How To Draw A Layout Plan In Autocad

In CAD Package, there are two distinct working environments, called "model space" and "paper space," in which you can work with objects in a drawing. By default, all the drawings are prepared in the model space. You can set the units as per your convenience. Generally, the drawings are prepared with a 1:1 scale in model space.

In Paper space you can represent various views of the model space, mainly for preparing output. You can also manually draw entities for title block and other requirements in paper space. You can create multiple layouts in the same drawing.
In paper space, it is allowed to create viewports with different scales. On each layout, you create layout viewports that display different views of model space. In the layout viewports, you scale the model space views relative to paper space. One unit in paper space represents the actual distance on a sheet of paper, either in millimetres or inches, depending on how you configure your page setup.

Preparing a Plan and Profile drawings in a cad package

Step 1

Create plan and profile drawings or open existing drawings in model space. A sample of Plan and profile is presented below

cad-layout Step 2: Working with Layouts

Press the Layout tab to switch over from model space.
Set the paper size as required for Printing. In this case, we will consider A3 Size paper.
Right-click on the Layout tab and select page setup manager
Give all the plot settings in relation to A3 Paper Size. Set the same settings as "set current"
Draw the Title block within the white background as displayed in the Layout tab.

cad-layout

The Dotted Line shows the periphery of the printing area.
Invoke vport command and draw a rectangle in the top area as shown below

cad-layout

hole drawing will become visible in the viewport.
In this example, we are interested in creating a plan only with a particular scale. To do this select the viewport and give a scale as the required.
The scale acts as a zoom level. Now you can pan until you see the drawing well placed within the viewport.
Adjust the orientation of the drawing by the steps as mentioned below.

Type Mspace at the command prompt to switch to Model Space.
Type dview at the command prompt and further give select all and twist options and rotate the drawing at an angle until the whole plan is placed as per project requirement. This may involve some iterations to achieve the best results.

cad-layout

After achieving the same, type paperspace (PSpace) command to come out of the viewport. In the diagram, we can see that the plan is seen with the required orientation and the required length based on the given scale to the viewport.

In similar lines the profile viewport also to be created along with any other viewpoints as required.
Below Image shows one of the Plan and Profile drawing prepared in Layout Space of AutoCAD.

It's really a lengthy process to achieve plan and profile drawings in the layout using regular AutoCAD Commands. For example, if you are working on a drawing with 20 KM alignment with the requirement to represent each kilo meter information in different layouts, you need to create 20 layout drawings. If
cad-layout
represent each kilo meter information in different layouts, you need to create 20 layout drawings. If each of these have 3 – 4 View Ports, then you have to create 20 * 3 -That is 60 viewports and you have to work on each viewport to adjust the pan, scale, and zoom to suit project requirement.

To address this requirement, ESurveying has developed a Module called CAD Layout. It really reduces the time to a considerable extent and eliminates all possible manual errors. Click here to know more about the CAD Layout Module of ESurvey Civil Tools.