This article provides a comprehensive workflow for transferring data from one elevation to another in a radial setup, using a roof as an example. The author demonstrates how to mirror geometry, accurately visualize datums, and modify existing geometry to ensure accurate data transfer in a building design.
Key Insights
- The process involves mirroring geometry to appropriate views, such as transferring roof data from the left view to the right view, making sure to maintain equal distance from the building.
- Visualization of the data transfer process is achieved by creating a line to represent equal distance between two points, such as the top of the plate in the right view and the left view. This helps to accurately align the mirrored roof geometry.
- Some modifications to existing geometry, such as using the break command in AutoCAD, may be necessary during the data transfer to ensure accurate design representation. For instance, breaking a line at a specific point to alter the color differentiation of the roof due to its distance from the viewer.
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In this video, we are going to go over some workflows for moving data from elevation to elevation in this radial setup. If I zoom in on my Left view, which is this view here, I can see that I've already drawn the roof.
Now this roof is also going to be seen on the other elevations as well. And to find the datums for this, we had to draw a roof slope, offset for 2x4s, and roof geometry. I don't want to have to go through that process again.
I already have my data, and I'd like that data to be transferred to the other views. The easiest way we can do this is to mirror this geometry to any appropriate views. In this case, the Right view will have a mirrored copy of this data.
Because we offset these lines an equal distance from the building, we could use the building geometry for the mirror. But instead, I'd like to use a mid-between two points geometry. Now I'll go to the Home tab, and I'll leave A Heavy as my current layer.
In order to visualize this, I'm just going to take a line, and I'll click on this datum, which is top of plate in my Right view. And I'll come down and choose top of plate in my Left view. Okay, escape, escape, escape.
I'm going to turn perpendicular off. I'd rather just snap to endpoints and midpoints. I'll turn midpoint on.
Okay, this line now represents the equal distance between the top of plate in the Right view and the Left view. Now we can mirror this roof geometry using the midpoint here, and it will line up perfectly with the top of plate on the other side. Okay, let's take a look.
I'm going to pre-select this geometry so that I know exactly what I need to select. I'll grab this line and this line. And then with a crossing window, I can cut through all four of these lines.
I now have six lines selected, one on each end, and the four creating my facial board. With those six objects selected, I can zoom out and go to the Mirror command. I'll pick the midpoint here, and I'm going to drag way out to the side, turn on ortho, that's F8 on your keyboard, and then I can click to snap.
Do I want to erase my source objects? No, press ENTER. There we go. We've now mirrored the roof geometry to the other side.
Let's select this line and delete it. I'll hit F8 again to turn off ortho, just in case I don't need it anymore, and I'll go back to my View tab and choose my Right view. Now we can see this roof geometry aligns not only with the plan above it, but also with the top of plate.
Remember how we had to trim out these tiny little lines on the other side? If we have to trim them out again, it means it's in the right location. So I'll go to the Home tab and use Trim and choose that point and that small line segment as well. Enter to say I'm done, control S to save.
Now before we move off of the Right view, I can see one thing that's very interesting. There is a roof jog line here. This part of the roof will be lower than this part of the roof because it goes further away from the building.
But where is this point? How far down does it go? Well, that's pretty simple. All we need to do is draw a ray from this point and I'll turn on ortho, F8, click, enter to say I'm done, and F8 to turn ortho off. And now I have that point right there where the roof on this portion of the building stops.
Now to see that, we need a new line break. So I'll copy this to that intersection. So let's go copy, choosing this line segment, enter to lock it in from the endpoint here to the shift right-click intersection of those two yellow lines.
And make sure you zoom way in and make sure you get the yellow lines. Enter to say I'm done. When that's in place, we can delete this ray and it looks like this is the appropriate geometry location.
However, if we check the handout, we can see that only this portion of the roof is dark. This section here is a lighter color and that's because it's further away. We want to move these lines to the A medium layer.
Okay, how can we do that? This is one line segment. It's obvious that we can select this geometry and migrate it. But if I try to move these two pieces of geometry, they will change the entire line segment.
In this case, what we need to do is use the break command. And there are two in AutoCAD. In the modify dropdown, you'll see break and break at point.
The break command puts a gap into your geometry and the break at point simply splits the line or geometry at a single point. In this case, we want to use break at point. So I'll click break at point, choose my line, and then choose the point.
The point will be the endpoint here. I'll hit ENTER to go back in. I'll choose this bottom line and then I'll choose this endpoint at the bottom.
Now I can select these three bits of geometry as these two lines were broken at the point where that intersected. I'll grab those three and migrate them to the A medium layer. Escape, escape, escape to deselect.
Zoom out, control S to save. That's all it takes. In this case, it was a mirror and then a little bit of editing our existing geometry.
Let's go back to the View tab, switch back to our Left view, zoom extents, control S to save. In the next video, we will start to add the roof to our front and back views. See you there.
