Creating a Section from a Site Plan in AutoCAD

This tutorial will discuss a strategy for creating a section from a site plan.  It begins with creating the desired section line in the site plan.  The first video below will highlight how you can rotate your drawing to make the section line horizontal in your view.  This will be important for projecting the geometry of your section cut line in plan to the section cut you will create adjacent to the plan.

The second video will describe a more detailed process for creating the section linework and printing it as a pdf for final edits in Photoshop.

Steps for Creating a Hybrid Section Using AutoCAD and Photoshop:

Step01: Determining the Section Line in Your Plan

• Create a LINE in the Site Plan
• Rotate the UCS
• Reorient the PLAN

 

Step02: Creating the Vertical Elevation Guides

• COPY the Section Cut Line directly above the plan using F8
• OFFSET the newly created line at 1’ Intervals
• Label the lines (MTEXT) with the appropriate elevation, and change the linetype to a very thin and dashed line

 

Step03: Creating Buildings in Section

• Create a vertical line at the intersection of Buildings and the Section Cut Line
• Use those vertical lines to create the building elevation
• Determine the FFE of the Building using the elevation guides
• Delete the vertical guidelines created at the beginning of this step

 

Step04: Creating Hardscape in Section

• Create a vertical line at the intersection of Sidewalks/Pavers and the Section Cut Line
• Use those vertical lines to locate the hardscape in the Section
• Offset typical hardscape 4”downward to represent the thickness of the hardscape
• Offset the newly created line another 4” downward to represent the sub-base for the hardscape
• Determine the Elevation of the Hardscape using the elevation guides
• Delete the vertical guidelines created at the beginning of this step

 

Step05: Creating Walls in Section

• Create a vertical line at the intersection of Walls and the Section Cut Line
• Use those vertical lines to create the Walls elevation
• Remember that walls have a thickness and should be shown as two separate lines
• Determine the FFE of the Walls using the elevation guides
• Delete the vertical guidelines created at the beginning of this step

 

Step06: Creating Entourage and Vegetation in Section

• Create a vertical line at the intersection of Trees/Shrubs/People and the Section Cut Line
• Use those vertical lines to create a line at the appropriate height for the element
• Copy personally created or downloaded blocks into your AutoCAD file
• If necessary, EXPLODE the blocks, and move the linework to the appropriate layer
• To “block” the files again, Highlight all of the linework and type BLOCK. Give the block a name and click OK.
• Move the block into place and scale to the appropriate height based on the guideline created at the beginning of this step.
• Delete the vertical guidelines created at the beginning of this step

 

Step07: Final Touches

• Use hatches to create depth to hardscape and other elements (Keep in mind you will sketch on top of this, so be subtle with hatches).
• Adjust layer lineweights and transparency

 

Step08: Paper Space

• Create an 11×17 Sheet in Paper Space
• Create a viewport (MV) and scale the section to a known scale
• Consider showing the site plan as a thumbnail or directly below the section itself
• Add a Title, Labels, Graphic Scale, and all other necessary Components
• Print this layout to a PDF and save it to your computer

 

Step09: Sketching

• Print the AutoCAD linework from the PDF in Step08
• On trash paper, sketch additional details like that might be more appropriately rendered by hand. This might include vegetation and background context. Consider hand-drawn leaders and dimension lines to provide a conceptual quality to the drawing
• Create design alternatives for design elements that are yet to be resolved. This will be the testing ground for those ideas.
• Render elements using marker and/or Prismacolors. It is preferable to execute this on a separate sheet of trash paper on top of your sketch

 

Step10: Scanning and Overlay in Photoshop

• Scan the trash paper sketch linework and color sheets created in Step09
• Open the PDF export of the AutoCAD linework in Photoshop. Open the scanned sketches from Step09 and copy and paste those scans into the same Photoshop file that contains the AutoCAD linework
• Change the Layer mode for each of the scanned layer to “Multiply”. Align both sketches with the AutoCAD linework.
• Adjust the Levels, Curves, and Hue/Saturation accordingly to get the desired effect.
• Add additional text and effects to complete the drawing