Assembling the Parts

Assembling the Parts
One of the best time-saving features of AutoCAD is its ability to quickly duplicate repetitive elements
in a drawing. In this section, you’ll assemble the drawings you’ve been working on into the complete
floor plan of a fictitious apartment project. This will demonstrate how you can quickly and accurately
copy your existing drawings in a variety of ways.
Start by creating a new file for the first floor:
1.
Create a new file named
Plan
to contain the drawing of the apartment building’s first floor.
This is the file you’ll use to assemble the unit plans into an apartment building. If you want
to use a template file, use
Acad.dwt
. Metric users can use the
Acadiso.dwt
template file.
(These are AutoCAD template files that appear in the Create New Drawing dialog box when
you choose File 
New.)
2.
Set the Units style to Architectural (choose Format 
Units).
3.
Set up the drawing for a
1
⁄
8
˝ = 1´-0˝ scale on a 24˝
×
18˝ drawing area (choose Format 
Drawing
Limits). If you look at Table 3.2 in Chapter 3, you’ll see that such a drawing requires an area 2,304
units wide
×
1,728 units deep. Metric users should set up a drawing at 1:100 scale on an A2 sheet
size. If you look at Table 3.4, you’ll see that your drawing area should be 5940 cm
×
4200 cm.
4.
Create a layer called Plan1, and make it the current layer.
5.
In the Drafting Settings dialog box, set the Snap Spacing to 1, and set Grid Spacing to 8´,
which is the distance required to display 1˝ divisions in a
1
⁄
8
˝ = 1´-0˝ scale drawing. Metric
users can set the Grid mode to 250.
6.
Turn on the grid if it isn’t on already.
7.
Choose View 
Zoom 
All, or type
Z
↵
A
↵
to get an overall view of the drawing area.
Now you’re ready to start building a floor plan of the first floor from the Unit plan you created
in the previous chapter. You’ll start by creating a mirrored copy of the apartment plan:
1.
Make sure Running Osnaps are turned off, and then insert the
07a-unit.dwg
drawing at
coordinate 31´-5˝,43´-8˝. Metric users should insert the
07a-unit-metric.dwg
drawing
at coordinate 957,1330. Accept the Insert defaults.
07a-unit and 07a-unit-metric
are the
same drawings as the
Unit.dwg
file you were asked to create in earlier chapters.
TIP
If you prefer, you can specify the insertion point in the Insert dialog box by removing the
check mark from the Specify On-Screen check box. The Input options in the dialog box then
become available to receive your input.
2.
Zoom in to the apartment unit plan.
3.
Click Mirror on the Modify toolbar, select the Unit plan, and press
↵
.
4.
At the
Specify first point of the mirror line:
prompt, Shift+right-click the mouse,
and choose From.
5.
Shift+right-click again, and choose Endpoint.
6.
Select the endpoint of the upper-right corner of the apartment unit, as shown in Figure 7.1.



7.
Enter
@2.5<0>:
prompt, press
↵
. You’ll get a 5˝ wall thickness
between two studio units. Your drawing should be similar to Figure 7.1.
You now have a mirror-image copy of the original plan in the exact location required for the
overall plan. Next, make some additional copies for the opposite side of the building:
1.
Press
↵
to reissue the Mirror command and select both units.
2.
Use the From osnap option again, and, using the Endpoint osnap, select the same corner you
selected in step 6.
3.
Enter
@24<90>:
prompt, press
↵
to keep the two unit plans
you selected in step 1 and complete the mirror operation.
With the tools you’ve learned about so far, you’ve quickly and accurately set up a fairly good
portion of the floor plan. Continue with the next few steps to “rough in” the main components of
the floor:
1.
Choose View 
Zoom 
Extents, or type
Z
↵
E
↵
to get a view of the four plans. You can also use
the Zoom Extents tool on the Zoom Window tool fly-out. The Extents option forces the entire
drawing to fill the screen at the center of the display area. Your drawing will look like Figure 7.2.
TIP
If you happen to insert a block in the wrong coordinate location, you can use the Properties
palette to change the insertion point for the block.
2.
Copy the four units to the right at a distance of 28´-10˝ (878 cm for metric users), which is the
width of two units from center line to center line of the walls.


3.
Insert the lobby at coordinate 89´-1˝,76´-1˝ (2713,2318 for metric users).
4.
Copy all the unit plans to the right 74´-5˝ (2267 cm for metric users), the width of four units
plus the width of the lobby.
5.
Choose View 
Zoom 
All, or type
Z
↵
A
↵
to view the entire drawing, which should look
like Figure 7.3. You can also use the Zoom All tool on the Zoom Window fly-out.