Enhancing the detail and accuracy of architectural drawings can create a more realistic model, aiding in construction and design. This article delves into the process of adding details and improvements to wall sections and layers in architectural renderings, specifically focusing on the patterns and scales of concrete and brick veneers, details inside walls and ceilings, and framing.
Key Insights
- The article emphasizes the importance of adding details to wall sections and layers in architectural drawings. This includes adding concrete and brick veneer patterns, scaling them effectively, and ensuring they are presentable on the drawing.
- The author provides specific strategies and steps for adding details inside the wall, ceiling, and floor sections, such as creating a new layer, matching properties, creating hatch patterns for different materials, and adjusting scale factors for various elements.
- The piece also mentions the necessity of maintaining consistency while presenting information at different scales, avoiding overly detailed sections that may conflict with the structural engineer's plans, and the importance of saving and reloading sections frequently for accurate and effective modeling.
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As we start looking at our wall sections, we're seeing areas for needs of improvement. In our building sections, we had pochets that were highlighting the wall volumes. One of the purposes of the wall section is to add more information to be displayed on the drawing.
We need to start infilling some of the information in the walls themselves, but if you remember, we have the concrete down here, the hatch pattern, on the same layer as the wall pochet that's going on there. So let's start tackling the concrete first. Let's go into our section file.
And what I'd like us to do is to create a new layer. So I'm going to create a new layer. And I will call the layer a-detail, d-e-t-l-section.
I will make it my current layer, and I'm going to give it a color of green, just so that it will project well in my drawing. You can see that this hatch pattern for the concrete is right there. So the hatch pattern for the concrete is right there.
That hatch pattern, if I list it, is on a scale factor, hatch scale factor of one. Now let's go back into our A303 file for a second. Let's go into layers.
Let's turn on the section pattern layer. And you'll notice how large the hatch pattern looks relative to the patterns that are shown elsewhere in the drawing. And that's because the hatch pattern itself was generated for an appropriate presentation at a quarter inch, whereas we're displaying it at one inch equals a foot.
So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go on and do b-h for boundary hatch. And I'm going to select in these regions, and you can see that I'm hatching up to the concrete.
And I'm going to say close hatch creation. Then I'm going to go m-a for match properties. I will let this concrete be my source, and I will type l-enter for last.
So the last item is now using the identical hatch pattern to the concrete from before. Then I'm going to type the command change. It says select objects, l for last, enter to say I'm done, property, l-a for layer, a-d-e-t-l-s-e-c-t, enter, enter.
So you can see that now it's green. I'd like to also get some earth under here, so I'm going to draw a polyline. And I'm just going to be creating a shape.
Again, turning off my ortho and my running o-snap. And I'm going to go b-h for hatch. I'm going to choose earth.
I'm going to accept the scale factor of one for right now. I'll give it a scale factor of four. I'm going to increase it more.
I'm going to let it be 12. So I'm going to close hatch creation and save the file. I'm now going to erase out my polyline, control-s for save.
I'm going to turn off my pattern layer. And so I'm just going to save here. I'm going to go back into my 303 file and reload the xref.
And I will turn off my section pattern layer. And you can start to see how now I'm having information that is presentable here within the section drawing. Again, I'm having to replicate the information because it's at different scales for this presentation compared to the building section itself.
I'd like to now go over into image 2 in the source file. So zoom dynamic. And image 2 is right over here.
And I'm going to go on and put a membrane in that we will be using for insulation board. So I'm going to offset by 2 inches this guy and come around. And I'm going to select this geometry.
And I will put it on the detail section layer. I will fill it. I'm going to draw a line from the end of here over.
I'm going to trim. Here's my cutting edge. Get rid of that.
And I'm going to go into hatch. I'm going to use the pattern net. So I will slide up.
Choose net. I can either choose ANSI 37 or I can use net. I will choose in here.
And close the hatch creation. Control S to save. Now to be honest, I'm not a big fan of these lines being vertical.
So I'm going to double click on the hatch. I will give it an angle of 45 and close the hatch editor. And now that presentation looks better than it did before.
So control S for save. Once again, I need to put some poche in through here for the concrete. So I'm going to go to BHatch for boundary hatch.
I will choose inside each of these areas. Close them. MA for match properties.
Here's the source. There's the destination. Control S for save.
