Lay out the site

Build the project’s site plan — grid, wall lines, and slab lines — then attach the panels to it.

The site drawing is the project-level drawing the panel set comes together on: a lettered/numbered site grid that locates everything else, wall lines that trace where the panels stand, slab lines for the floor pour, and the panels themselves attached along the wall lines as external references (xrefs). Because panels attach as xrefs, the site drawing always shows each panel’s latest saved state — a panel revision carries into the site plan the next time the site drawing is opened or its xrefs are reloaded.

Screenshots and the worked example are on the way

The steps and field tables below are written from the product’s dialogs; annotated captures and a worked site example are being added as the site walkthrough is completed.

The site toolset

Five site buttons live on the toolbar (see Command & Toolbar Reference); each opens one of the site dialogs directly:

Button	Opens	Use it to
Site Plan	Site Options	Create/open site drawings, attach panels, control layers, print.
Site Grid	Gridline Details	Define the lettered/numbered site grid.
Site Drawings	Site Drawing Options	Hub for the grid, wall-line, and slab dialogs.
Walls	Wall Line Details	Enter the wall runs and assign panels to them.
Slabs	Slab on Grade	Enter the slab edges.

Create the site drawing

1. From the CV menu choose New Drawing (or start a New Project). ConstructiVision asks “What kind of drawing is this?” — choose Site. (The chooser defaults to Panel, so an accidental Enter makes a panel drawing.)

2. Pick an existing drawing to use as a template, or click Cancel to start from scratch. The Site Options dialog’s Create New Site Drawing button runs the same flow.

3. Keep “site” in the drawing’s filename. ConstructiVision recognizes a site drawing by its name — the site tools in Site Options are disabled while a drawing without site in the name is current, and a name that says neither site nor panel triggers a Drawing Type dialog asking which it is.

Site Options

Site Options (toolbar Site Plan) is a button hub, not a form. Buttons other than the first two are available only while a site drawing is open:

Button	What it does
Create New Site Drawing	New site drawing from a template or from scratch.
Edit Existing Site Drawing	Open one of the project’s site drawings.
Attach Panels	Insert every panel listed on the wall lines as an xref (below).
Detach Panels	Remove all panel xrefs — always detach before re-attaching; Attach does not clear the previous set.
Tilt-up Panels	Return all panels to the standing positions recorded at attach.
Layout Panels	Tip the panels down flat for the casting (construction) layout — first run flattens in place, later runs restore the recorded layout.
Print Materials List	Project quantity take-off — see Generate a materials list.
Save Layout	Record the current panel arrangement as the drawing’s casting layout (one per site drawing; each save replaces the last).
View All Layers	Turn every layer on (perimeter and most dimension layers stay off).
Print All Layers	Same layer set, then straight to the plot dialog.
View Selected Layers	Checkbox layer picker (below), then redisplay.
Print Selected Layers	Site-print layer preset, then the plot dialog (below).
Change 3D Viewpoint	Plan view, the four elevations, or an isometric — one click each.
Render	Not available in this release; the button says so.

Define the site grid

Everything on the site is located from the grid, so define it first — the wall-line dialog refuses to open (“Grids must be defined before Wall Line can be drawn”) until grid lines exist.

1. Open Site Grid (or Site Drawings → Grid Lines). In Gridline Details, choose whether the X Grids (vertical lines) and Y Grids (horizontal lines) are Letters or Numbers, and whether each runs Ascending or Descending (ascending is top-to-bottom / left-to-right).

2. Choose Define Number Grids and Define Letter Grids in turn. Each editor holds up to 50 grid lines (letters run A–Z, then AA–XX) as ID + Distance rows.

3. To fill an evenly spaced run in one step, check Preset Grids and enter First, Last, and Spacing — the rows fill themselves.

4. To add a line between two existing ones, check Insert Grid, pick the line to insert after, accept or edit the suggested decimal sub-label (inserting after 2 offers 2., e.g. 2.1), and enter its distance. The lines after it shift down a row automatically.

5. Switch the distance display any time between Display Distance Between Grids (spacing to the previous line) and Display Distance to Reference Grid (running distance from the first line) — the stored grid is the same either way.

6. Choose OK. Any previously drawn grid is erased and the grid is redrawn: one line per entry with a labelled bubble at each end, spacing dimensions between lines, and overall dimensions on all four sides. Bubble and text size auto-scale to the site’s extents.

Draw the wall lines

Wall lines place the panels: each wall run is a segment from one grid intersection to another, with the panels that stand on it listed on the same row.

