2D Detailing in AutoCAD 2019 and the AutoCAD Architecture Toolset

BILL JOHNSON: OK, for a show of hands and for me to just push off the actual start a little bit, how many people here have used AutoCAD Architecture before? Show of hands. Oh my god. OK, who wants to come up here and teach the class instead?

Funny story was that-- not very funny, but I just came back from a holiday and picked up my machine from the office. And they decided to completely reformat my machine. So I spent most of last night rebuilding some information. So if it appears a little like I did something at 3 o'clock in the morning, it's because I did. So I beg your indulgence on that.

How many people here have actually used 2019 and are actively using it? Come on, show of hands? OK. '18? '17? Oh, there we go. '16? OK, who wants to go back to R 14.01? All right.

Today is an intermediate class. I hope my description was good enough on that. It is not an advanced class, per se, except when we come to the point in time when we're editing the Detail Component Manager Database and creating our own custom details. Other than that, it's going to be a fairly out of the box type Detail Component Manager tutorial up to that point.

My name is Bill Johnson. I have been around the industry for a while. And since I've slacked enough on time, let's go ahead and start this guy up.

OK, officially, 2D Detailing in AutoCAD 2019 and the Architectural Toolset. I'm a BIM Specialist with AEI, Affiliated Engineers Incorporated. We have offices all around the globe. We have approximately 650 employees. BIM Specialists, I am out of the San Francisco office. And we have two BIM Specialists in the San Francisco office.

We used to have three, but now we have two. I'm surprised I don't see my cohort in here, he said he was going to be sitting in the back lurking, giving me a hard time. So if you see somebody giving me-- or if you hear of somebody giving me a hard time, it's going to be my cohort.

I have two lab assistants with me today. Scott, did I spell your name right? Scott's in the back. And, I'm not even going to attempt your last name, but I'll say your first name, Parviz. So Parviz and Scott are going to be my lab assistants for today.

The nexus, or creation of this class, came about several months ago when I was handed this hand sketch. And said, that we have a coordination issue on one of our projects. And nobody could actually really read the model very well, cause you know, sometimes the duct doesn't do exactly what you want it to do. And sometimes that duct goes wonky and-- so what the engineer gave me was a hand sketch of a coordination clearance area that I drew out.

Now I have a larger picture of this in the handout and the handout has been slightly modified, very little since I posted it up there. Basically it was a couple of spelling mistakes that I found. So I fixed those. This is what I was given, and this is what came about it. And this is all using either items from the Detail Component Manager or things that were not found in the Detail Component Manager were hand drawn using AutoCAD line work.

And then the quote, "fireproofing tool" within the Detail Component Manager was thrown around the areas that need fireproofing. And I'll notate it out. It didn't take me that long. But this was really what became the creation point for this class. Because if we need that now, how many people here were at the general talk today with Andrew? Pretty much, probably a lot of you.

He talked a lot about the automation. And it's true, we are moving that way. I mean, I've seen it. I think we've all seen it in some way, shape, or form. But there is still this need, right. We have to be able to communicate. And that's a big thing, is communicating this type of information. And this was easily done through the AutoCAD Architectural Toolset in 2019.

So again, this is a little bit about myself. I've been around for a little while. I've worked at Autodesk, way back in the day. I worked at a company called TEECOM Design Group out of Oakland. They were doing low voltage work. I worked for a company called GTE-GTEL out of Thousand Oaks.

I worked for an architectural firm, Greg LeDoux and Associates. I worked for Scottish Power in England doing utility work, pumping station design. And right now I'm working at Affiliated Engineers using all of what I learned over the course of my career to help them basically become a little bit faster in what they do. And one of my current roles is not only working at Affiliate Engineers, but I also am a instructor at UC Berkeley. So, just to give you a little background.

Now, why did I really create this class? Well, that is really to talk about the details within the product. The detail components and the detail library within AutoCAD Architecture or AutoCAD 2019 with the Architectural Toolset has a very robust library.

