Explore the process of finalizing the roof component of a building elevation using AutoCAD, including the addition of roof hatch patterns, gutters, and downspouts. Learn about the detailed steps involved in selecting the right layers, setting scale factors, picking points, setting the origin, and more to ensure accurate representation of the architecture.
Key Insights
- The process begins with the addition of the roof hatch using the 'Hatch' command in AutoCAD. The user must select a pattern from the expanded list, set a scale factor of 0.5, and pick the appropriate areas on the roof for the pattern to apply.
- For a more realistic representation, it’s essential to adjust the origin of the hatch pattern. This takes into account the edge condition and ensures the pattern appears more presentable and accurate, especially where the pattern repeat begins.
- After the roof, the downspouts and gutters are added to the elevation. This involves the use of the 'Block Insert' command to place the gutter downspout on the elevation. Further modifications are made, like setting the base point, moving the block, and ensuring the gutter is continuous across the front of the house.
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Let's begin wrapping up the roof component of the elevation. We need to put our roof hatch in, and as we've discussed before, this segment of the roof and this segment of the roof are going to be projected forward from this segment back here. So what we're going to do is to choose different layers, and let's do the forward parts of the roof first, and let's choose the layer Shake Heavy.
We're going to go to Hatch, and we will choose our pattern by going to the expanded list, and we will slide down and choose AR Roof Shake. We need to have a scale factor of 0.5, and this is simply because the hatch pattern that's provided with AutoCAD is not drawn at 1 to 1. So a hatch pattern of 0.5 will be perfect. We're going to pick points, and if I zoom in here, you can see I need to choose this area up here, and also this area down here, but I would like to bring something to your attention.
You understand that the roof hatch pattern itself begins its pattern repeat at 0, 0, and because of that, we have an interesting edge condition going on down here. So I'm going to set my origin to be at the midpoint of this segment right here, so that's brought the pattern down to be a bit more presentable. I'm going to select it here, and also down here, and once again, because my pattern was happening at 0, 0, my edge doesn't look too bad.
Now you can see that as I'm moving my mouse around, the region bounding areas are being highlighted, but because I have not picked in that area, nothing will be selected, so I will close that hatch creation pattern. I'd like to now hatch the upper part of the roof. I will go and change my layer, so go and I'll choose Shake Light, and because what's happening again is that the colors that are associated with these layers have their association on the color pen table, and you'll notice when we print the drawing that this hatch pattern will be a little bit darker, more gray than this hatch pattern back here.
So I will go back to my hatch command. It remembers AR Shake. I will pick points.
I pick up here in the roof. I need to pick in this little area down here, the area down here, and also the area up here. I'm going to zoom at the top.
Again, you can see that this condition is slightly interesting in that we have a bit of a pattern showing there and also down over there. I'm going to go back and choose my origin. I will let the origin be at the mid of this segment down here, and I accept this.
I close the hatch, zoom extents, and save. The next thing I would like to do is to bring in the downspouts that are on the side because we've completed the roof. Now we're going to start working our way down.
So I'm going to go to the Insert command, go to Block Insert, and I'm going to go into Browse, and I will choose my gutter downspout side elevation. The base point is going to be up here on the top component of the gutter. So I will go open, specify my insertion point on screen, a scale factor of 1. I'm going to zoom in.
You can see how it's being brought in, and I will attach it at the end of the overhang right there. Control-S to save. Now let's look at our layers, though.
I'm on the Shake Light layer. I'm going to go on and make A Medium my current layer, and I will select this block, and I will migrate it to the A Medium layer. Escape, Control-S to save.
I've brought in this downspout. I need to put another one by the side of the garage over here, so I will go to Insert, Block Insert. It's listing the block right there.
I'm going to say OK, and I will pop it in at the end of there, and I will now mirror. Go to Mirror, choose the downspout. Enter to say I'm done selecting.
The base point is the mid of the garage, and I will pull my hand down. Enter, Control-S to save. Now I need to bring a couple of things to your attention.
We're going to have a gutter that will be going all the way around the building, so I need to draw a line from the end to the end. So I'm showing the gutter on the facade, and that's all I'm really going to worry about. Technically, I could draw another line from here straight over to show the bounce that's happening in the gutter.
And also technically, because the gutter is wrapping around, I will not see this small segment here, nor will I see this one here, so I need to clean it up. But this is a block, so what I would need to do is to explode the block, so I will choose Explode on the block. Now you can see that what it's done, though, by exploding it, it has moved it to that layer, which is 0, the source geometry layer.
