site plan, footprint, dimensions

[SH_Canada]

A requirement of the City is that I must put onto a site plan the following:

1. building footprint

2. decks, outside stairs

3. eaves

4. dimensions to PLs

5. dimensions of walls

 

We are allowed to superimpose onto existing site plans. So normally I bring in the existing, plan in a CAD detail, scale it, then use the exterior room feature to create a polyline, then put that on the site plan in the proper place, then if the eaves are uniform, copy/paste concentric with the eave width. And then I dimension to PLs.. And then I manually add text for the dimensions of the walls. see screenshot below

 

For basic things this works very well, but it has some complications I've discovered. A deck is being included in the exterior room polyline creation, which means I cannot just use the concentric copy paste, i have to chop the deck out of the building polyline first. second problem is it does not include exterior stairs or landings, so I have to manually draw the polyline and then copy to the site plan and then try and position correctly.

 

So to eliminate me typing the dimensions, I can create a dimension set with no line via layer set. but I notice the dimension of the poly line create by the exterior room has an extra inch or so, probably for the siding. Site plans here seem to be a mixture of framing dims and actuals, with comments like "assumed stucco finish of xx". so I prefer to put as framing dims with a note that it does not include exterior finishing

 

So no problem if I have a foundation because if I create a exterior room polyline with the foundation then i get the framed dimensions. All good, but for slab on grade construction, there is no foundation. Is there a way to get the exterior room polyline as the framed dims?

 

Second question is, maybe there is a better way, how are people doing wall length dimensions on site plans, or do you have to? This link below suggests to do by layers instead of polylines. but if I do by layers then the whole width of the wall shows, Is there a way to only show a line for the outside of the wall?

Thanks

 

 

 

[joey_martin]

I have a layer/anno set for site plans. Easy peasy. 

 

There are times this doesn't work well, but for the most part it's how I handle site plans. 

[rgardner]

Saved Plan view for site plans which shows a dashed roof plan, walls w/o layers, doors, stairs, slabs/decks.

[SH_Canada]

16 minutes ago, rgardner said:

walls w/o layers

I was trying this last night, but could not get just a single line for the outside wall. It seemed to be two lines, regardless of what I tried(or a filled in two lines, which makes a really thick line). do you have a sample of what yours looks like? joey's is close but his shows two lines for walls(which may in the end not be a deal breaker). I think I tried excluding doors in the layerset before as well, but it left a gap in the wall. trying to get it to be as close to a outlined footprint as possible..

 

thanks

[GeneDavis]

Does the city reject your plot plan if the exterior walls are shown as Joey shows?  Do they have a written requirement?  Will they reject your plans if the plot plan shows roofs with ridges, hips, and valleys?

[rgardner]

1 hour ago, jasonN said:

I was trying this last night, but could not get just a single line for the outside wall. It seemed to be two lines, regardless of what I tried(or a filled in two lines, which makes a really thick line). do you have a sample of what yours looks like? joey's is close but his shows two lines for walls(which may in the end not be a deal breaker). I think I tried excluding doors in the layerset before as well, but it left a gap in the wall. trying to get it to be as close to a outlined footprint as possible..

 

thanks

Just like Joey's mine shows both lines.  You can change your wall definition to make one of those lines blank but I think the double line looks just fine.

 

[joey_martin]

3 hours ago, jasonN said:

I was trying this last night, but could not get just a single line for the outside wall.

Turn on WALL, MAIN LAYER ONLY and it turns off all the wall layers.

 

You can also make a LIVING AREA polyline and have it on the layer you need to show on the site plan but not the floor plan.

[mborean]

Great discussion folks!  I have a pretty simple method. I take the floor plan, set the layer set to aerial view, turn off anything other than the walls, decks, stairs, etc., make a CAD detail. I group the resulting CAD detail, copy and past it onto my site plan.  

[joey_martin]

1 hour ago, mborean said:

make a CAD detail.

You had me until there. 

 

What if there are changes and/or revisions. Budget constraints etc...you have to keep make CAD details to update the site plan. Leave everything live. Site, plans, elevations, sections, details, all of it...it's all live! 

[mborean]

Yep, I do that all the time!  Making a CAD detail of the foot print takes less than a minute.  Well worth the effort.  Another benefit is that you know right away if the plan runs over the setbacks.

 

Once I make the detail, I call it "plan footprint", and copy/paste it onto the site plan, I delete the original detail.  This reduces the chance of putting an outdated footprint on the site plan.  I am always juggling multiple jobs, and anything that reduces my chance to mess up is a definite plus.

 

Love to hear what everyone else does!

 

Kind regards,

[SH_Canada]

5 hours ago, GeneDavis said:

Does the city reject your plot plan if the exterior walls are shown as Joey shows?  Do they have a written requirement?  Will they reject your plans if the plot plan shows roofs with ridges, hips, and valleys?

They have samples. and every single survey report I have ever seen does not show the inside of the building.  But then again, that is a survey report, and this is a site plan, so maybe different and better. Part of it, is I do additions, so it looks kind of odd if everything else is an outline, except the addition. 

 

I think I'm going to go the live route(and check out this ariel view) and get it as close as I can and see if they balk. @rgardner, was there something special you did to not show the exterior doors (but still show a wall)?

I assume you are all just going to the top floor and if you have roofs on other levels, you do a reference display in order to show eaves for both?