Anybody actually try to delve into it really deeply? Of those of you that have used it before? It is really powerful. It's huge. And a lot of it deals with semiparametric parts that are two dimensional. So we're going to play around with those also today.

With that library comes built in with that is keynoting. Now I'm not going to cover keynoting today, but there are plenty of resources out there and YouTube videos that will describe how to keynote properly your detail if done through the Detail Component Manager. And when you get the keynoting on the details, your legends from the AutoCAD Architectural Toolset is just a few clicks away as well.

So, creating details. The objectives that I have lined out, hopefully this meets exactly what I have described, is to describe the detail components. How to add them. Identify the tools for modifying the components. I give a little bit of best practices or guidelines for creating them.

We're going to create and modify details within this class. We're going to create a few out of the box ones. And then finally, we're going to edit component sizes and create new custom components towards the end. Questions? Anybody? Does that sound pretty good to everybody so far?

So in AutoCAD Architecture, the detail components represent, or can also represent specific materials that are assigned to the actual item. They can be single entities like the mortar blocks, the cinder blocks in there. Also the concrete. And they can also be hatches which is the gravel and the earthwork in there as well. That's part of the detail components as well.

The size, the materiality, and the keynote information is all coming from the database, which is in XML Microsoft Access information. So things like what the item is, what the units are. And there's different ones.

So you have to really make sure that you're getting and using the correct Detail Component Database. And I'll show you where those are when I open up and get you to open up the product as well. And the keynote is assigned within that database.

So we're going to be using the two basic ones for inserting the details, which is the Detail Component Manager, the Detail Tool Palette. And you can also, if you're in the same version, you can use a right click Add Selected from the right click mouse menu.

So the Detail Component Manager, which is the main portion of this, you can search the database. You can have a preview of the components. And also add the deep custom detail components from here or modify the ones that allow you to modify them through the Component Manager.

All right. So I'm going to skip out here for a second. Could you all find-- either-- I'm going to give you your choice. For those of you that are accustomed to using AutoCAD Architecture, could you go ahead and find AutoCAD Architecture within the Windows or program area?

Scott, can you, and Parviz, could you go ahead and help those people find under the area for launching the AutoCAD Architecture? I actually have mine pinned to my desktop, so. Here we go.

All right, everybody see that screen pretty well? No problem? Scott, How's it look back there, OK? Going to simply right now go onto the command line, click on the command line, and type in "options". And this will bring up the Options dialog box.

This is also where you can figure out whether or not you're actually in the AutoCAD Architectural profile or not. If you don't see these other tabs along the back here, you're not in the AutoCAD Architectural. Everybody get there? If your only option is dialogue, please go ahead and click on the farthest arrow here to get you all the way to the end. And then select AEC Content.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: Yes, ma'am?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: Options. All right. So within this area here, you have down towards the lower left hand side here, where it says Detail Component Databases, add remove. If you select that button then this will show you the either 1, 2, or 3 databases that you have assigned within your program.

Now depending upon--

So, the reason that I'm showing three Detail Component Databases on my screen is because I did a quote, "full install" of AutoCAD Architecture 2019. I didn't go in and customize it and say I didn't want metric, and I didn't want global, and I didn't want this, and I didn't want that. So these are the three that you usually get on just a standard install, even if you're going to use it as a, quote, "trial version" on a download. You can get all three of them.

Now, the location of this database is really important to know. Before you go back to your offices, or if you have, and you've tried editing these databases, please make a copy of them. If you didn't, within the download file, I have a copy of the US imperial AEC Detail Component Database that you can use, or overwrite, or do whatever you need to do on your own machine.

Now, these databases are under program data. Now you're not going to see those natively because program data is one of the hidden folders, correct? Right? As I said, what we want to do before we do anything in this class is we want to make a copy of the AEC Detail Component Database US. Which is program data, Autodesk, ACA 2019, ENU details, details US. OK?

