating the drawing with the drawing title 2, which is the half width, so I will go block insert. I will choose browse.
I'm going to slide down and choose my VDCI drawing title 2. I'm going to go open. I will say specify insertion point on screen. Scale factor of 1. OK.
It's dragging it in. I will say drag it into the end of the bottom left. It's asking me at the prompt for information.
What's the drawing label, the drawing name, the scale, and so on and so forth. Right now, I'm just going to be hitting enter to go all the way through this without populating the information. Now, if I zoom in, you can see that we have the box for the drawing label, the area for the drawing name, and the area for the scale.
You also see that the word scale is in there. Again, this was a word that we had within our drawing title file. Everything else are attributes.
If I want to end up populating the information for the attributes, I can always double click on the block, and you can see that it's asking me what's the label, what's the name, what's the scale. I'm going to hit cancel. I'm going to back off a bit.
Now, we know that we're working on this first image right here, but what I'm going to do next is I'm going to go on and bring in the quarter size no plot view for this area. I'm going to go insert as a block, block insert, go to browse, slide down. I'm going to choose no plot view quarter.
I'm going to go open, say specify insertion point on screen, go okay, and bring it in right about here. I'm now going to move it into its final position, so I'm going to go to home tab. I will say move, pick on the symbol, which was the no plot view from the end of here to the end of there, hit escape, control s to save.
Now, we have the components that we're going to be needing for all four of our quarter size viewports. I'm going to multiple copy this. I'm going to say copy.
I will choose a crossing, enter to say I'm done. I will go from the bottom left corner of the drawing title area to the top left corner of the no plot view to the bottom left over here and to the bottom left, top left here, escape, control s to save. Now, I'd like to show you something else, though, that if I were to turn off the no plot layer, can you see how the image just doesn't look right? So, what we need to do is on our title block layer, we need to draw a vertical line that will end up separating these images.
So, what I'm going to do is go to my title block layer and draw a line from the end down here perpendicular to the top line right here, control s to save. So, now what we have going on is we do, in fact, have all the title block information that will properly allow us to format the drawing correctly. I'm going to go back right now, turn back on the no plot layer and save the drawing.
Zoom extends, zoom real time. I will save it one more time and I will let you spend a few minutes and get caught up to this point. So, I look forward to seeing you in a few more minutes.