Viewports and Layout tabs

[ESchomberg]

 I pretty much understand viewports in paper space. I am just starting to experiment with viewports in model space. I tried to create one in model space but I am not sure if I did it correctly. Can anyone tell me the purpose of creating viewports in model space? And perhaps an easy way to tell me how to create them?

Also does anyone us Layout tabs?? When I switch from model space to paper space it always puts my drawing on a generic plain piece of paper. I have experimented with trying to put my own paper templates in Layout views but it always seems confusing and unsuccessful. So I normally just end up opening Two drawings, the one I am drawing in model space and the blank paper template I have created to merge the two. I would kind of like to learn to use all aspects of civil3d. Can anyone explain how to utilize the layout tabs successfully using my own templates? I am noticing that I am not having too much trouble with the actual drawing part of Civil3d, but most of my difficulty involves scaling, viewports, Layout tabs etc.

[autoMick]

Copy your layout that you like into a layout tab in your template file and re save as a template.

[Neilw_05]

Model space viewports are more for doing your modeling. They are not used for sheet layouts. A common example of how you might can use model space viewports is to work on your plan view in one viewport and the profile in another. You would split your model space into 2 horizontal viewports, rotate and zoom one to your alignment in plan view and align it's profile in the other. Then you can jump back and forth between the views without having to zoom and pan each time. Since they are only used for designing you wouldn't need to align and scale them precisely to each other, nor would you need to worry about keeping them synchronized as you pan and zoom them while you work. You can reset your model space back to 1 viewport when you are done. If you want to save the configuration you can save each viewport view as a saved view. Then you can recreate the viewports and restore the zoom and roation from the saved views.

As for how to use paper space layouts, you will probably find lots of You Tube videos showing how they work. It is too much to try to explain here.

[Pointdump]

ES,

To add a picture to Neil's post, try View Tab >> Model Viewports >> Viewport configuration:

As for creating Layout Tabs, try the command LAYOUTWIZARD. It walks you through everything.

Dave

[neilyj666]

I couldn't live without layout tabs now

[onarvaezo]

Hi dude,
tray searching AutoCAD - Plotting (Printing) Tutorial
hope helps you

[doni49]

Imagine plotting a blank title block/border on a sheet of paper and cutting a hole in it so that you can tape it down on top of a map.  Now you have a sheet with a map and title block. 

That's essentially what the layouts/viewports do.  Place a titleblock/border on your layout, then place a viewport (or more than one each pointing to a diff location) and you can show your map and any details required.  Place the titleblock at 1 scale and you plot at 1 scale.  Then place your viewports and each one of them will have a viewport scale.

EDIT:  I thought you might find an example of this helpful.  See the attached.

[doni49]

---

Pointdump wrote:

As for creating Layout Tabs, try the command LAYOUTWIZARD. It walks you through everything.

---

Rather than using the LAYOUTWIZARD everytime, we have a temlate on our network.  We don't use it to actually create new dwg files but it contains a bunch of diff layout tabs -- for each size titleblock/border we use.  In each, the TB block is already placed at 0,0 scale 1.  There is also one VP placed which we then adjust as needed to show our site.

To use it, we right click on a layout tab in the dwg file where we want to create a tab.  Then we click on Import from Template.  We're prompted with a list of all the layouts in this template file.  Next we import this layout into our SSM file and the title block is all set up and ready to go.

Just food for thought.

[ESchomberg]

Yes sir, thats helpful but if I set the scale at 1 how do I plot it out at say scale of 1"=20' ?

[ESchomberg]

I have not learned yet how to create a template with all my settings stored, so I start over on every drawing. I assume that you would open a model space template.....create all the settings and possible layout tabs, description key sets, etc. Then save the template without doing any drawing on it as a blank. Am I correct? That is just a guess on my part have not researched that yet.

[doni49]

Using this method, you ALWAYS plot at 1"=1".  The viewports are placed at the various scales.  That makes it possible to have multiple scales on the same sheet.  Select one of the viewports and look at the PROPERTIES.  You'll see a setting for SCALE.

[doni49]

Acad will ALWAYS use a template.  You can create one yourself or you can use what comes with acad.

Get a dwg file setup the way you want to start every dwg.  Then do a SAVEAS and change the filetype to dwt (as shown in the image).

In the future use this template to start new dwg files and the new file will ALWAYS start out looking just like this one.

[doni49]

One more thing about templates.  Type in OPTIONS and you're presented with the following dialog.

If you change the Default Template File Name for QNEW and Drawing Template File Location settings you won't even have to browse to the template.

QNEW is the template that will be used if you click the "New" button on the quick access toolbar".

[ESchomberg]

Wow!!! This seems really complicated. I have a lot of research to do. I need to keep it simple.

[Jeff_M]

It's really not that complicated, ESchomberg, just a different way of thinking than what you've used to this point. Once you grasp it you will wonder how you ever worked without it.

[neilyj666]

Go to C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\C3D 2016\enu\Template\Plan Production\Civil 3D (Imperial) Plan only.dwt where the dwt has several layout tabs set up at various imperial scales.

My Civil template has 4 or 5 tabs with the title blocks setup and I just adjust the viewport scale to suit my needs. WIth this method you can also employ the power of sheet sets and even a simple layout tab can have fields that autoopulate e.g. my scale is a field that updates if I change the viewport scale to avoid those embarrassing moments when you have changed the VP scale but forgot to update the titleblock manually - not that I've ever done that of course...;)

It is well worth investing a little (or a lot of) upfront time to create suitable paperspace layout templates as it will save considerable time in the long run.

[ESchomberg]

Hi miss Neilyj....I typed in that web address and it did not find a match. Is it possible that you could have "fat-fingered" one of the keys and missed a letter??

[Jeff_M]

@ESchomberg, neilyj is not a miss.... 

The 'link' he provided is not a web address, nor a link of any kind. Is the a path on your computer to one of the preinstalled Drawing Templates. Look around in that genearl path location and you should find a number of files with the DWT extension. These are all Drawing Templates.

[neilyj666]

@Jeff_M - thanks for the clarification on both counts....:)

[ESchomberg]

Sorry about my assumption that you were a Miss.. Did not mean anything by it.