So I'm going to go to file explorer. I'm going to click once on file explorer. I'm going to go to my C drive, and I'm going to go the long way. So if you'll forgive me if I go the long way on this. This PC, C drive, program data, Autodesk, ACA 2019. Yes sir?

AUDIENCE: Program data is probably hidden on there.

BILL JOHNSON: Program data might be hidden. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: Right. So as Scott did mention, if you go into the actual-- if you go in to the top toolbar area, you can type in C colon backslash program data backslash Autodesk backslash ACA 2019. That'll get you to the ENU folder. I'm going to give everybody a minute or two to do that.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: Yeah, you can type it in. So it'd be C colon backslash program data backslash Autodesk backslash ACA 2019. [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: Address bar. There we go. So, program data.

BILL JOHNSON: Let's get you in program data. There you go. So Autodesk, there you go. ACA 2019. Got program data? OK. Everybody with me so far? OK.

Let's go ahead and just hit OK on that. Let's just backspace this, too. Let's [INAUDIBLE].

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. That's odd.

BILL JOHNSON: That is odd. No, you should have-- because you've got--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: OK, let's go back to your AutoCAD. And find out where that detail-- yeah, it says program data, Autodesk.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: Documents? No. OK, for those-- yes, sir? Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: And then program data. There you go. And ACA. Yeah? OK.

Let's go into details. Here's our three directories. Detail global, Detail UK, Detail US. Going to go into Detail US. Now, for those of you familiar with this numbering system, what numbering system is this? CSI? MasterSpec? Bless you.

Now, down at the very bottom of the folder is AEC Detail Component Database, US. AEC Detail Components, and AEC Keynotes. The keynotes play along with the AEC Detail Components as well. So if you use the keynoting ability within the product, you can match the keynotes to the Detail Components and create your keynote legends almost automatically. And that would be by CSI number or by description.

So the one that I'm going to duplicate is this one. AEC Detail Components. Left click on it one time. Right click. Copy. Right click. Paste. Because I want to create a copy, right? We don't want to mess up something nice and pretty on these lovely lab machines. Everybody did that? Yeah? Thank you for those of you that are probably saying, come on, speed up, we ain't got all day.

All right. Now we've made a copy. Let us minimize, not close, please don't close this window. Let's minimize this window. Back in AutoCAD Architecture 2019 we're going to point the US Component Database to that copy we just made. And if you don't feel like doing that or if you didn't do it, it's OK. I think these machines are going to get reimaged, probably.

AUDIENCE: Sorry?

BILL JOHNSON: Are these machines going to get reimaged after this class?

AUDIENCE: No.

BILL JOHNSON: No.

AUDIENCE: No, because [INAUDIBLE].

BILL JOHNSON: OK, well somebody is going to have some really interesting databases if you don't use a copy. All right, so let's go. We're going to-- in this-- now, if you're not here with me on the Configure Detail Component Databases, remember that was in the Options dialog. AEC content, add remove detailed component database.

We're going to select the AEC Detail Component area. Go over here. Add. This is why I told you don't close that window, because you're going to copy. Going to need to copy that string.

AUDIENCE: Just put it right under that?

BILL JOHNSON: Yeah. Sorry. You're good.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: Yeah. You got a good eye on that one.

And that's not going to say copy, obviously. The file says copy, but that doesn't say copy.

So I didn't get this gentleman's name, but--

AUDIENCE: Ryan.

BILL JOHNSON: Ryan. Ryan did mention that instead of just repathing directly, you'd probably have to end up selecting it, removing it and then adding the copy. So thank you.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: OK. Now that I've done that, I'm ready to go ahead and use this copy. So on the-- yes, Scott?

AUDIENCE: Were they supposed to get the message that says [INAUDIBLE]?

