Designers work in real-world units when using CAD software such as gCADPlus. In practice, if you work in the USA, you will create the design using decimal feet as the base unit. If working in the metric system, the base unit is mm. It is essential to recognise that every component in the design should be drawn full size in modelspace and not to scale. That means an inquiry, such as measuring a distance, will report meaningful values to the designer and, by inference, to the construction team.
When presenting the design on paper, in gCADPlus (or AutoCAD), we create a viewport on a layout on a sheet of paper chosen from a range of paper sizes. A viewport is a window into a portion of the modelspace drawing area that provides a view of the objects in the drawing. Creating viewports allows you to have multiple views of the same modelspace drawing on a single layout sheet, each viewport displaying a different part of the drawing. Viewports can be used to create scaled, sectional, or detailed views of a design – the model. Viewports can be resized, moved, and arranged on the layout page to suit your needs, and each viewport can be configured with its display properties, such as layer visibility, view style, and scale.
Here is an example of a layout from a design for a site in Australia. Note the incorporation of the design in one viewport, the plant schedule in another, and images of species used in the design, along with a title block.
The figure below shows a design for a site in the USA. It was drawn full-size in modelspace using decimal feet as the base unit. When complete, the design was displayed on several layout spaces, each complete with a border, a title block with site details, and the designer’s logo, ready for printing. The figure below shows an architectural C-size sheet. Note that a plant schedule is included and automatically generated using one of the tools in the specialist gCADPlus drop-down menu. These views in the layout space are most important because they provide a quick impression of the design’s appearance before printing.
Here is another example of using a layout sheet to present a design from the metric world, where mm is used as the base unit. The design is presented in a central viewport, while text notes are placed directly on the layout sheet.
This is a short movie showing how to create a new layout based on part of a master plan for a site in the northeastern USA.
A movie showing part of a master plan for a site in a tropical area of Australia. A key concept when creating landscape designs using CAD software is to draw the design full size. Layout space is used to present the design on paper sheets. Although the design is full size in model space, the design can be given on a layout page at a fixed scale or not to scale. We take a design for a garden in a sub-tropical area and present the design for the whole site and front and back gardens on several sheets at varying scales.
How to create a new layout -step by step
Select the Format drop-down menu, then choose Create Layout.
A Page Setup dialogue box appears. A new layout is created by selecting the button at the top left of the dialogue box. The desired sheet size can then be chosen from the drop-down list. Rather than accepting the sheet size for the attached default printer, it is recommended that you select a sheet size appropriate for your final plot and scale.
Tip: To identify wrongly placed entities, use the zoom extents option in model space before using the create layout tool.
Tip: It is recommended that you give each of the layouts a meaningful name. If you work in the USA, the first sheet might be labelled Architectural C size 1/48, but the Landscape Plan 1:00 A2 sheet is equally good in the metric environment.
After a while, you will likely dispense with the sheet name in the title as the Layout Manager can determine this. Names such as front entrance, wetland, deck, demolish, rear garden, etc., then become the norm.
Click OK, and the new layout is created. You can switch to it by clicking on its tab at the bottom of the drawing editor.
The view will likely be zoomed in. To display the entire sheet, right-click and select the zoom extent option. The design, drawn in the current colour, will be seen inside the border of the layout sheet.
If you need to rotate a view, select the floating viewport and type a new angle in the properties box. Remember that your chosen angle will rotate all entities, including text.
When a viewport is selected, the scale can be set in the properties box. Here, the view scale is fixed at 1:50.
Tip: When the scale is fixed, the magenta view box shown when you move to modelspace cannot be resized, although it can be re-positioned.
We will take a design to redevelop some primary school surroundings and show how it can rotate views inside floating viewports. Rotation affected the orientation of text applied using the AUTOLABEL tool. We showed a strategy to overcome that issue.
A designer wishes to show different options for the layout of the entertaining space on a single sheet. The basic design for the space is at an angle, so we square things up by rotating the layout, floating viewport ‘porthole’ used to view the design. We also demonstrate that by separating alternative options on different layers, it is possible to use the VPLAYER tool to achieve our aim.
Creating a versatile title block
This movie shows how to develop a custom title block for use by all members of a design team across multiple projects. Rather than place the title block in modelspace, we show the benefit of developing a block that can be used in various layout spaces rather than modelspace. For added convenience, our custom title block has entities placed on a layer L-TITLE, and replaceable text entities are colored red to indicate where editing is required.
More information on layouts can be found in Chapter 8 of the gCADPlus User Guide.