So I can select the geometry here, and I can move all of that geometry to the layer A Medium. I need to get rid of some geometry. I will take this segment, which happens to be the gutter, and I'm going to say Break, not Break at Point.
I'm going to say Break this gutter line. I have to read the command prompt because it's wanting me to tell it, am I breaking it from that point or from a special point? So I will go F Enter for first point. My first point will be at this intersection and will go down.
I can now erase out that segment, and now you can see the gutter looking more like it actually should. I'm also going to do an Erase Window right in through here to get rid of the geometry that's associated with the gutter, and I see that I've made a mistake. So I'm going to go U for Undo because technically we have the gutter happening here, and I need to draw a line from here up to here, Trim, so I now am showing the gutter happening there.
I need to get rid of this segment once again in here. I will Explode. I'm typing X Enter for Explode the block.
It's going to be migrating it, so let's just move it back, select the geometry, select the geometry, and let's move it to the layer A Medium. I'm going to break this segment. The first point will be from here straight down.
I'm going to choose this segment, move it down to here so we can see that our gutter is continuous across the front of the house. Now our gutter will also continue wrapping all the way around the house, so I'm going to choose this segment and carry it straight on down to here. Hit Escape, choose this segment here, go to the endpoint, and carry it down to here.
Now, what's going on, though, is we have a downspout that is on the facade of this portion of the building right here, so I need to insert the front view of the gutter, so Insert, Block Insert, I need to select it, Gutter Downspout Front Elevation, specify Insertion Point on Screen, and you can see when we brought the one in before, we brought it up there, so I'm going to have to do the same thing on this side on the right. I'm just backing off so you can see it. For right now, I'm going to put it at the top there, but if you look at where it's ending up, you can see that the distance from the bottom of the gutter to the plate line is a delta Y of 1 32nd of an inch, whereas if I look here, it's actually in the same position, so I've brought it in at the right spot.
I want to move it over 4 inches to the left, move the block 4 inches to the left, and Control-S to save. It does feel to me, though, that it's not in the right spot because I need to also indicate this segment of the gutter right there, so I'm going to draw a line and a line and trim to get rid of these segments, so now I have my gutter going along here, my downspout happening here, but you can see right here that we're showing the edge condition of the gutter, but we're not showing the same thing over here, so I need to mirror, Home tab, Mirror, W, Enter for Window, and I will put my window right in through here from the mid of this segment straight down. You can see I have some cleanup work to do, so I'm going to erase out this segment and that segment there.
I need to do a cleanup in through here, so I will trim here my cutting edges, and to get rid of that segment there, I can actually erase out that small line, so we're seeing the gutter come along. I need to have the same thing happening on the left side of the popout, so Mirror, M-I for Mirror, W for Window, from the mid of the bedroom popout straight down, do some cleanup, so Trim, here are my cutting edges, cut that segment out. Technically, because of how the gutter's working, I can erase out that window there and erase out this window here, but let's look for a second at line weight.
Again, this is the popout for the bedroom, and yes, this is the gutter. The gutter would normally be on a lighter line weight than the building itself, than the roof popout, but this is going to look slightly strange because I'll have a line that, when it plots, will be heavier, and then it will get lighter, so I'm going to go M-A for Match Properties. Here's the source.
Here's the destination. Again, what I've done is I've lightened the line weight of the base of the gutter, and I'm going to do the same thing at the garage, M-A for Match Properties, source and destination. I'm going to back off, look at my geometry.
I'm going to erase out this segment right here. Again, I'm simply paying attention to detail as I go along because every now and then, you're going to work for a boss who is really picky, so Erase Window, get rid of this segment here. A lot of this kind of information that we're working with right now is actually a function of being out there in the field and fully understanding Erase Window here.
Ah, exploded. It's on zero. Match Properties, source, destination.
We can see that we have a large segment there. I'll take this line and stretch it to there. I have another segment in there that I will erase.
Match Properties, source, destination. Control-S to save. Zoom extends, and once again, save the file.
But again, going out there in the field and looking at what actually happens will impact greatly the accuracy and the detailing of your work. As I'm looking at it again, Trim. So clean up that because we'll have the gutter that goes across.
It's not interrupted. I've cleaned up all the way along. Going to back up.
Control-S, save the file. So what we're going to be working on in a few more minutes is to be populating our windows and shutters and doors into the building.