How to import and manage multiple reference drawings for several floors

[Jonnoxx]

I want to model a simple, 2-story house from an existing drawing.

 

This drawing exists as a large single-page dwg file that shows multiple views (most but not all, at the same scale), showing the separate floor-plans for the "ground floor'; the "first floor", and the "site-plan". I'm not interested in more than this at this stage.

 

So I just want to start off with making 3 reference drawings for each of these "floors", and save them into my plan, and then correctly associate them with each "floor".

 

And then be able to call up these references at will any time.

 

Do I just import this large dwg file, ONCE, and then pan and zoom into each required view one-at-a-time, rotate the view 90 deg as necessary, save it. And then immediately continue to just pan and zoom to the next one of the other plan views on the drawing and repeat the process?

 

Or must I "cut" each view out of the original dwg, and save that separately?  And start all over again each time?

 

So how should I do this?  And most importantly ... the part that has me really confused ... how do I afterwards see and update and manage the three reference drawings I saved?  Must I create new layers, and put each of these drawings on its own layer?

 

I do understand the basics of HOW to import and scale a dwg or pdf, but I'm confused as to how to MANAGE these drawings AFTER that.

 

Also, how do I fix these drawings so that they have a reference point that ACCURATELY stacks them ontop of each other correctly?

 

I'm very much a newbie at this, and can't find an easy - and clear - answer to what is probably quite a simple issue.  I would really appreciate some explicit idiot-proof help here.

[dshall]

You do not understand how to do this.  I have done multiple vids on this.  Do a search for MRLS VIDEOS BY DSH.    Review the vids or someone else might pipe in and give you some input.  But your request is very legitimate.....  however a warning,  CA does not give you the ability to have multiple ref sets for a particular plan sent to layout.

 

You are on the right  track.

[Joe_Carrick]

IMO you are looking at this completely wrong.  Chief is a 3D modeling system and you shouldn't be looking at this as drawings.  It would be much better to just create each Floor in Chief using the Walls, Doors, Windows, etc Tools.  The final "drawings" are views of the model sent to "Layout".

 

Importing such a drawing into Chief will not result in a 3D model. 

[Joe_Carrick]

11 minutes ago, dshall said:

You do not understand how to do this.  I have done multiple vids on this.  Do a search for MRLS VIDEOS BY DSH.    Review the vids or someone else might pipe in and give you some input.  But your request is very legitimate.....  however a warning,  CA does not give you the ability to have multiple ref sets for a particular plan sent to layout.

 

You are on the right  track.

Scott,

Go back and read the OP carefully.  It is not a question about MRLS.  It's about creating a model from a 2D Plan (basically thinking of Floors as Layers).  That's not how Chief works.

[Jonnoxx]

Gosh, you guys are fast off the blocks!

Thanks!

Scott - you have zillions of videos.  Can you point to a more specific one.

 

Joe - Now I'm really confused. 

I'm well aware CA is a 3D program, and that's exactly how I'm trying to use it.

I want to model it in 3D, but I want to stick in a reference drawing as an UNDERLAY, so that i can just "draw" (not quite the proper term, but you know what I mean) the walls USING this reference.

This is an entirely normal way of starting off in Archicad and Revit.

 

Or what am I missing?

 

[DRAWZILLA]

If you want to trace a floor plan, then just import the line drawings to the 1st and 2nd floor ,block it and or put it on its own layer ,and in the back location. Then trace and when done just turn that layer off.

 

[Joe_Carrick]

22 minutes ago, Jonnoxx said:

I'm well aware CA is a 3D program, and that's exactly how I'm trying to use it.

I want to model it in 3D, but I want to stick in a reference drawing as an UNDERLAY, so that i can just "draw" (not quite the proper term, but you know what I mean) the walls USING this reference.

You can do that but in the case you describe you would need to import the drawing on each Floor Level.  Even CAD only exists on a single Floor Level. Then after creating the 1st Floor in Chief, you would need to move the Plan on the 2nd Floor to correspond to the 1st Floor Plan (Reference Layer Set) and create the 2nd Floor in Chief, etc.  Then do the same for the 3rd Floor.

[Jonnoxx]

46 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

If you want to trace a floor plan, then just import the line drawings to the 1st and 2nd floor ,block it and or put it on its own layer ,and in the back location. Then trace and when done just turn that layer off.

 

 

 

Thanks, Perry.

[Jonnoxx]

47 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

You can do that but in the case you describe you would need to import the drawing on each Floor Level.  Even CAD only exists on a single Floor Level. Then after creating the 1st Floor in Chief, you would need to move the Plan on the 2nd Floor to correspond to the 1st Floor Plan (Reference Layer Set) and create the 2nd Floor in Chief, etc.  Then do the same for the 3rd Floor.

 

 

Thanks, Joe.