5
Objective
To learn to use paper space for drawing composition and flexible plotting.
Exercise
10. Reopen your layered floor plan drawing.
11. Turn on paper space.
Up until now, you have been working exclusively in what AutoCAD calls model space. AutoCAD also provides a powerful alternate reality for your drawing, called paper space. Model space is the drawing idiom where you create your drawing content, its geometry and attributes. In the model space world, you think in terms of the thing you are trying to represent in your drawing. You draw at full scale and set your limits to real-world sizes. When it comes time to actually print what you have represented in the drawing, you face the often difficult problem of squeezing your drawing “just right” for it to fit the particular medium you may be using to present your work, in your case, letter size or 11”x17” paper
Paper space is AutoCAD’s answer to this problem of mapping the real world drawing model to the transformed reality of the presentation medium. In the paper space world, you must think in terms of the dimensional limitations imposed by the presentation medium. Paper space allows you to create entities in your drawing that will only be used while plotting, and offers its own set of drawing control features that allow you to maintain your paper space entities easily.
You can understand paper space better by thinking about it as a sheet of paper that is held between you and the drawing model in model space. AutoCAD can create drawing entities both in the three-dimensional model space world, and in the two-dimensional paper space world. To see through this sheet of paper you have to make holes in it. These holes are called viewports. These viewports are called “model space viewports” in order to distinguish from another type of viewport you can create in AutoCAD, called “tiled viewports.” We will not bother with tiled viewports for this assignment, but just remember that model space viewports (the variety we will work with here) have nothing to do with tiled viewports.
The “Layout” and “Model” tabs toggle between showing only model space entities, and showing both paper space and model space entities in your drawing. While in layout mode you can quickly toggle between the two kinds of displays by using the “MODEL/PAPER” button in the Status Bar.
Note that there is no mode to show only paper space entities if you have created model space viewports in your paper space. The model space elements will always “show through” those viewports. We will see later how to turn off the “show through” on a per-viewport basis.
One of the most confusing aspects of paper space is how AutoCAD lets you look at both model space and paper space entities at the same time, but only edit the two kinds of drawing entities while you are in that mode. These two respective modes are called “paper space edit mode” and “model space edit mode”. You can switch between the two edit modes by choosing “Paper Space” or “Model Space” from the “View” menu. (You can also type MS and PS as commands to flip between the two modes. You can also move the cursor into a viewport when in paper space and double-click to activate model space for that viewport. If in model space, you can double click while the cursor is positioned outside of a viewport to return to paper space.) You can easily tell which edit mode you are currently in by looking at the icon at the lower left corner. While you are in model space edit mode, the icon will always look like the familiar double arrow form, and it will be located inside the “current” viewport. When AutoCAD is in paper space edit mode, however, the icon will look like a triangle.
When you first enable paper space you will be put in paper space edit mode, so you will see the triangle icon.
Just as you can scribble on a sheet of paper, you can draw what you like in paper space when you are in paper space edit mode. For drawing in paper space, you can use all of the layer control commands and drawing setup commands for convenient drawing. However, all of your drawing activity in paper space edit mode will be restricted to 2D elements.
12.
Make viewports to see the model space elements in your drawing. As mentioned earlier, you can create multiple model space viewports in paper space. These viewports are rectangular windows into your model space world. You will use the “Viewports” command from the “View” menu to create one or more viewports. You should make at least two viewports in your drawing by reissuing the command. You drawing will appear in every viewport you create.
You will see your long-lost drawing showing through the viewport you just created.
13. Enter model space edit mode to alter the appearance of the viewports. Since it is not very useful to have the same view showing through every viewport you create you will change the view in the different viewports. You will do this by entering model space edit mode using the MSPACE command or by hitting the MODEL/PAPER button in the Status Bar (or double-clicking in a viewport):
You will see a mini version of the UCS icon inside one of the viewports. This is the current viewport. You can use all of the drawing view control commands to alter the appearance of this viewport. Use the ZOOM, PAN commands to set the view to just the part of your drawing you want to see. Do this for all the viewports.
For now, the views in your viewports are at no particular scale. You will see later how to modify this and specify exact scales for plotting purposes.
14. Change layer settings in the viewports. AutoCAD lets you independently freeze layers in the different viewports.
Select “Layer Properties Manager.”
After you click on a layer name in the dialog box that appears make sure the Details are showing. You will see that the three little buttons that let you freeze or thaw entities on layers on a per-viewport basis. One of the buttons allows you to freeze or thaw layers in the current viewport. Other buttons allow you to set the frozen status of layers on new or all viewports.
Select layers and set their frozen status (“Freeze in active viewport”).
You can select a different viewport by clicking on it, and repeat the layer control operations above.