1. Open Walls (or Site Drawings → Wall Line). The Wall Line Details dialog holds 64 segments — 16 rows per page across four pages.

2. Enter the segments in clockwise order around the building. The drawing direction sets which way the panels face: drawn clockwise, each panel’s outside face points out of the building. Take extra care with interior, demising, shear, and retaining walls.

3. Fill each row (fields below). When you press Enter in the last field, the row’s end point is copied into the next row’s begin point, so a closed perimeter is mostly typed once.

4. Choose OK. Existing wall lines are erased and redrawn to the new definitions, with each run’s panel numbers marked along it.

Field	What it does
Begin Line — X Grid / Y Grid	Grid references for the start of the run (drop-down lists).
Begin Line — X Offset / Y Offset	Distance from each reference grid, either direction (±).
Begin / End — Elevation	Height of the wall line at that end, for stepped or sloped sites.
End Line — X Grid / Y Grid / Offsets	Same references for the end of the run.
Include Panels	The panels on this run, begin to end: separate with spaces, group consecutive numbers with a hyphen (4-22; 22-4 reverses the order). Panel marks with letter suffixes must be listed individually.

Draw the slab lines

Slabs (or Site Drawings → Slab on Grade) opens the Slab Details dialog: one Slab Thickness value for the pour, then the same grid-plus-offset entry per edge segment, again in clockwise order. Each segment end also takes an Elevation — finished floor relative to site zero, normally 0 unless the site has multiple floor levels. This release draws the slab as a 2D outline, and OK likewise erases and redraws it from the new definitions.

Attach the panels

1. In Site Options, choose Attach Panels and answer the gap question — a small message box with the default (1/2”) already entered.

2. Every panel listed on the wall lines is inserted as an xref at its standing position along its run, in the order listed, at the entered spacing, and the view switches to an isometric viewpoint so the standing set reads in 3D. Attaching requires the wall lines and panel lists to be complete — it reads them from the site drawing.

3. Layout Panels tips the set down flat for the casting layout — the first run flattens each panel in place (after its own gap question, default 1 1/2”) and placement is then yours with ordinary AutoCAD editing; Save Layout records the arrangement (one per site drawing, each save replacing the last, silently); after that, Layout Panels restores the recorded casting layout and Tilt-up Panels restores the standing positions recorded at attach.

4. If panel widths change, choose Detach Panels, fix the panels, and re-attach — width changes shift every panel on the same wall line. Other panel edits show up on their own when the site drawing is reopened or the xrefs are reloaded (AutoCAD XREF → Reload).

View and print site layouts

• View Selected Layers opens a checkbox picker over the site layer families — panels (layer 0), grids, slab, footings, connections, braces/picks, reveal, greenplate, custom, hardware, and the wall/slab construction lines. Only the checked families stay visible. Unchecking the panels box freezes layer 0, which hides every attached panel — the fastest way to keep a large site drawing responsive.

• Print Selected Layers (the Print Select Layouts toolbar button) presets the plot layer set for you: gridlines, wall/slab construction lines, hardware, and most dimension layers are turned off so the sheet shows the solid panel, footing, and slab views — then the plot dialog opens. Print All Layers plots everything instead. The plot dialog itself works exactly as described in Plot and print drawings.

Notes

• Grid first, then walls and slabs. Both line dialogs resolve their positions from the grid, and the wall-line dialog will not open without one.

• OK redraws from the stored definitions. Grid, wall, and slab geometry each live on their own layer and are erased and redrawn from the site data when you confirm the dialog; a cancel leaves the drawing as it was. Redrawing wall lines invalidates attached panels’ insertion references — detach and re-attach afterwards.

• The site drawing’s layer settings win. ConstructiVision sets VISRETAIN to 1, so the layer states you set in the site drawing take precedence over the settings inside each panel.

• Blank rows are fine. You may leave gaps between wall-line rows or keep separate structures on separate pages for clarity; turning off selected runs before attaching lets you produce elevations of just part of the building.

• In Site Drawing Options, the Footings, Column Pads, and Weld Connections buttons are present but disabled in this release.

• Panel drawings link back to the site through their gridline marks — see Set panel marks and gridline marks.

Related

• Command & Toolbar Reference — where the five site buttons live.

• Plot and print drawings · Print a panel book — printing single sheets and the panel book.

• Set panel marks and gridline marks · Generate a materials list

• Tutorial 10: Site Drawing — the guided site lesson, a follow-along first pass over everything on this page. Tutorials has the full curriculum.

• Term definitions: Project Glossary