Tutorial 28: Casting Orientation & Yard Layout

Every panel is cast lying flat. Which face points down decides how it comes out of the form, which way it turns when it stands up, and where it belongs in the yard — so it is a decision, not a default.

A tilt-up panel is poured on the ground and lifted into place. It has an exterior face and an interior face, and exactly one of them is against the casting surface. That single choice ripples: it fixes which side the reveals and embeds are cast into, it determines whether the panel is mirrored when it stands, and it constrains where the panel can sit in the casting yard relative to the wall it belongs to.

ConstructiVision records that choice per panel and carries it everywhere the panel is described.

cv-web is in Web Beta

The browser app is a live Web Beta. Where this lesson names an exact control, it matches the app at time of writing; if something has moved, the same capability is usually a click away.

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

Not a new panel — a decision made explicit on panels you already have. By the end you will have:

  • set a panel’s Casting orientation to Face Down (OUT) and to Face Up (IN), and seen the drawing label change with it;

  • found that same value on the crew instruction sheet, so the yard reads what you chose;

  • opened the Cast mode casting-yard layout and used Layout Settings — Gap and Wall clearance — to control how panels are placed;

  • understood which parts of the layout are yours to arrange and which are gated behind a membership.

Before you start

Tip

If you only want to look, everything in Steps 3–4 is readable on a free account. Steps 1–2 change a panel value and need edit rights.

Lesson

Step 1 — Find the Casting control

Open a panel in Panel mode and look at the properties on the right. Among the panel’s dimensional fields is a Casting dropdown with exactly two entries:

Setting

Means

Face Down (OUT)

The exterior face is against the casting surface. This is the standard.

Face Up (IN)

The exterior face points up out of the form.

“OUT” and “IN” are the shop shorthand you will see on the drawing and in the yard. They describe where the exterior face is pointing while the panel is lying flat.

Step 2 — Switch it and watch the drawing

Change Casting from Face Down (OUT) to Face Up (IN).

The panel drawing’s own label follows immediately — it reads ☑ OUT (Face Down) or ☑ IN (Face Up) depending on the setting. That label is not decoration: it is the line a fabricator reads to know which way to build the form.

Switch it back to Face Down (OUT) unless your panel genuinely casts face up. Standard tilt-up practice is face down, and the app defaults there for that reason.

Why this is recorded rather than calculated

ConstructiVision does not decide the casting orientation for you and does not check it against a design. It records the value you set and propagates it consistently — to the drawing, the schedules and the instruction sheet — so that one decision appears the same way everywhere. Choosing it remains yours.

Step 3 — See it reach the crew

The casting orientation travels with the panel into its instruction sheet, alongside the panel’s width, height and thickness. That is the description the yard works from, so a panel marked IN reads as IN at the form, not just on your screen.

This is the point of recording the value once: the drawing, the layout and the crew sheet cannot disagree about it.

Step 4 — Open the casting yard layout

Click Cast in the mode strip. This is the casting yard — the beds panels are poured in, rather than the wall they end up in.

Open Layout Settings (the settings control on the properties panel) and you will find:

  • Gap — the spacing left between adjacent panels in the yard.

  • Wall clearance — how much room is kept between the layout and the wall line.

Adjust either and the layout re-flows. These two settings are what turn a list of panels into a yard you could actually walk.

Step 5 — Arrange the pick order

The list down the side is the pick order — the sequence panels come out of the yard — and it is draggable. Order on the ground is order in the air: the last panel cast is often the first one picked, and the yard should be arranged so the crane is not fighting the layout.

You can also turn on Pick order and Install arrows to see the sequence and each panel’s path drawn over the layout.

Automatic layout is a membership feature

Arranging the yard by hand is always available. Automatic layout — like the pick simulation in Tutorial 26: Crane Pick & Brace Simulation — runs on our infrastructure and unlocks with a membership. What you set by hand here is not lost when you unlock it; the automatic pass starts from your settings.

Check your result

This lesson lives in the browser — there is no in-app grader

Confirm the outcomes yourself against the checklist below.

You should now be able to:

  • Find the Casting dropdown on a panel and explain what Face Down (OUT) and Face Up (IN) mean at the form.

  • Switch it and see the drawing label change to ☑ OUT (Face Down) or ☑ IN (Face Up).

  • Point at the same value on the panel’s instruction sheet.

  • Open Cast mode, change Gap and Wall clearance, and watch the yard re-flow.

  • Reorder the pick list by dragging, and say why that order matters to the crane.

Watch this lesson

Transcript (23 captions)

0:01 — Tutorial 28 — every panel is cast lying flat. Which face points down is a decision, not a default.

0:07 — Start from a sample building — a full multi-panel project, so there is something real to work with.

0:13 — ConstructiVision Sample Building — 60 panels. Nothing you do while looking around changes anyone's data.

0:19 — The cv-web editor, with a project open.

0:22 — Panel mode — one panel at a time, with its properties on the right.

0:27 — Among the dimensional fields: Casting. Two entries, and only two.

0:31 — Face Down (OUT) — the exterior face is against the casting surface. Face Up (IN) — it points up out of the form. OUT and IN are the shop shorthand.

0:41 — Switch it to Face Up (IN).

0:43 — The drawing's own label follows: ☑ IN (Face Up). That is the line a fabricator reads to know which way to build the form — not decoration.

0:52 — Back to Face Down (OUT). Standard tilt-up practice is face down, which is why it is the default.

0:59 — The value travels with the panel onto its crew instruction sheet, beside width, height and thickness. A panel marked IN reads as IN at the form, not just on your screen.

1:09 — ConstructiVision records the orientation you choose and propagates it. It does not decide it for you and does not check it against a design — that judgement stays yours.

1:19 — Cast mode — the casting yard. The beds panels are poured in, not the wall they end up in.

1:26 — Every panel in the project, laid out where it will actually be cast.

1:30 — Layout Settings holds the two controls that turn a list of panels into a yard you could walk.

1:36 — Gap — the spacing left between adjacent panels.

1:40 — Wall clearance — how much room stays between the layout and the wall line.

1:46 — Change either and the layout re-flows.

1:48 — The list down the side is the pick order — the sequence panels leave the yard — and it is draggable.

1:56 — Order on the ground is order in the air. The last panel cast is often the first one picked, so the yard should be arranged with the crane in mind rather than against it.

2:08 — Install arrows draw each panel's path from bed to final position.

2:12 — Arranging the yard by hand is always available. Automatic layout runs on our infrastructure and unlocks with a membership — and it starts from the settings you made here, so nothing is thrown away.

2:23 — One decision, recorded once: the drawing, the yard and the crew sheet cannot disagree about which way the panel was cast.

Where next