15. Enter paper space edit mode. You will need to enter paper space edit mode to alter the layout of the viewports you created and to add entities that will live on paper space.
If you click on the border of one of the viewports while you are in paper space edit mode, you can drag one of the grips in the corners to resize the viewport interactively. Paper space viewports can also overlap one another, so they are very flexible for layout purposes.
16. Understand how to control paper space edit mode settings. SNAP, GRID, COORDS and the various object snap modes can be independently set for each model space viewport and for paper space itself.
Experiment and learn how these commands work in paper space edit mode.
If you decide to turn on GRID in paper space, as well as in the model space viewports, you will notice that AutoCAD keeps both GRIDs on [Note: this doesn’t appear to be true anymore]. You will have to explicitly turn off one of the GRIDs in order to avoid confusion.
17. Set a new paper size (optional). In order to plot on a different size paper (say 11”x17”) you must “attach” the layout to a different printer or a different paper tray on the current printer. To do this while in Layout mode, choose the “File-Page Setup” menu command and then the “Layout Settings” tabbed dialog. (You can also move the cursor over the Layout tab and hold down the right mouse button to find “Page Setup.”) Find a new “Paper Size” for the current printer, or back up to the “Plot Device” to first choose a new printer “Name.” The paper space limits will change when a new size is chosen.
18. Make (or insert) a title block in paper space. Drawing in paper space edit mode is no different than drawing in model space edit mode, except for the fact that you are limited to 2D commands and operations.
Create a title block and other text that is appropriate for your house. Keep in mind that your different viewports will have different views of the house. One may have a site plan, a floor plan, and a detailed view of a small part of the house, for instance. Make sure your paper space elements correspond to what your model space viewports will ultimately show.
If you think you will “reuse” your new border/title block create it as a new “.dwg” file. Decide whether to use 8.5” x 11” or 11” x 17” paper and sketch (in model space) accordingly. When complete, save and go back to your layered floor plan drawing and insert the border/title block file while in paper space.
19. Set precise scales for your model space viewports.
You will use Zoom - Scale (X/XP).
To scale to 1/8” = 1’-0” using the “Zoom” command:
Command: ms
MSPACE
Command: zoom
All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/Previous/Scale(X/XP)/Window/<Realtime>: 1/96xp
You can use ZOOM to scale viewports relative to paper space units. The scale factor you enter is relative to the current paper space scale. If you enter a scale of 2xp, the scale in the viewport increases to twice the size of the paper space units. A scale of .5xp sets the scale to half the size of the paper space units. The model plotted in the above example will be at 1/96 its actual size.
Do this for all of the viewports in your drawing. Depending on the content of your viewports, you may want to enter different scale factors in the step above. You will need to experiment a little to arrive at a good scale factor to use to show just the right amount of drawing. You can always resize your viewports by using grip editing while you are in paper space edit mode.
Also, you can use “Layer Properties Manager” while you are in paper space edit mode to freeze the paper space layers you don’t want to see in the final plot. For example, you can change the layer on which a viewport is located, and then freeze that layer in paper space in order to not plot the border of the viewport. This and other such experiments are up to you to explore.
20. List the layer information and insert into your drawing. To do this, first produce a listing of the layer information in the Command window by using the “-LAYER” command:
Command: -layer
?/Make/Set/New/ON/OFF/Color/Ltype/Freeze/Thaw/LOck/Unlock: ?
Layer name(s) to list <*>:
Layer name State Color Linetype
------
0 On 7 (white) CONTINUOUS
NAMES On 1 (red) CONTINUOUS
OPENING On 7 (white) CONTINUOUS
PATIO On 3 (green) CONTINUOUS
WALLS On 5 (blue) CONTINUOUS
Current layer: WALLS
Command:
Next, highlight the layer information and copy (Ctrl-c, or Edit-Copy) the text into the “paste” buffer (Clipboard). Use function key 2 to remove the command window. Then, paste (Ctrl-v or Edit-Paste) the text into either paper space or model space. If you have inserted into paper space, select the new text (an “Mtext” object) and move it to a clean spot on the drawing. If you inserted in model space, make sure the new text does not overlap the floor plan. In either case, make sure the font of the new text is a non-proportional such as Courier or Monaco. The default STANDARD text style will do.
21. Make a plot of your drawing with at least two paper space viewports. Plot in paper space at a one to one scale. Make sure the layer text is readable in either paper space or in a separate viewport.
There are no embellishments required for this assignment.
Plot at least two drawings (of your floor plan). Freeze and thaw different layers on each drawing.
Make a plot of your drawing with at least two paper space viewports. Plot in paper space at a one to one scale. Make sure the layer text is readable in either paper space or in a separate viewport.
CAD Fundamentals I Floor Plan with Layers AutoCAD