BILL JOHNSON: Yeah, but they have to remove it and then they have to add. So they remove the US and then add the--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: So, within the product on the Home tab, all the way down towards the end is the button for the Detail Component Manager. I'm going to click on Detail Components and there we are.

So we have all the different divisions within the database. How we doing on time? 3:18. OK. Yes, sir?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: Oh, this Detail Component? On the Home tab? If you go to the Home tab then go all the way over to the right hand side it should say details. All the way over to the left. Detail components. Yeah.

Now, depending upon which profile you started with, it's either going to say US Global or UK, right? So division 3, concrete. Division 6, wood, plastics, composites. Today we're going to be playing around with division 6. Wood, plastics, and composites. Why? Because that is, for me, the easiest one to make this demonstration from.

Now, you're going to notice, immediately-- now if you're like me and you don't really like reading help files, you're going to go over here. You're going to probably put your mouse down here. And you're going to see that it says something along the lines of "edit the database" and you're thinking, ooh, I'll just go ahead and press that button and see what happens.

Well, if you do that at a certain time, like if you're on this area of division 6 or division 5, or 4, or 3, and you click the "edit database" you will sometimes get into an area that you have no idea what you're going to do next. So that edit database. We don't want to actually edit the database at that higher level, OK?

So if you accidentally push that button at the CSI chapter level, please go ahead and hit the little red X that you see down below to actually close it. Well, no, let's just hit Close, sorry. Not that red X, Close. That one's for deleting.

So within the manager we have the Edit at the very top. We have the next greyed out button, which is Add Group. The next one is Add Component. The other one is Edit Component, and the other one is Delete this all together. So those are the three or four, five selections that we have right there. The filter allows you to go through the database very quickly to find what you want.

Now if you remember, back at that hand sketch Detail Component that I had a piece of steel beam going across. All I needed to do was type in "beam" and it's going to filter the entire database based on that filter selection. So if you have concrete-- was at a concrete beam that I was putting in? No. Was it wood and plastic? No. Glue laminated? No.

We have L-shape beams, we have inverted T-beams we have Bond. We have beams and purlins. We have glue laminated. Structural concrete. Pre-cross structural. OK, if it's not beam, then what would it be? What would be another search term we could use? Ryan?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: OK. We can wide flange or make it even more broad, just type in flange. So we have the AISC wide flange shapes. Now, for your edification, if you're seeing this entire table filled out. What you're seeing here. That is coming directly from the MDB, or the Detail Component Database, that has been filled out with Microsoft Access Table.

Now, you can go in through Microsoft Access and add more information to it. However, what you could do easier is, if you don't see within the description area the exact size that you want, you can at this point in time select it and edit this table and add the information here.

Now what would be missing, Ryan? Since you're-- if you look at that table, and you trace that all the way down to the end, what would you probably be missing? You could fill in every bit of information, but what would probably not be correct?

AUDIENCE: Keynote.

BILL JOHNSON: Keynote. Right? Unless you happen to take a gander at the keynote. What's that keynote? That's 0, 5, 1, 2, 0, 0. Probably some numbers after it, if I'm not mistaken.

All right. So if you're not too interested in the keynote database and you're fine with just using a regular quick leader and typing it in, then have at it. This is a perfect way, an example of adding a entity here. Now, I told you that I like to use one specific area for editing this particular database.

I like to keep it nice and simple for everybody so while this flange is a nice one, with the weight in there and the area, the depth, and the different parameters for the different widths and sizes and everything else in there. The actual thickness of the beam. Let's do something a lot easier, shall we?

I'm going to uncheck this, go up in my database, go into the wood, plastic, and composites. Let's see here. Let me get this in here instead. OK, let me point you to a different one.

Let's go into the division 9 finishes, which is the wood flooring. See how they're within that wood flooring, and let me get in there the long way. OK. So we're in division 9 finishes, wood flooring, wood stripped flooring. Now out of the box, in all the databases, or most of the databases, it's going to be a 1x3 wood flooring and a 1x4 wood flooring, which is fine.

