Multiple Plan views on one sheet

[dboggs]

I am trying to place the first and second floor plans on one sheet; since the building I am working on is not that large. I am using ACA 2008 and when I make view drawings the xrefs come in at the appropriate elevations as specified in the project navigator. Once I create the views and then drag them onto sheets the floor elevations are ignored and the two floor plans come in at the same elevation and then I see many red circles of death because the walls of both floors are colliding together. The only way I have figured out around this is to drag the views in, then move the plans apart, and then adjust the viewport for the new plan location. Is there a better way to have multiple floor plan views on one sheet? What if I need to make a sheet for enlarged plans, like stair plans, I would be spending all this time to move plans around and update all of the viewports. There has to be a better way to deal with this situation, please help.

[dzatto]

I am trying to place the first and second floor plans on one sheet; since the building I am working on is not that large. I am using ACA 2008 and when I make view drawings the xrefs come in at the appropriate elevations as specified in the project navigator. Once I create the views and then drag them onto sheets the floor elevations are ignored and the two floor plans come in at the same elevation and then I see many red circles of death because the walls of both floors are colliding together. The only way I have figured out around this is to drag the views in, then move the plans apart, and then adjust the viewport for the new plan location. Is there a better way to have multiple floor plan views on one sheet? What if I need to make a sheet for enlarged plans, like stair plans, I would be spending all this time to move plans around and update all of the viewports. There has to be a better way to deal with this situation, please help.

Nope, that's a bug in 2008. My retailer kept saying it was possible, but couldn't get it to work either. When 2009 came out, it worked as it should.

Most of my buildings have a basement and mezzanine level. I put the mezzanine and first floor plan on the same sheet just like you do. I did the same thing as a work around, I would drag the mezzanine view over 100' (just an arbitrary number that was easy to remember).

[sharla]

This works in 2009? I have had the same problem, but in 09. We don't usually have plans from different levels on the same sheet, but I have run into this problem on my most recent project.

[dzatto]

This works in 2009? I have had the same problem, but in 09. We don't usually have plans from different levels on the same sheet, but I have run into this problem on my most recent project.

Well it's working for me in 09! I wonder why it's not working for you. Did you start the project in 09, or was it started in an earlier version?

I've found that if I open a project from an earlier version, I need to delete the Xref'd view out of the sheet set, then reinsert it.

[sharla]

OK...that is it then. I forgot this project was started in 08. Glad to hear it's fixed now. I've had to do a lot of deleteing/reinserting and copying files into new ones to get some of the oddities fixed.

[jrb63]

This sounds like a basic external reference excercise. If you overlay several externally referenced floor plans on top of each other (regardless of z-coordinate elevation) the walls of one plan should have no conflict with walls of another plan. The wall definitions and parameters are in completely separate files. As long as each x-refrenced file is on its own layer, you can make as many views and at whatever scale you want with viewports in paperspace. Am I missing something?

[dzatto]

This sounds like a basic external reference excercise. If you overlay several externally referenced floor plans on top of each other (regardless of z-coordinate elevation) the walls of one plan should have no conflict with walls of another plan. The wall definitions and parameters are in completely separate files. As long as each x-refrenced file is on its own layer, you can make as many views and at whatever scale you want with viewports in paperspace. Am I missing something?

Not entirely true. You can set your project so that wall cleanups do not happen through Xref's. If you have it set so cleanups happen through Xrefs, you will get the conflicts. The problem is (with my projects anyway), I have separate constructs for interior and exterior wall. Therefore, I need the wall cleanups to happen through Xref's. Not to mention I don't create a separate layer for every Xref'd file. That would be a big pain in the ***. I'm not even sure that's standard.

This is a bug in the system, not just a simple Xref exercise. The sheet sets ignore the Z elevation, so you have multiple walls occupying the same space regardless of layer or separate drawing. Your sheet set doesn't overlay the Xref, it attaches it. Though, I'm not sure that has anything to do with the problem. There's no way around it that I know of other than moving the Xref'd view out of the way in your sheet file, or upgrading to 2009 / 2010. I could be wrong, though. It's happened before.

[jrb63]

I guess this gives me less incentive to create sheet sets, which I've not done yet. My office hasn't utilized the project management features of AutoCad ADT 2009. Our projects rarily exceed 5 or so stories. I guess I become less of a novice and more of a bunny sloper with every release.

[dzatto]

I guess this gives me less incentive to create sheet sets, which I've not done yet. My office hasn't utilized the project management features of AutoCad ADT 2009. Our projects rarily exceed 5 or so stories. I guess I become less of a novice and more of a bunny sloper with every release.

If you have 2009, then you're okay. The problem is fixed.

I would definately look into using PN. I fought it for a long time because I was too lazy to learn it. Once I forced myself to, I realized it wasn't hard at all. Just a different way of thinking. I love PN now. When I work on old drawings without it I curse a lot!

[Chuckyd67]

If the different plans are inserted at the correct relevant elevations, the wall conflicts will go away, even in 2008. Cut planes can be set differently for each viewport, although this may require separated displays.