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I a residential designer in Northern Ca. which is the fastest way to do a building cross section?

Hello:

I use XRef's of the floor plans (rotated and X-Clipped appropriately) and good ol' fashioned orthographic projection to get the horizontal locations of walls. I set up the floor lines carefully, and then I draw the major outlines. The eaves and plate details and the roof pitches are critical to get right, as well. I switch to Relative Cartesian to draw the roof pitches -- I enter an 10.5/12 pitch as 0.120 Enter, 0.105 Enter, and then mirror/copy and 2-line trim to get the peak.

I then use the first section to help draw any subsequent sections.

Does this help?

I take my elevations and use them to start from, erasing what I don't need and filling in the structure of the home.

this only works well if your elevations are drawn accurately, or as accurately as you want your sections i suppose.




I also have some typical wall sections predrawn, you can space them correctly and weld line and two line trim the roof to make a section.

Hello Mark:

I usually try and draw my sections first -- and then I use them to draw my elevations! Because, in order to draw the elevation accurately, you essentially at least layout a cursory section anyway...

When I draw my elevations I use a lot of "guide" lines to make sure they are accurate, I generally do sections as I start the construction drawings because the elevations and floor plans can change quite a bit during the design process.

My elevations are drawn to 1/8" in tolerance, when/if I copy them to a building section everything lines up how it should.

Everyone does their drawing different, but we all have a common goal, to produce accurate, complete drawings