But what if you want to have your own custom flooring? What about 1x6?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go within here. I'm going to actually click on an entry and select the Edit Database at this level. And it comes up with a little asterisk now. So this new description for me is going to be 1x6 wood flooring. Thickness, what's the thickness?

Well, if we follow the other ones it's going to be 0.75. What about the width?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

BILL JOHNSON: No. If the 1x4 was a 3.25, then what about 5.25? And back type plain. Now the other thing I can't do here is I can't add the keynote. Well, I could, but I can't be guaranteed that that keynote is added in the keynote database.

Now, after I've filled it in, I can put my little cursor over the line. And let's go ahead. I'm just going to, at this time, save the changes by clicking on that upper box there. Select the entry that we just did by left clicking. Come down in the Detail Component Manager to say insert component. And then click and drag your new wood flooring.

Now that's one of the nice things about using the Detail Component Manager on most of these items. Things like the bricks, the CMU, the flooring. These are part of the database that are considered linear arrays. So it's got a start point and an end point. You just keep-- and you can drag that thing from one side of the AutoCAD universe to the other and it would still draw the wood flooring.

So within the Detail Component Manager, you can search the database by using the Filter button. You can get a preview of the detail components and the little image area. And you can immediately, in the correct division area, add the custom or the out of the box custom Detail Component.

Now, once you get those items added to your drawing, if you select one of the items, and because you're in the AutoCAD Architecture area, there is some additional modification options available. One of the options is Replace. You can replace certain items with other items. Now, you don't want to go ahead and start replacing your wood flooring with brick unless that's what you really wanted to do.

But what you could do is if you create a course of brick wall, you could replace one or two-- one of the bricks with, instead of a regular course, with a soldier course. And then get rid of the other couple of bricks above it. And then you have the actual detail of the bricks, and then the soldier course, and then the other bricks.

Because what it's going to do is it's going to activate the Detail Component Manager again, with the replace selected. It's going to automatically go back and say, well, what do you want to replace this brick with? Do you want to replace it with another brick? Or do you want us replace it with something different? Which you can then go in and add.

There is something called the AEC Modify Tools which are really handy to use as well. Now just for example, on the AEC Modify Tools, on my wood flooring. That end piece of flooring. What if that was butting up against the wall? Right? What if that was actually a wall that you were going up against? And that wall could be something as simple as a line. Right?

So that's not going to look very good on a plan. Elevation detail, right? I mean you've got the wood flooring going up passing your wall. Now there are several ways that you could handle this in AutoCAD, right? You could explode it. It's a block. You could explode a block. How many people here love exploding blocks? How many people here know that you really shouldn't explode blocks but still do it anyway? Thank you, ma'am.

Now I'm going to select this piece of wood flooring. Left click, right click, AEC Modify Tools. Now within the AEC Modify Tools we have trim, divide, subtract, obscure, merge, crop. We also have array, reposition from, space evenly, and center. All of these tools will allow you-- like center. If you select that item, it will then ask you, well, center it between what point and what point?

So it's like moving it or copying it in M2P. Like mid two point. But you don't have to type in MTP. It's just going to reposition it to the middle. The AEC Modify Tools with trim. Select first point of trim line or Enter to pick on screen. Well, Enter to pick on screen. Then it says, select the side to trim. Well do I want to trim this side? No. I want to trim this side. Didn't have to explode it. I just trimmed it off.

So it uses that native information. And you can do this with regular blocks as well. It's unfortunate that they don't have that tool within the regular, regular AutoCAD. You do have to have the tool set of either ACA, AutoCAD Architecture, or AMEP. MEP, the building solutions version of it. So, very powerful tools on the AEC Modify Tools on that.

Now, within the Download I do have three initial tasks for creating out of the box details. And those are something that you can do, if you wish, and I'm going to look at the time frame here and see exactly where we're sitting right now. Just to see if we have-- let's see, it's 3:30. We'll see. Scott, officially, how much time do we have left?

