Viewports - 8 DWG's, 8 different floors - how to line them up?

Hi,

I'm sure this should be easy but i cant figure it out.

I need to create a set of 8 DWG's - each showing a different floor of the same building plotted 1:100 @ A1.

The DWG's for the floors have been suppled by others are drawn 1:1 and the external boundaries of the building are all identical (as you would expect!)

So, i have created 8 new drawings and copied the relevant 'floors' across from each original into model space. I have inserted a block on each drawing in paper space which is our standard drawing title block for A1 and all is good.

The only thing i cant figure out is how to have the same 'view' on each of the drawings. The scale is fixed for the viewport on each DWG at 1:100 but its the pan that seems to be tricky.

Imagine if i plotted them all out and put them in a pile held up to the light, i would want to see the outline of the building identical on each of the plots but i cant figure out how to do it.

It must be easy and i must have missed something obvious but Ive messed around for hours today trying to figure it out.

Any help appreciated.

Joel A.

Hi,

 

I'm sure this should be easy but i cant figure it out.

 

I need to create a set of 8 DWG's - each showing a different floor of the same building plotted 1:100 @ A1.

 

The DWG's for the floors have been suppled by others are drawn 1:1 and the external boundaries of the building are all identical (as you would expect!)

 

So, i have created 8 new drawings and copied the relevant 'floors' across from each original into model space. I have inserted a block on each drawing in paper space which is our standard drawing title block for A1 and all is good.

 

The only thing i cant figure out is how to have the same 'view' on each of the drawings. The scale is fixed for the viewport on each DWG at 1:100 but its the pan that seems to be tricky.

 

Imagine if i plotted them all out and put them in a pile held up to the light, i would want to see the outline of the building identical on each of the plots but i cant figure out how to do it.

 

It must be easy and i must have missed something obvious but Ive messed around for hours today trying to figure it out.

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Joel A.

You need to ensure that the insertion point of all floors is at the same location like 0,0 make sure you pick the same point for each floorplan like the bottom left corner or whatever you choose.

You could go out into model space, pick your viewport without activating it and then use the 'MOVE' command. You should be able to snap to a point on your plan (even though your plan is in model space) to move the whole viewport (and therefore your plan) a set distance from your drawing border.

As long as you use a corresponding point on the boundary wall of each plan you should be able to get them to line up OK. The actual size and shape of your viewports won't matter, if your'e not intending to plot them.

Another tip is that if you start the 'MVIEW' command and then hit 'return' without picking points Autocad will create a viewport that takes up all the printable area of your paper, which it will then zoom to extents. You could then select the viewport boundary and set the scale to 1:100. If you like what you see you should be able to repeat this with the rest of your viewports.

On the first drawing set it up how you want, say the lower right of the building steel center lines intersection are 2" up from the bottom of the title block, and 2" to the left.

Now you can find that location on all drawings, once you have the viewport for drawing 2 snap to the intersection of the column lines. In other words don't try to use the outline of the viewport to register things, use the building objects.

Here's what I do,

first, I would keep all the floor plans in the same DWG and use X-ref to get it into the 8 layout-DWGs, then you can do all your fiddling in just one DWG.

Then I would decide (or check) on how large the viewport is, and multiply that with the scale of the drawing. That is then used to draw a rectangle in Model space of the original dwg. For my case, my drawings always look the same so I always have the same size rectangle to work with.

That rectangle is now your viewport, move it around until you get it right where you want it. In your case, I would position 8 rectangles in a vertical line, and place the floor plans inside then, with a grid-line to match them all up.

When you then go to your layout-dwgs, do your Viewport, double.-click inside it toget it activated. Start the Zoom command, select Window and select two corners of the first rectangle. And the zoom-factor will be the correct one directly. LOck the viewport and rinse and repeat.

The benfit that I have with this, is I do layout-dwgs on housing areas, and it's very much more efficient to see from the start if the texts that I'm placing are gonne end up on the right layout in the end.