If I'd like, I can change the scale of the concrete hatch pattern down a bit. So I'll click on the concrete. I'll give it a scale factor of .5. Close the hatch editor.
MA for match properties. Here's the source. There's the destination.
Control S to save. I need to start looking at my ground. What I'd like to do there.
So a polyline. Again, I'm just coming at this from some angles. And it's relatively common to see people use patterns such as this when they are putting groundwork in.
BHatch. I'm going to choose inside these areas. Enter.
MA for match properties. Here's the source. There's the destination.
And I will erase that polyline boundary out. Control S to save. I'd like to spend a little bit of time adding some detail into this wall.
So I'm going to offset by an inch and a half. And I'm going to trim. Crossing.
And I'm going to draw a line. Like that. And then MA for match properties.
Here's my source. Here's my destination. Control S to save.
So this is the bottom plate that's on the wall. I'd like to do some framing up here while I'm at it. So I'm going to draw a line from here straight up.
A line from here over. I'm going to offset down by an inch and a half. And these are my king and queen plates which are at the top.
So again, I'm drawing lines. This is indicating that I'm cutting a section through there. Trim.
Get rid of that. Control S to save. Now, what I have going on here is I have part of my eave that I want to be blocking into the wall.
So I will draw a line here to here. I will offset by an inch and a half. I will draw a line.
And then some more lines. So again, what I'm showing is information that is above and beyond the need to be presented in the building section, but very appropriate to be presented in the wall section. I'm going to draw a line from the mid of here straight up.
And I'm going to move that last line up. This is going to become the batting for the insulation for the wall. And so I'm going to select the line.
And I will give it a line type of batting. Now, I'm going to do Control S to save. Because what I want you to see is the size of the batting image here.
I'm going to do RE for regen, just for fun. And save the file. I'm now going to go back into my 303 drawing and reload the XRef.
Can you see how differently it looks presented in the line type scale there compared to the line type scale here? If I type LT for line type, you can see that for this drawing, everything is calculated in paper space at a global scale factor of one. The batting line type is one of those line types where the logical scale factor that was used to create it was not really used. So what I need to do is I'm going to go back into the section file, pick on this guy, do a right button properties, and I will give it a line type scale factor of .5. So what I'm doing is I'm making it half as large as it would be with the normal definition.
I'm going to save this, go back into 303, reload the XRef, and you can see now that in the wall section file itself, this line type looks appropriate. It just looks wrong when I go back in the source file. So again, I'm going to save the file.
Now we know that this is a brick veneer that's going on in through here. I'm going to go into the section. And again, this can be disconcerting to your eye.
I'm going to offset by three and a half inches, and I'm going to offset down by half an inch. And I will trim, crossing, match properties, here's the source, there's the destination, and then I'm simply going to array. Well, I'll use the actual icon for array.
I'm going to array these lines. I want to have one column. I'm going to say that I want to have, I'm going to say 15 rows, and the distance between the rows will be a minus four inches.
Now I have my brick pattern going on. Again, it is not associative. It appears that 15 rows is not sufficient.
I will let it be 20 rows. Not quite enough. I'll go 28 rows.
We're down, and I'm going to close it. I'm going to do an erase window down in through here and get rid of those bricks that are happening there at the ground plane. I'm just going to erase this last line.
Again, I'm not telling the contractor the number of rows to put in the brick. I'm simply telling him that it is, in fact, a brick veneer. Control S to save.
While I'm here, I'd also like to show some detail on the inside of the wall and at the ceiling. So I'm going to offset down by five-eighths of an inch for the top jib board. Offset in by five-eighths of an inch.
I'm going to trim, trim, and I'm going to do a match properties. Here's the source. There's the destination.
I'm going to pan down and put some molding on the floor. I'm going to offset by an inch. I will come up by four inches.
Trim crossing. Match properties. Source destination.
And I'm just going to chamfer with a distance one, I'm going to say, of .5 inches. A distance of two, a .5. I'm simply just giving it a little bit of a wood trim on the side. Control S to save.
Go back into my 303 file. Reload the XRef, and you can start to see the level of detail that we're getting in the wall section itself. Now, some people enjoy adding much more framing up here in the actual truss and roof system.
I would rather avoid that right now so that we don't enter any information that conflicts with the structural engineer. If you would please get this far, and then we will continue adding more information into our sections.