132 — Pick Wall Lines

Wall lines trace where the panels stand on a site. Tutorial 10: Site Drawing enters them by typing each run into Wall Line Details — a Begin Line and an End Line per row, each given as a grid plus an offset. Pick Wall Lines is the other way in: you pick the building’s corners on the drawing, and ConstructiVision works out the grid references, the runs and which panels stand on each.

Where it is

  • Toolbar: ConstructiVision Site & Tools → Pick Wall Lines. Tooltip: “Draw site wall lines by picking grid intersections instead of typing them”.

  • Typed command: CV-WALL-PICK.

  • Drawing: a site drawing that already has its grid lines, with its panel drawings in the same folder.

Try it on CSBsite1

The ConstructiVision Sample Building site, CSBsite1.dwg, has 10 number grids and 12 letter grids. Its building’s outside corners are at 0,0, 3848,0, 3848,-3861 and 0,-3861.

  1. Open CSBsite1.dwg from the ConstructiVision Sample Building project.

  2. Click Pick Wall Lines. The command line says how many grids it can snap to and asks for the first corner:

    Pick wall corners in order. ENTER when done.
  10 number grid(s), 12 letter grid(s) available.
First corner:

  3. Pick the corners in order around the building. Each pick is reported as the grid intersection it lands on (a number grid / a letter grid, plus an offset when it is off the grid):

    First corner: 0,0
  -> 1 / K.5
Corner 2 (ENTER to finish): 3848,0
  -> 10 / K.5
Corner 3 (ENTER to finish): 3848,-3861
  -> 10 / BB 4'-4 1/4"
Corner 4 (ENTER to finish): 0,-3861
  -> 1 / BB 4'-4 1/4"

    Type each corner as a point, as here, or pick it on the drawing.

  4. Press Enter to finish. ConstructiVision turns each pair of corners into a run and shares the panels out along them, in panel-number order:

    [WALL-PICK] run 1  320'-8"  -> panels 1-16
[WALL-PICK] run 2  321'-9"  -> panels 17-31
[WALL-PICK] run 3  320'-8"  -> panels 32-45
[WALL-PICK] assigned 45 of 60 panel(s) across 3 run(s).
[WALL-PICK] 15 panel(s) UNPLACED -- the picked perimeter is shorter than the panel set.
Write 3 wall line(s), REPLACING any existing wall lines? [Yes/No] <No>:

  5. Answer Yes to write the wall lines, or press Enter (No) to leave the drawing as it was. After Yes the command line confirms what was written and draws the new runs:

    [CV-SITE] compact site NOD written: wl 4 wl, 10 sl, 10 gx, 12 gy, 1 gd row(s). Readers and dialogs now agree.
4 wall line(s) written to the site record.
[CV-DRAW] walline: 4 run(s) to draw, 0 skipped, 0 incomplete

    That run picked the four corners and then the first corner again, which closes the building (see Reading the result), so it made four runs:

    [WALL-PICK] run 1  320'-8"  -> panels 1-16
[WALL-PICK] run 2  321'-9"  -> panels 17-31
[WALL-PICK] run 3  320'-8"  -> panels 32-45
[WALL-PICK] run 4  321'-9"  -> panels 46-57
[WALL-PICK] assigned 57 of 60 panel(s) across 4 run(s).
[WALL-PICK] 3 panel(s) UNPLACED -- the picked perimeter is shorter than the panel set.

Reading the result

  • Four corners make three runs. A run is drawn between each corner and the next, and the last corner does not join back to the first. To close the building, pick the first corner again as the last one.

  • The panel count tells you whether the perimeter is long enough. Here 45 of the 60 panels fit on the three runs, and the 15 left over are reported as UNPLACED.

  • Nothing is written until you answer Yes, and Yes replaces the wall lines the site already has.

What this lesson does not cover

  • The typed route. Walls → Wall Line Details, including the panel list each run carries, is taught in Tutorial 10: Site Drawing Step 4.

  • Which panels go on which run. Pick Wall Lines shares them out in panel-number order; to assign them differently, use Wall Line Details (lesson 10, Step 4).

Watch the lesson

The video types the four corners and then the first corner again, answers Yes, and opens the command history (F2) so you can read every pick, the four runs and what was written.