Tutorial 10: Site Drawing

Before the first panel, build the drawing the panels will stand in — the site grid, the wall lines, and the slab line.

The drawing Tutorial 1 made is a Panel drawing — one panel, one sheet. This lesson makes the project’s other kind of drawing: the Site drawing, the project-level plan the whole panel set comes together on. It comes before the panel lessons because that is the order a job is built in: the grid, the walls and the slab are laid out first, and every panel is then built to stand on a wall line. The panels join the site as external references (xrefs) — live links to the panel drawings — in Tutorial 11: Attach Panels, once Tutorials 2–9 have built them. This is the first site lesson, and it uses a different toolset: the five site buttons on the toolbar (Site Plan, Site Grid, Site Drawings, Walls, Slabs — see Command & Toolbar Reference).

Note

This lesson also exists in the browser. Work it in ConstructiVision on the web — same steps, same values, so you can follow either and end up with the same panel.

What you will build

The Riverside Distribution Center site drawing: a 3 × 3 site grid (columns 1–3, rows A–C, 26’-0” apart), four wall lines closing the grid’s outer rectangle, and the slab edge along them. The wall lines already list the project’s two panels — Panel 1 from Tutorial 1 and TP08-12, which Tutorials 2–9 build, both from the 25’-10” width family — so Tutorial 11 can attach them.

Before you start

  • Complete Tutorial 1: Getting Started with ConstructiVision — this lesson continues in the Riverside Distribution Center project that lesson created. TP08-12 does not need to exist yet: a wall line lists panel numbers, and the panels are attached in Tutorial 11.

  • Type dimensions the way you read them off the plans: 26'0, 26'-0", and 312 all mean the same thing (see the quick reference).

There is no starter or solution download for this lesson: Step 1 creates the site drawing itself from New Drawing, and the drawing you finish with is the one Tutorial 11 continues in.

Screenshots are on the way

This lesson is written from the product’s dialogs; annotated captures are being added as the site walkthrough is completed.

Lesson

Step 1 — Create the site drawing

  1. Click New Drawing on the toolbar (or CV → New Drawing).

  2. ConstructiVision asks “What kind of drawing is this?” — the same Panel/Site chooser from Tutorial 1. Click Site this time. Careful: Panel is the highlighted default, so an absent-minded Enter here makes a panel drawing.

  3. A file browser opens: “Choose a Drawing to use as a template, or click CANCEL to start from scratch.” Click Cancel — this project has no site drawing yet to copy from.

  4. ConstructiVision asks whether to inherit the project details from Riverside Distribution Center. Choose Yes — the project data you entered in Tutorial 1 flows into the new drawing instead of being retyped.

  5. A new blank drawing opens and the Site Drawing Options hub appears — six buttons: Grid Lines, Wall Line, Slab on Grade, and three (Footings, Column Pads, Weld Connections) that are present but disabled in this release. This hub is where the grid, wall, and slab dialogs live. Click Cancel for a moment — the drawing needs a name first.

Step 2 — Name it site

ConstructiVision recognizes a site drawing by its filename: 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.

  1. Use AutoCAD’s Save As and save the drawing into the Riverside Distribution Center project folder as riverside site.

  2. Type site in lowercase — the Site Options name check is exact about case in this release, so Riverside SITE.dwg would leave the site buttons greyed out.

To see the rule in action, click Site Plan on the toolbar: the Site Options hub opens with every site button live. (Before the save, only Create New Site Drawing and Edit Existing Site Drawing would have been available.) Close it with Cancel — Tutorial 11 comes back here to attach the panels.

Step 3 — Define the site grid

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

  1. Click Site Grid on the toolbar (or Site Drawings → Grid Lines). The Gridline Details dialog opens.

  2. Set the two grid families. Numbers always run left to right — west to east. Letters are different: which end is north depends on how this drawing is built, so read the direction off the site you are drawing rather than assuming one.

    • X Grids are: Numbers, Ascending — the vertical grid lines, numbered 1 from the left (west) and ascending east. This one is fixed.

    • Y Grids are: Letters, Descending — the horizontal grid lines, lettered from the top: A is the north edge and the letters run southward, so C is the south edge. Descending is the dialog’s default and the usual practice (panel 001 at the north-west corner). A job built the other way round (Ascending, A at the south edge) is equally valid — the grid tells you which.

  3. Click Define Number Grids. The Numbered Grids editor opens: fifty ID + Distance rows. You could type them one by one, but for an evenly spaced run use the preset: check Preset Grids and enter

    • First: 1

    • Last: 3

    • Spacing: 26'0

    The rows fill themselves — grids 1, 2, 3, 26’-0” apart. (The radio buttons below the preset switch the Distance column between spacing-to-the-previous-line and running distance from the first line — the stored grid is the same either way.) Click OK.

  4. Click Define Letter Grids and do the same in the Lettered Grids editor:

    • First: A

    • Last: C

    • Spacing: 26'0

    Letters run A–Z and then double up (AA, BB, …) if a site ever needs more; each editor holds up to 50 lines, and the Insert Grid toggle can slip a new line between two existing ones later. Click OK.

  5. Click OK on Gridline Details. The grid draws: three vertical and three horizontal lines, a labelled bubble at each end of every line, spacing dimensions between the lines, and overall dimensions on all four sides, with bubble and text size scaled to the site. Confirming this dialog always erases any previously drawn grid and redraws it from the stored definitions — edits are made here, not by stretching lines.

Step 4 — Draw the wall lines

Wall lines trace where the panels stand, and each run carries the list of panels that stand on it.

