cadvilla Support Team

How to enter a plot with guidelines (recommended method)

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In this Video-Tutorial we show you how you can enter the walls of a model home with the help of guidelines.

The basic workflow:

  • In the first step we create guidelines with the exact length dimensions of the external walls. Therefore we select “2D & Layout” – “2D Guidelines” – “Guideline”. Here we can choose between the functions “Vertical guideline”, “Horizontal Guideline”, “Numeric parallel guideline (Shortcut “p“)” and many more.
  • To define the appearance of a guideline, we press after the selection of the guideline type the right mouse button – “Properties” – “Appearance”. In the Line properties we can define the color, the Line style and the Line width.
  • After we have entered the guideline-grid we can orientate on the single snapping points of the guideline-grid. To enter the walls we select “Building” – “Walls” – “External Wall” – “Between two points chain”. To define the wall properties we press the right mouse button – “Properties”. Here we can define the thickness, the material and the layer construction of the wall.
  • We select a start point for the wall and after it the “Tool options” window appears. With the shortcut “W” we can show or hide the window. We can select the window with a left mouse click or we press the shortcut “SPACE” (spacebar) to select the window.
  • To change the reference point of a wall we press the key combination “CTRL+W“. To enter 100% horizontal and vertical walls we press and hold during the entry the “CTRL” key.
  • Please Note: There are different options how we can enter a guideline-grid. In the first option we can define the outside and the inside of the wall with the help of guidelines. On the other hand we can also only define the outside or the inside. If we only enter the out- or inside of a wall in the form of a guideline, we have to choose the correct reference point for the wall when we enter the wall.
  • After we have entered the wall we press “ESC” to end the function “Between two points chain”.
  • To display the floor area of a room we make a left mouse click into the desired room to select it – right mouse click – “Properties”. We choose the point “Labelling” and here we click on the point “Floor area”. In the field to the right we can enter for example FA for floor area. After it we press “Ok” to confirm the entry.
  • To change the fill style of a wall we select the wall – right mouse button – “Properties” – “Layer construction” – “Material” – “2D Display”. Here we can change the fill style, colour, fill pattern, etc. .
  • To transfer the layer construction properties to all the other walls, we select the correct defined wall – right mouse button – “Transfer properties”. In the window “Select properties” we deselect the point “General”, only the point “Layer construction” stays selected and we click on “Next”. In the window “Select target objects” we click on the point “on current layer”. At the point “Included wall types” we select the point “External walls” (depends on the wall type), after it we press “Finish”.

The zooming function used in this video works up to cadvilla V5 slightly different.
The adapted video (changings in zoom) you can find here.

This post is also available in: German