100 — Panel Dimensions & Finished Floor

The opener for the Feature Reference. Tutorials 1–28 build a panel in order; the 100 series takes one feature at a time and shows it twice — once from Main Panel Details, once from its own menu command.

This first one covers the two things every other feature measures against: the panel’s own dimensions, and the elevation datum.

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.

Before you start

Open a new drawing. ConstructiVision starts it from the panel template, so Main Panel Details already has a panel to edit.

Steps

  1. Open Main Panel Details. The panel’s size and shape all live on the first row: Thickness, Width, Bottom Elevation, then the top elevations.

  2. Set the thickness. 8 — an eight-inch panel. Thickness is the one geometric value the title block carries, so it is worth getting right first.

  3. Set the width. 240 — twenty feet. Width is measured on the panel face.

  4. Set the bottom elevation. 0 — the panel starts at the datum.

  5. Set the top elevations. Top Left 288 and Top Right 288 — a flat top twenty-four feet up. Give them different values and the panel top slopes between them; that is how a sloped or gabled panel is described.

  6. Choose the elevation datum — “Elev From”. This is the setting the rest of the course leans on:

    • Finished Floor — every feature dialog then measures from FF. This is what architectural plans read from, and it is the default.

    • Bottom of Panel — engineering pick and brace sheets often read from the panel bottom instead.

    Pick Points and Brace Points can override this per dialog; everything else follows it.

  7. OK. Main Panel Details redraws the panel. Nothing is drawn while a sub-dialog is open — the redraw belongs to this OK.

What to take away

Every later feature — a reveal at 43”, a dowel at 9”, a blockout 137” up — is a number measured from the datum you chose in step 6. Change Elev From and you change what every one of those numbers means.

Notes

  • The panel template ships carrying dormant rows from the drawing it was captured from (CV-1905). A dialog may therefore open with values already in it; those rows are disabled, but they keep their values.