Creating Multiple-Section Views

For some projects, you may be required to provide documentation of cross sections at regular intervals along your design. This is especially common for road design projects because a cross-section view is traditionally used to construct the road. Although newer techniques and technologies have replaced the use of cross sections to some extent, the creation of cross-section sheets is still a common practice for these types of designs.

For most projects, there are too many section views to fit on a single sheet, so multiple sheets are required. This means that the section views must be created in groups that each fit efficiently within the printable area of a typical sheet. This “per sheet” arrangement is handled through a group plot style.

To create a new sample line group configured for section sheets and then create multiple sheets containing section views, complete the following steps:

The Exercise File can be downloaded at the end of the article  

1. Open the drawing named Creating Multiple Section Views.dwg located in the Chapter 10 class data folder. This drawing contains a new sample line group named Section Sheets that distributes the sample lines along the alignment at a consistent interval.

2. On the Home tab of the ribbon, click Section ViewsCreate Multiple Views. This launches the Create Multiple Section Views Wizard with the General dialog box being the first in a series of dialog boxes.
3. In the Create Multiple Section Views – General dialog box, select Section Sheets as the Sample Line Group Name. Click Next.
4. In the Create Multiple Section Views - Section Placement dialog box, verify that Production is selected under Placement Options.

5. Click the ellipsis next to the path to open the Select Layout As Sheet Template dialog box.

6. Click the ellipsis on the Select Layout As Sheet Template dialog box to browse for a template file.
7. Browse to the Chapter 10 class data folder, select Sections.dwt, and click Open.
8. Select ARCH D Section 20 Scale (ISO A0 Section 1 to 200) and click OK.
9. Verify that Group Plot Style is set to Plot By Page.

   Tips:This is an important step because it configures the layout of the section views by telling how big a sheet is, how much space should be allowed between section views, and so on.

Why More Sample Lines?

As you may recall, the first sample line group you created used the From Corridor Stations method to create the sample lines. This creates a sample line and the potential for a section view at each assembly insertion of the corridor. This configuration is specifically for design purposes so that the designer can see a section view at any key point in the design if desired. Now you need to create section views that meet the requirements for construction drawings. For this application, you are often required to show cross sections at regular intervals. Here, the intent is related not to the design process but to documentation. Since you can create multiple sample line groups for any given alignment, you could set up one sample line group for design purposes and one for documentation purposes. In fact, if you use Prospector to browse to the sample line groups of Jordan Court in this example, you will find that the Design sample line group still exists but that the styles have been set to hide the sample lines and their labels.

10. Click Next for each of the remaining dialogs in the Create Multiple Section Views Wizard, and examine the settings for each one. Click Create Section Views.
11. Click a point within the upper-right viewport in the open area to the north of the project. Three new section sheets should be created Figure 10.9.

    Figure 10.9  Newly created section views configured by sheet.

Creating Section Views

• Creating Single-Section Views
• Creating Multiple-Section Views

Download Exercise File :

• Creating Section Views - Metric     --- ( 3.4 MB )
• Creating Section Views - Imperial  --- ( 2.84 MB )