SCOTT: It's 3:40 right now.

BILL JOHNSON: 3:40. So we got what, half an hour?

SCOTT: 35 minutes.

BILL JOHNSON: 35 minutes? OK. Why don't I circle back around to this one? Because I really want to get to the actual editing part, which I think is why you all came here instead of just drawing details. So we're going to go ahead and go directly to the editing part on this. OK?

So if we have time, we'll come back around to this but if not, it's on like two pages within the actual documentation if you want to just play around with creating the details out of the box. And that would be using the Detail Tool Palette, the Detail Component manager. But I think this next bit is probably going to be more interesting for everybody.

So creating custom components. All right. So this first one is what we just did, which was adding additional sizes to the default Detail Component. Is done within the Detail Component Manager, and I do have that notated out. And if you want additional verbiage on that, I can certainly do that.

But you can only do additional sizes if you have more of the actual table filled out. You just can't add that to every single one. It won't work. And one of them that I came up against that it just did not work from is the lighting. Because it had a nice side picture of a fluorescent light, but it was only 12 inches. And I needed it to be 24 to actually fit into my detail that I was doing for the space. So I had to go and find-- I said, well, why not.

So that's what led me to understand that within the detail area, under chapter 26, CSI chapter 26, there is the AEC Detail Lighting XML file which goes back to the MDB database. But you'll also see that it has a DWG subfolder and an image subfolder. Now, the DWG subfolder holds the lighting in that particular database. So if you want to add additional lighting to that section, you edit that file. Which is what I ended up having to do.

Now, a bit of definition. The Detail Component Manager, the MDB database, and XML are made up of drawing routines or otherwise known as Jigs. I don't know why they called it one thing and then called it another. Most people understand it as a Jig and that's fine. Everybody who has done some type of woodworking or metalworking knows what a Jig is. But I like to call it a drawing routine.

So there are several different types of drawing routines. The Stamp Jig or drawing routine is used to place the single instance of that. Like an elevation view or a section view of something from the Detail Component database. So the millwork, or the electrical lighting, is an example of the Stamp Jig.

There is also one called Bookends which means that there are two distinct drawing files that control the top and bottom or front and back. Or start and stop. Of this type of item and the aluminum louver is the example of the Bookend Jigs where you have something that is hardcoded at the start and the stop but then you have the ability to have multiple repeat items in the metal.

Linear Array. This is my favorite. It's the easiest one. It's the easiest one to understand and it's the easiest one to teach. It's a single component on a straight path and as I demonstrated, the wood strip flooring is the one that uses the Linear Array Jig. The surface is more of a pattern. So it's more like a enclosed polyline with a hatch pattern, filled pattern inside of it. So the paving uses a Surface Jig itself, or drawing routine.

A Surface Line type. That's not really a Jig at all, except that it is a pre-determined thickened line for that detail image. Then we have Surface Top which is like the Jig but it doesn't draw the bottom. And the concrete topping is the one that uses the Surface Top Jig.

Now, the one that we're going to be using today in our editing for creating our own custom detailed components is the Linear. Like I said, it's the most easiest and direct one to use to actually modify it. So we're going to create one called a Spaced Lumber Component for drawing things like a joist, a stud, or rafters. And it's going to take advantage of the Linear Array Jig.

So we've already created our copy of our database. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk through this from my preprinted out handout as simply as possible. Here we go. Always happen to have my handy copy. Right. Now, on the desk on your individual computers, there is going to be a subfolder within the data sets called 2D Detail Component. And within there is going to be the drawing file that needs to be accessed while I'm typing things out. So my path is going to be slightly different than your path.

So you have to make sure that you type in what your path on your desktop is and not mine because it'll come up with an error. Unless you take that drawing file from that subfolder and move it to your desktop, which might be easier. OK? All right. Detail Components.

