From the course: AutoCAD Architecture Essential Training

Adding wall openings - AutoCAD Architecture Tutorial

From the course: AutoCAD Architecture Essential Training

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Adding wall openings

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- [Instructor] We're starting another new chapter now in our AutoCAD Architecture essential training, and we've got a new drawing for you as well. You will recognize it, though. It's called WallOpenings.dwg, and you'll recognize it from the previous chapter because what I've done is I've saved out what we created in the previous chapter as the new drawing, which is WallOpenings.dwg. You can download it from the exercise files in this state from the website as usual to follow along with the videos in this chapter. As for drawing states, we're looking at wall openings in our AutoCAD Architecture model. The reason I've kept it in an isometric view is it's actually a little bit easier to place a wall opening in a wall section than it is to actually try and do it in an elevation room plan. You can see that we've got the curved wall here. I'd like you to zoom in on this wall section here. Just zoom in a bit, get in tight like that so that you can see what you're doing. My visual style is set to 2D Wireframe at the moment, which is absolutely perfect for our needs right now. You can pick a different visual style if you wish. I'm going to select the wall section, like that, there you go. There's my section of wall in my AutoCAD Architecture model. As soon as I do that, look at the ribbon at the top of the screen. We've got a new contextual tab called Wall, and if you look at the general panel there, you can see there is one that says Opening there. Click on the down arrow, and you can specify an opening or a door/window assembly. Now, what I'm going to do is specify an opening by selecting Opening like so, and when I hover over my wall, can you see, I've got the option there of placing a door opening. This will not place a door, it will place an opening in the wall. The benefit you've got in the usual way is that you can tab like so, in any Autodesk products you can do this, you can tab with the dynamic input. What those two values either side of the 1,000 are are the distances either side of that particular part of the wall. You want to place a 1,000-wide opening, and you can specify how far along the wall you want it to go. I'm going to type in 5,000, five meters on the right-hand entry there and press Enter. Soon as I do that, there's my hole, or my opening as they say, in the wall. I hit Escape a couple of times now, and I've now got an opening in the wall, and it's changed that wall completely. That's how quick and easy it is to place an opening. It may be that you want to place a door there instead. The benefit you've got with openings in AutoCAD Architecture is when you place something like a door or a window, it automatically cuts the opening for you. I'm going to leave my opening there because we're going to use that in some of the next videos in this particular chapter, so I'm going to leave that sittin' there as it is, but what I am going to do now is I'm going to go up to my Build panel in the Home tab on the ribbon and click on the down arrow, and look at that. Door, Opening, and Door/Window Assembly. If I click on Door now, you'll notice that I've got a door there, I can click on Browse, and it brings up my usual styles browser. I've got a standard door, I've got a bi-fold single door, and as I scroll down the list, I've got many different doors and openings that I can place in my architectural models. I'm just going to go for a standard door like so. There's my standard door. Double-click it, and I can close the styles browser now if I want to. Now, what I can do is select the wall where I want it to go. I click on the wall, and look, as you can see the process is the same as placing the opening. What I'm going to do is, again, I'm going to use tab to specify which distance I want, and as you can see this time, the door is 1,010 millimeters. What I'm going to do is I'm going to tab, and I'm going to use the right-hand value, and I'm going to do 3,500 millimeters from the end of that wall segment and press Enter. There's my door, hit Escape a couple of times, and you'll notice that my door has gone into the wall, there's my door, but you'll also notice that it's cut the wall and put an opening in the wall as well. You don't just have to create openings to put doors into. When you place a door, it cuts the opening for the door as well. I'm going to do the same with Window, and I'm going to go up to the Build panel here, click on the fly-out for Window, that's the Home tab by the way, and I'm going to click on Window. And again, got the properties palette here, click on Browse, and the styles browser pops up. I can pick any type of window I want. I can have a 2D wood framing plan, I can have a bay unit, a bottom hung window. Again, I'm just going to double-click on the standard one for now, but there's plenty to choose from. I'll close my styles browser again, and as I click on the wall like so, can you see there that my window, I can hover over any wall segment, and I can place my window. My window goes in a specific height as well, it's all set into the window type itself. And again, you'll notice I can use tab to change the distances and toggle between the wall and so on, and I'm going for the right-hand value again, which is coming off the right-hand edge of that wall, and I'm going to put in there 1,500, one and a half meters, Enter. And there's my window as well. Hit Escape a couple of times. You can see there that I've added a number of openings, but what I've done is I've created a single opening, which obviously changes the wall, I've added a door there, which also has its own opening, and I've added a window there, which also has its own opening as you can see. When I hover over the wall, you can see that all the openings have been made, ready for the opening, the door, and the window.

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