  1. Click Walls on the toolbar (or Site Drawings → Wall Line). The Wall Line Details dialog opens — 16 rows on this page, four pages, 64 runs in all. Each row is one wall run: a Begin Line and End Line, each specified as X Grid + X Offset and Y Grid + Y Offset plus an Elevation, and an Include Panels list.

  2. Enter runs clockwise, starting at the north-west corner — the instruction at the top of the dialog says so: each row ends where the next begins and turns a corner, four rows for a rectangle (north, east, south, west). Drawn clockwise, each panel’s outside face points out of the building.

  3. Row 1 — the north wall, running west to east along grid A:

    • Begin Line: X Grid 1, X Offset 0, Y Grid A, Y Offset 0, Elevation 0

    • End Line: X Grid 3, X Offset 0, Y Grid A, Y Offset 0, Elevation 0

    • Include Panels: 1

    The grids come from drop-down lists — they were filled from Step 3. Offsets are ± distances from the reference grid (both 0 here: the wall runs dead on the grid), and the elevations stay 0 on a flat site. When you press Enter in the last field, the row’s end point is copied into the next row’s begin point — a closed perimeter is mostly typed once.

  4. Row 2 — the east wall, turning the corner at 3/A and running south:

    • Begin Line: X Grid 3, Y Grid A (carried over), offsets 0, Elevation 0

    • End Line: X Grid 3, X Offset 0, Y Grid C, Y Offset 0, Elevation 0

    • Include Panels: 12

  5. Row 3 — the south wall, from 3/C west to 1/C, and Row 4 — the west wall, from 1/C north back to 1/A, closing the rectangle. All offsets and elevations 0, and leave Include Panels blank on both: this course builds only two panels.

    On a full building every run carries its panels — the panel list takes space-separated numbers with hyphens for consecutive runs (4-22; 22-4 reverses the order), and panel marks with letter suffixes are listed individually.

  6. Click OK. The wall lines draw around the rectangle — grid A from 1→3, grid 3 from A→C, grid C from 3→1 and grid 1 from C→A — with each run’s panel numbers marked along it. Like the grid, OK erases and redraws from the stored definitions.

Each 26’-0” bay takes one 25’-10” panel with room to spare — panel joints do not have to land on grid lines.

Step 5 — Draw the slab line

  1. Click Slabs on the toolbar (or Site Drawings → Slab on Grade). The Slab Details dialog opens — one Slab Thickness for the pour, then the same grid-plus-offset entry per edge segment, again clockwise.

  2. Slab Thickness: 6 — no foot mark, so it reads as 6 inches.

  3. Enter the slab edge around the same rectangle, mirroring Step 4 — clockwise from the north-west corner, all offsets 0, both Elevation fields 0:

    • Row 1: Begin X Grid 1 / Y Grid A, End X Grid 3 / Y Grid A

    • Row 2: Begin X Grid 3 / Y Grid A, End X Grid 3 / Y Grid C

    • Row 3: Begin X Grid 3 / Y Grid C, End X Grid 1 / Y Grid C

    • Row 4: Begin X Grid 1 / Y Grid C, End X Grid 1 / Y Grid A

    A slab segment’s elevations are finished floor relative to site zero — 0 unless the site has multiple floor levels.

  4. Click OK. This release draws the slab as a 2D outline on its own layer, and OK likewise erases and redraws it from the definitions.

Check your result

Tip

Check your work automatically. Type CV-CHECK-LESSON10 at the command line — ConstructiVision grades your site drawing against this lesson’s values and prints a report card, with a pointer back to the step for anything that doesn’t match. Run it with the site drawing current; run in a panel drawing it points you back here instead of grading.

You should now be able to verify all of the following:

  • The drawing is saved in the project folder with site (lowercase) in its filename, and every button in Site Options is enabled while it is current.

  • A 3 × 3 grid: vertical lines 1, 2, 3 and horizontal lines A, B, C, 26’-0” apart, each line ending in a labelled bubble at both ends, with spacing dimensions between lines and overall dimensions on all four sides.

  • Four wall lines closing the rectangle — along grid A from 1 to 3, grid 3 from A to C, grid C from 3 to 1 and grid 1 from C to A — with 1 marked along the north run and 12 along the east run.

  • The slab outline around the same rectangle, on its own layer.

Re-opening any of the three dialogs brings your definitions back — grid, wall, and slab geometry are all redrawn from stored data on OK, and a Cancel leaves the drawing as it was. One consequence worth remembering once panels are attached (Tutorial 11): redrawing wall lines invalidates the attached panels’ insertion references, so detach and re-attach after wall edits.

Where next

  • Next lesson: Tutorial 2: Panel Options — back to the panel: TP08-12’s main dimensions, elevations and expansion gaps, the first of the panel lessons.

  • Reference depth: Lay out the site is the full field guide to everything this lesson touched — the five site buttons, every dialog field, and the site layer families.

  • Close the loop from the panel side: Set panel marks and gridline marks — panel drawings link back to the site grid through their gridline marks.

  • Quantities for the whole site: the Print Materials List button you passed in Site Options is covered in Generate a materials list, and Print a panel book batches every panel into a panel book.

Watch the lesson

The recording works this lesson end to end on a brand-new drawing — Site Options, the 3 x 3 grid with its lettered and numbered runs, the four wall lines closing its rectangle, and the slab outline around them. Nothing is pre-built: the drawing starts empty and every line you see is drawn during the lesson.

It was recorded before the course moved to build order (2026-10-09), so it ends with an Attach Panels step that now opens Tutorial 11: Attach Panels.