 

thanks all

 

I just checked their sample and  sure enough they actually show outside windows, doors, so I think I will be close enough with the live view and the dimensions with no line

 

[SH_Canada]

played around a little, turned out pretty good for a two story single roof. It almost worked with no walls displayed(only roof overhang area displayed), except I could not get a  solid line on the wall as setting the roof overhang area to dashed showed both the eave and the wall perimeter as dashed.

 

dimension turned out really good, as did the stairs. I had to turn on Walls. railing to get the deck to show, so if I'll have to create a new layer for exterior deck railings, but that is easy. Also need a separate layer for exterior stairs, also fine

 

so yeah turned out good, I have a miter in the corner eave, but  that is fine. Only thing else I had to do, was to put a CAD marker on the pdf for the PL, as I now have it on the plan instead of on a detail. so to move the PDF to be a set dimension from the wall I have to move the marker and the PDF together at the same time

 

 

 

 

 

 

without the walls on :

[SH_Canada]

played with the wall type settings per @rgardner, and was able to get real close. I turned off the window, and turned on headers. Floor plan SPV still looks okay

 

It would be nice to get rid of the windows.....and the miters....

 

floorplan SPV

 

 

[Dermot]

Has anyone ever tried using the built in Plan Footprint tool?

 

If you turn on the "Display Footprint Polyline" option and turn off the display of your normal walls you can get the building outline to show as a single line.  Basically, this allows you to have a "live" cad detail.

 

Is there something you would want it to do differently?

 

[SH_Canada]

i did not know that was live. let me try that, it is a nice clean look

[SH_Canada]

@Dermot

 

That works well as well, but seems to have some limitations. If I do not put on the overhang layer, it does not distinguish between a deck and the exterior wall (normally there would be a vertical line there. 2. The footprint is using the outside layer, not the framing layer, which, as described above it probably is more accurate, but complicates the correlation of the site plan to the floor plan dimensions. 

 

with the overhang on below you can see the dashed line for the framing layer, which ironically, would be  better as  I could dimension from either...but it does not look like I can snap to the overhang dashed line either at the wall or at the fascia 

 

So to answer your question, I think 2 more things would be needed 

1. foottprint the exterior walls so I can see a delineation between the deck and walls. (maybe there is a way to get this to work today somehow?)

2. be able to snap to the overhang . Without this I would assume I would have to keep moving a CAD marker

3. per my other thread yesterday, make the overhang include the fascia board

 

but I do like this look better,  so I think it is what I will use

 

Thanks!

 

 

[dshall]

I tried the PLAN FOOTPRINT tool in another life and there were severe limitations (or I did not know how to use it).

 

When CA gave us the ability to use ref sets and multiple ref sets,  the plan footprint tool seems obsolete.

 

I think the only advantage of the plan footprint tool is you can rotate the site plan without rotating the plan itself.....  which is nice but somehow I have not needed that functionality....

[robdyck]

I think the only real problem with Plan Footprint Cad detail is that Chief can't necessarily or always properly define the polylines for different parts of the plan, especially in light of the fact that definitions and requirements can change from one jurisdiction to another. Not to mention all the various area display requirements and calculations. I'd recommend to setup a SPV of a site plan with all the necessary object and macros already in place and save that as part of your template plan. Unless you enjoy using your calculator and typing.

The Plan Footprint will not really help identify preliminary site coverage calculations early in the design process to ensure zoning compliance. 

There's certainly some live layers that can be used for a Site Plan, but not many. The key is to set up a SPV paired with an appropriate Default for the scale required, and have a library of CAD and Text objects already in the view.

[SH_Canada]

yes I was beggining to think how I would do it for cantilevers and split levels. I  changed the plan to add a bump out on the main floor and created a footprint for it, but I cannot copy and paste it onto the other (second floor) footprint. It will only paste as a picture. I suppose I could convert to polyline, but then I lose the eave line for my bump out.roof.

 

..back to polylines, reference sets, or CAD for the complicated ones.

 

For my work, most of it is simple, so i think I will use the footprint tool as much as I can, its looks are closr to the survey plan. 

 

 

[rgardner]

On 10/18/2021 at 5:35 PM, mborean said:

This reduces the chance of putting an outdated footprint on the site plan.  I am always juggling multiple jobs, and anything that reduces my chance to mess up is a definite plus.

This is what @joey_martinis saying.  You are adding a chance for human error by doing it that way instead of just using a saved plan view with the live model…

 

As a side note if everyone hates to see the double wall lines and interiors use the make living area poly line and set it to background color so all you will see is the outline of the walls.  Still an extra step in my opinion but way faster than making a cad detail and transferring back.

[SH_Canada]

I tried  the living area poly line and it works well If I combine with the room polyline, it also changes the deck into single lines and gives me the nice delineation between the deck and exterior wall. Not ideal as it is not live. But if I changed my workflow to have the survey image on the plan (instead of on a CAD detail), then at least I will not be copying the polyline over and redimensioning to property lines everytime the building changes. And it has the added benefit that I  would be highly likely to catch it being wrong if I forgot to update the polyline in the event of a wall move

 

I have some much  better(3) options now. Thanks all

 

 

[rgardner]

1 hour ago, jasonN said:

And it has the added benefit that I  would be highly likely to catch it being wrong if I forgot to update the polyline in the event of a wall move

Add one more layer of protection if you want that look is give it say a 10% transparency very clean looking but you can double check the polyline with one glance.