Learn AutoCAD Intermediate Techniques: Rebuilding a Floor Plan and Creating Elevation Views

Welcome to the VDCI course, Intermediate AutoCAD. If you took our previous course, you will recognize the floor plan on the screen. In this course, we will rebuild this plan, as well as create a roof plan, structural foundation plan, and electrical plan.

Additionally, we will create elevation views for this small house. By now, I hope that you have downloaded your CAD 201 file downloads and saved them on your C drive, desktop, or My Documents. Once you've saved them, please make sure that you've extracted the file so that your file downloads folder looks like this.

You will notice that we have a VDCI extraction model, and our fundamentals template and color table file are also included, and there are three folders. There is the blocks folder, which contains our drafting, electrical, and fixture blocks from our previous course. These are the symbols we created here and here, and we will use the same fixtures in this course.

We will also create new blocks as we go through this course, so please make sure you understand how to create folders in File Explorer. Additionally, you will see that we've included a title blocks folder, which contains ANSI A (8.5 × 11) and ANSI B (11 × 17). There are title blocks and no plots included for this course.

I'll jump back to CAD 201 file downloads. Remember that we can right-click to copy our fundamentals template and paste it into our template folder when we create a new file in AutoCAD. If you haven't taken CAD 101, I suggest you right-click to copy the fundamentals template, and we'll paste it in a moment. So, now I'll jump into AutoCAD, and the first thing we are going to do is to rebuild the CAD 101 floor plan.

So, let's go File, New. Here's our template folder. If you don't see the VDCI fundamentals template, please right-click and paste.

I already have mine, so I'll skip this file. Choose the VDCI fundamentals template, and hit Open. Remember that it will create an unsaved drawing, so let's go File, Save, and I'll browse to my C drive.

Find my CAD 201 file downloads, and I will save this as 'VDCI-Plan-Model.' Remember, we discussed that we will have a plan model and an elevation model in this course, and you'll notice there's a VDCI extraction model as well, which we'll discuss in a moment. For now, I'll click Save, and you can see that it is now saved as VDCI-Plan-Model.

So, we are going to recreate our floor plan like we did in Introduction to AutoCAD, but first, we need to talk about our layers. We can see in the layer drop-down that I have only my template layers.

Some architectural firms may include more layers in their templates, but this depends on the firm. Sometimes you just need layers from previous projects, or someone else's project. To bring in layers from another project, we can use our extraction model and the Design Center.

Let's go File, Open, and let's open up our VDCI extraction model. Now, we can see that this is a very similar project to the one we are about to do, and it uses the same exact layers, symbols, and fixtures. In this case, it's a totally different orientation and organization, so it doesn't make sense to copy and paste information into our other drawing.

Instead, we want to use Design Center. So, I'll jump back to the VDCI-Plan-Model, and I can either type 'Design Center' and press ENTER, or press Control-2 on the keyboard. Now, you'll notice that because we have the VDCI extraction model open, it shows up in our Open Drawings section.

When I click on the VDCI-Plan-Model and expand, you can see that there are blocks, detail view styles, dim styles, layers, etc. In the VDCI extraction model, I can see the same options, but when I click on Layers, you can see all of the layers from our model that we want in this drawing. When I click on Layers here, there are not the layers we need.

So, to begin, I can go to Layers, grab all of these with a dragged window, or click on them and hold Shift and click on the end. I can right-click and select 'Add Layers.' This will add layers to my current drawing.

Now, when I return to VDCI-Plan-Model, Layers, I will see them in the drawing, and when I click the dropdown, I will see my layers here. We can continue pulling from the extraction model by going to Blocks, Dim Styles, or other options, but for now, let's focus on drawing the floor plan and starting with our walls. So, I will close the extraction model and make the wall layer my current layer.

I'll press Control-S to save, now that we have added our layers to the model, and we can begin drafting. You will notice there is a handouts folder for PDFs in your file downloads, and I suggest opening the CAD 201 floor plan handout now. The sheet number is VDCI-A201.

As you can see on your handout, and you might remember from our previous course, this building is 20 feet tall and 24 feet wide. Let's use absolute coordinates for this example, as the bottom left-hand corner of our drawing is at 0,0. I'll use the rectangle tool.

My first point will be 0,0. Enter. And my second point will be 24 feet in the X direction, and 20 feet in the Y direction.

Please remember to use the single quotation mark for your feet marker. I'll press ENTER, then Zoom Extents, and press Control-S to save. Remember, you can always use Quick Measure to check and ensure that your geometry is correct, and you can always use ID Point and Shift-Right-Click Endpoint to make sure that your geometry is in the correct location.

I'll press Control-S to save, and in the next video, we'll continue with our walls.