Within the Detail Component manager go down to division 6. Yes, Mr. Division 6 is going to be the one that is going to be used. We're going to expand division 6. And we're going to go into wood framing, so double-click on the entry that says wood framing. Everybody with me so far? OK.

Now, under wood framing this is where we can now click on the Edit Database. Let's go ahead and click on the Edit Database. And are we going to add a group? No, what I'm going to do is I'm going to add a Component at this point in time. OK? Not a full group, just a Component.

All right. I'm going to call this Spaced Lumber at 1 foot 4 inch. That's going to be our display name. Yes, I know, I should be wearing my glasses. Table name. Spaced Lumber. Recipe. Right? This is where you have to understand that this doesn't exist until you actually fill in that recipe area.

It'll start a blank Recipe folder and the XML file. But the other information is going to be up to you to determine how it's going to be filled in. And this is where my giving you these initial blocks to start from is going to be a helper. Recipe. Again, Spaced Lumber. I'm trying to make this as easy as possible. Make sure it's spaced lumber dot XML.

Now what do you want your units in? Inches? Yeah, if we're talking about lumber, right, we don't want it in feet or metric. Unless you're dealing with feet or metric. You can also then select your keynote from the keynote database. Filter keywords. When I was typing in things like beam, flange, right? That's what it was looking for.

So what can we type in here? Well, we can type in things like lumber. Sorry, that's keynote. Filter keywords. Sorry, my mistake. You know you can type in like, lumber, spaced. However many you want to add in there to be able to search and find on it.

Now, if you have a image file. Remember that sub image directory? This is where you can shove your images as well. So you can have a custom image to go along with it. I'm not going to choose any particular custom image. I'm just going to choose one out of the box. So I'll just choose the lumber P&G, but remember that you can add your image within the image directory in the detail area.

All right. So now we've got the first bit. But it's not filled in. No, it's not. We just got that first bit in there. That's what's going to happen is if you just hit OK at that point in time without going in. Come on. If you just hit OK here after filling this in you're missing your parameters.

So the parameters for the spaced lumber, also in the document but I'm going to type it out here, is this going to be the Jig type Stamp? No, this Jig type is going to be Linear Array. Changing the grid type will discard all the data that you have currently put in for the current view. Do you want to continue? Yes.

Layer Key. This is the Layer Key that comes with AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD MEP, and a couple of the other higher products. So within the document it says to use the Layer Key called M-E-D, or medium, which is then going to bring up G Detail Medium for the line, for the layering name and the description for this item.

Block entire component? No. This is important because the drawing file that I gave you has four separate blocks inside of it. This is why it has to be known. Drawing block location. Again, this is where you're going to browse to wherever your AU blocks are. And as I click on it, you can see the four little images of the blocks that I created. Everybody find their AU blocks? No? It's going to be in the dataset folder. Or should be in the dataset folder.

Everybody find it? Scott, how's everybody doing? You find it OK? Yeah.

I'm not going to ask you, Ryan, because obviously you found it OK. Excuse me, my dear. It should be. Desktop. Datasets. 2D detailing. Datasets. Come on, get in there. AU blocks. OK.

AUDIENCE: But it doesn't fill in the data. You know what I mean?

BILL JOHNSON: Right. No, you've got to fill some of that stuff in. Yeah. So. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name, young lady. Rose. Yeah, as she pointed out that she found the drawing file but it doesn't automatically fill things out. It doesn't because what it is, it's saying, you're creating a linear array. Give me your drawing file. Which we're giving it. With these separate entities inside of it. And then these separate entities are then going to then fill it, become available, as you've put in the information.

