Setting up the elevation layers - AutoCAD Tutorial

- [Instructor] So we're starting a new chapter now, and we're going to be looking at annotation and text when we're working with our 2D elevations. We're not looking at 3D yet, we'll look at that later on. So we've got a whole new chapter for you and we've got a new drawing for you to utilize as well. You can see the name of it there at the top of the screen it's 03_Elevations2D_House.dwg As usual, you can download that from the website to make sure you can follow along with these videos. And for this particular drawing, what I'll be doing at the end of each video is saving the drawing to go to the next step. So if you do the same as well, save each time you make a change and then go on to the next video. So, what are we looking at here? Well we're gonna have to look at the layers that we want our elevations to go on. So this includes our actual elevation and things like text, annotation, hatching, and so on. Now, I mention hatching, we will cover that in this chapter as well. But the first thing we need to look at is to make sure that we've got some sensible layering going on when we start working with our elevations. Right now we've been using simple layer names. So if I hover over our elevation here in the drawing you can see right there I've got 2D walls. Now that's great but what happens if I need to distinguish between the walls in the plan, and the walls in the elevation? So that's why we've gotta start looking at different layer names. So jump into the home tab on the ribbon, into the Layers panel, and into our Layer Properties Manager, and you'll see there that we've got things like 2DColumns, 2DConstruction lines that we used previously in the previous chapter, a 2DSlab, and 2DWalls. Now that's great, but we need to distinguish which ones are plan, which ones are elevation. So we need to start thinking about renaming and also adding some new layers, as well. So, things like our 2DWalls here, if I right-click on that you'll see on the menu there that I can obviously rename the layer. If I rename the layer that would probably need the word plan at the beginning so that we can distinguish. So if I type in plan like that, and then do an underscore, that's now PLAN_2Dwalls. If I press enter that's now renamed. Now, the good thing is I've got PLAN_2Dwalls but I also need to recreate that layer, and create a new layer. So I click on New Layer here, and this one will now become ELEV, elevation, underscore, and then 2Dwalls like that. Now, they are the same layer in essence but they're in different views in the drawing. And that's the important thing you've gotta distinguish now between plan and elevation. And this is just my way of doing it. It may be a different layer-naming philosophy at your company, for example. So I've done that there, elevation 2D walls. I need to now close the Layer Properties Manager, and apply that to these walls here. So I select one, and two, and three. At the moment they're plan 2D walls, so I click on the down-arrow, and select ELEV_2Dwalls like so. Hit escape to deselect. It's that simple. Now what we're going to do now is add a few more layers, and then in the next video we'll start working at isolating things and changing layers and applying those layers. So let's go back to our layer properties here. What we'll do now is we'll rename some other layers as well. So our 2D slab for example? Select it, right-click on it, rename the layer. So this one will be the plan one, like so and again just put an underscore there PLAN_2Dslab, and again New Layer. And we want ELEV, and then underscore, and then 2D slab again like so. Now I won't obviously go into the drawing this time and change all the layers and things. We'll look at that in the next video, but be aware now you've got different layers for different things. Now, the reason we're doing this is to distinguish between the two. Now, at the moment I've only got a plan and one elevation in the drawing. What happens if you've got multiple elevations in the drawing? Well that's where you'd start thinking about perhaps having ELEV one 2D slab, ELEV two 2D slab, or ELEV East 2D slab, ELEV West 2D slab. I know it seems like you're creating layers for layers' sake but this donkey work at the beginning can save so much time later because you know that you can then isolate those layers, or hide those layers, freeze them, switch them on or off, and actually make sure that you're distinguishing the appropriate elements in your AutoCAD elevation drawings. Now there are a couple of more layers that I want to add here. So I'm going to go Add New Layer again and the two new layers I'm going to add are going to be a fill layer, so we're going to have an ELEV_Fill. So just literally like that. So there's going to be an ELEV_Fill layer and then I'm going to press the comma key and I'm going to have an ELEV_Hatch layer as well. Now you may ask yourself, "Why have I got a hatch and a fill layer?" We'll come to that later on in the chapter and what I'd like you to do is obviously change the color of those layers. I want you to put the hatch one in, just press enter just to confirm the layer names. And we're going to change the color of both of these. So the hatch I'd like you to make a reddy-orange color, you choose. Pick a color from your Select Color dialogue. I'm going to go for something like that perhaps, a nice orangey-reddy kind of color. Maybe color 20 to represent a hatch pattern. And I'll okay that. And then the fill you want to be a nice pale almost white color if at all possible. I've got a gray there already, which is color nine which would probably just about do the trick. You might want to go a little bit paler or you might want to go a pale color. So you want to go a pale pink, or pale green. Maybe something like that pale green there for example would work as well just to distinguish it on the drawing. So I'm going to go for color 61 there and click on OK. So we've got ELEV_Hatch, ELEV_Fill, close the Layer Properties Manager like so. And then what we'll do now is save the drawing and move on to the next video.