Creating a Shower Stall Design in AutoCAD: Step-by-Step Tutorial

In this video, we're going to work on the shower stall. So I'll go File, New.

Use the VDCI Fundamentals Template. File, Save. And this is named Shower Stall.

Let's make our A fixture layer. Layer Properties. New layer.

Again, this is A fixed for fixtures. The color will be 120. Enter.

And let's make it our current layer. If we take a look at the handout, we can see that this shape is three feet by three feet, and it is a square. We'll also notice that zero, zero is in the bottom left corner.

We can draw this rectangle using absolute coordinates. Additionally, we can see that there is a corner cutoff at a 45 degree angle, which is one feet, seven inches from the top and right sides of the rectangle. We will also be creating an inner shape for the basin and a two inch diameter drain.

Let's start with our rectangle. I'll go to the Rectangle tool, and I can use absolute coordinates. Zero, comma, zero.

Enter. And three feet, comma, three feet. Make sure that you draw this using the apostrophe or the foot tick mark.

I will hit ENTER. Zoom Extents. And let's use our Quick Measure tool to quickly double check that this is three feet by three feet, and not three inches by three inches.

I'll hit Escape to exit my tool. And the first thing I want to do is to create that diagonal cut at this corner. When you want to make a diagonal and sharp edge, we can use the Chamfer tool.

The Chamfer tool is bundled with fillets in the Modify panel. And we can see that Chamfer creates a straight edge where Fillet creates a rounded corner. I'll select Chamfer and check the command prompt.

We can see that it says Select First Line, but right above that, we see Distance 1 and Distance 2. This is similar to the radius in the Fillet tool, but in this case, with two distances of zero and zero, it would create a sharp point. We already have a sharp point. We are attempting to create an angle.

So I will go D for Distance, Enter. And my Chamfer distances are both one feet, seven inches. So I will type one feet, seven, Enter.

And before I type anything else, I will look at my command prompt. I'll see that it says, Specify Second Chamfer Distance, and it gives me a suggestion. This suggestion is in carats, which are the open and closed lesser than and greater than symbols.

And if I hit ENTER before typing anything else in, you will see that my second distance has updated to one feet, seven. When I select edges for Chamfer, it will automatically choose the first distance as my first line and the second distance as my second line. In this case, it doesn't matter.

I can choose the top and then the right. And when I click, it will create this beveled edge. Now that that's done, I'd like to create the three-inch offset to create the inner line.

Because we did not explode our rectangle and we used Chamfer on a closed polyline, this shape is also a closed polyline. This is exactly what we want. If we had exploded our polyline first and offset a distance of three, we would have created many different lines that we would need to clean up.

I'll undo and undo, and I can use this closed polyline to create a single offset. I'll hit Escape a few times, and then I will go Offset. My offset distance is three.

And notice I'm not typing in the inch mark because inches are our base units. Three, Enter. I'll click my closed polyline, click inside the shape, and hit ENTER to say that I'm done.

Now you'll notice that our inner polyline has rounded edges. And we can remember that Fillet creates rounded edges. And we can see a three-inch RAD, which stands for Radius, as one of our annotations.

We can go to the dropdown and select Fillet. And you'll notice that our Radius says zero. We need to update our Radius.

R, Enter. And our Radius distance should be three. Enter.

I could go through and choose each one of these one at a time. Here and here. Enter to go back in.

Here and here. Enter to go back in. And finish all of the edges around my closed polyline.

I'll undo those steps because one of the options in the Fillet tool will make this much faster. I'll go back to Fillet. Radius, R, Enter.

Distance of three. You'll notice that there are a couple of options here. Multiple and Polyline.

If I choose Multiple, M, Enter, instead of having to hit ENTER to go back in, I can simply go around and continue to click, reselecting both edges, and I will finish my fillet in one fillet command. I will, however, have to hit ENTER to say when I'm done. I'll undo that.

And let's use the polyline in this example. I'll go Fillet. R, Enter.

Three, Enter. And this time I will choose P, Enter for Polyline. Now you can see when I hover over my polyline, it understands where every single corner is and it will add a three-inch radius there.

I'll go Control-S to save. And the last thing we need to add is our two-inch diameter drain hole. This is at 10 inches from zero, zero, and 10 inches from zero, zero, which has a real-world coordinate of 10, 10.

But let's practice tracking. In this case, I want to go Circle. And before I specify any point, I will activate tracking by typing in T-R-A, Enter.

Now it says, Specify First Tracking Point, which I can do Shift-Right-Click, Endpoint. And I will choose this endpoint here, which we know to be zero, zero. Now I can see that I am tracking out to the right, and I can go a distance of 10, Enter.

And now it's changed direction to show me up and down, and I will track vertically, 10, Enter. Now that I'm at the point that I want to be at, I can hit ENTER to say that I'm done, and I am back in my Circle command. We have a two-inch diameter on our handout, so I will go D, Enter, two, Enter, Zoom Extents, Control-S to save.

I will see you in the next video.