Drawing External Wall Floor Base

DRAWING THE EXTERNAL WALL FLOOR PLAN BASE

Using the "drawing external walls" option from the FILE / NEW dialogue box

click DESIGN ROOMS EXTERNAL WALLS for "layout design rooms" external wall marking method

Always draw the ground floor first and add any floors above afterwards. Select from the dialogue boxes as they appear, if you select customise wall, another dialogue box will appear for the number of lines, either 2 or 4, and the width of the wall or walls.
The last dialogue box needs the position of the secondary wall lines on the first wall that will be drawn (usually you can leave this alone and start drawing to the right of the screen always work by drawing the outer face line of the wall.

1/ Press enter on the start point of the outer line of the first wall (the drawing base will automatically centre itself when you finish back at the start point

- so for most cases you can start with the cursor where it appears in the top left corner)

2/ Work CLOCKWISE by pressing the arrow key in the direction of the wall to draw, input the length, and clear the box,, press the arrow key for the new wall direction, input the distance etc, until you return to he original start point of the first wall.

ALWAYS watch the cursor position box on the icon line and the guide line at the bottom of the screen as they show the distances back to the starting point.

3/ continue drawing walls in a CLOCKWISE direction

4/ continue drawing walls in a CLOCKWISE direction

5/ continue drawing walls in a CLOCKWISE direction

6/ You must always finish back at the starting point so the programme knows you have finished drawing the walls

press the up arrow key and the input box will appear with the distance back to the starting point, accept that distance by pressing enter or clicking the OK button

7/ Once you return to the starting point, the drawing will centre on screen and the external dimensions and drawing title are added.

ANGLED EXTERNAL WALLS
1/ If your design will have angle external walls or bay windows, start as above and when you reach the start of the angle wall, move the cursor roughly to the end point of the angled wall and press the æaÆ key (æaÆ for angle) to enable the arrow keys to be used to finetune the cursor position and press enter when correct (the cursor position box will show angle and distances from your last wall mark,

ALWAYS watch the guide line at the bottom of the screen as it shows the horizontal and vertical distances back to the original starting point.

2/ when you need to continue but want the arrow keys for input, press the æaÆ key again (it is a toggle on/off),

3/ continue drawing in a CLOCKWISE direction

4/ continue drawing in a CLOCKWISE direction

5/ and finish back at your starting point 0,0.

If your final wall is square, just accept the input box figure, if your final wall is angled you must finish back exactly at the first starting point ( fine tune the cursor and the cursor position box will show 0, 0 ) and press enter ( so the programme know you have finished and can then centre the drawing on screen and add the external dimensions and drawing title )

6/ drawing is then centred on screen with dimensions and floor name

HINT
The guide line will show the distance to return to the start, in most cases, when you press the arrow key for the last time to return to the start, the input box will show the correct distance..

DRAWING UPPER FLOORS
Once you have the ground floor drawn, you can add the floors above,
click drawing floors above

NOTE
Do NOT use the following external wall functions when first drawing the base floor
plan - always draw the whole base in one go, then alter, split or change afterwards. .
When you start any floor you MUST draw each floor plan external wall consecutively (clockwise ) and finish back exactly on your starting point, BEFORE you do anything else on that floor.

SPLIT EXTERNAL WALL
into two parts
Select WALLS & BASE / SPLIT EXTERNAL WALL from the menu bar

1/ press Enter on the split point somewhere between the external wall lines

2/ and Fast Plans will re dimension the drawing.

CHANGE EXTERNAL WALL TYPE
Select WALLS & BASE / CHANGE EXTERNAL WALL TYPE from the menu bar
use Left Button and click on the wall to change, input the new thickness in the dialogue box, - you can only decrease the thickness of the wall.

External wall, split to two and one wall with new width

DELETE EXTERNAL WALL
this is the only function used to delete an external wall permanently this should only be used for drawings that do not need to show any external walls