So. I'll go through that on AU blocks. Open. Block type. Fixed value? No. Database. Why? Because we want to give it the ability within the Detail Component Manager to fill in the database information. OK? Block field is R block, which was fine. Fixed value. Scale of one. Database. R width. Gap. Gap between on our linear array. Well if I called it a 1 foot 4, then wouldn't the gap be 1 foot 4? Or you could say it's 1 foot 2.5 between the actual 2 by 4s or 2 by 6s or 2 by 10s. So 1 foot, 2.5. OK.

Command line prompting. Now what I drew in that linear array for the flooring, remember to set start point. So that's what it's asking for, is a description of your prompting. So right here, and I believe I wrote in, pick a point and drag for multiple members or Type C for count. End prompt. Drag to draw multiple numbers or type number desired. Display count option? Is going to be yes. Count prompt is going to be type. Number of members.

Block orientation. Remember, blocks are two dimensional, so it needs to know if it's going to be an X orientation or a Y orientation. And both of these, for ease, are going to be set to X orientation. Allow X flip, meaning will it be able to be rotated around the x-axes? Yes. And how about a Y flip. Yes.

All right. Now. Come on. There we go. Got to give it time to be able to show the asterisk.

So this is where you type in your description. If you have a picture, a keynote, the block, and the width. So I happen to know what the description is. So I'm going to go ahead and type that in. So 2 by 4 lumber, no keynote, R block. All right. So, description. 2 by 4 and 16 inch. No picture. And the R block is my 2 by 4 lumber. Now, when you edit this and you give it the actual block, which is what we did. You have to type in the block name exactly. So my block name was 2 by 4 lumber. Capital L, no spaces.

And the R width, zero. The next one, 2 by 6 at 16 inch. And it is a 2 by 6 lumber. R width of zero. And I believe I gave you four. A 2 by 6, a 2 by 4, a 2 by 8, at 16 inch. And two by eight lumber width of zero. And then finally, 2 by 10 at 16 inch. And 2 by 10 lumber. Hopefully I spelled that right. L-U-M-B-E-R. R width of zero.

All right. Now we-- save changes? Yes. Now I'm going to give it a test. I select my 2 by 4, Insert Component. And I have my 2 by 4s that were spaced out at 1 foot 4 or 1 foot 2 and 1/2 inches between the blocks.

But I want you to see something about the properties. It's really important that if you-- if I don't talk too much about anything else in the next five minutes, that I point out that whatever we typed in, like what category does it belong to, right? We put it in the correct category. Zero, six, 11. And then that was wood.

Type. There is the type. It was spaced lumber. That's what we typed in. The description, that description came directly from the database. And the view was automatically set to section. Because we did not give it a additional view. You can always give it-- you can always program your Detail Component with an additional view.

All right. Scott, how we doing on time? Are we about out?

SCOTT: You've got six minutes.

BILL JOHNSON: About six minutes?

SCOTT: It's 4:09.

BILL JOHNSON: 4:09? It's a good cleaner. All right. Now. How many people here have downloaded or have access to the document that this is running from? What I'm going to do is I'm going to go and do the next one. The lumber beam. And I'm going to try and do it as fast as I can, because I want to show you that it can be done and there is no issue with, you know, I've just kind of taken my time here.

All right. Detailed Components. And I'm going to do the same thing. It's no different. Instead of it being spaced lumber though I'm going to call it lumber beam. So I'm going to go back into the wood framing. Edit, Add Component. Lumber beam. Lumber beam. Inches. Lumber beam.

Trying to make this as-- we give it the image just because I like to add something to look at. No keyword. Parameters. Now, there's a slight difference on the lumber beam itself. So again, going to change it from stamp to linear array. Layer key is medium, or M-E-D. Block entire drawing? No. It's still the AU blocks.

I'm not going to fill every single one of them out this time. Database. R block, fixed value, one. Database R width. Now, instead of the gap being anything, now I'm going to leave the gap at zero. So start prompt is pick corner. Pick corner point. Point of beam. Next one is pick and drag for multiple members or type C for count.

Display count is set to yes. Count prompt. Beam type. Number four count. Block orientation, again, is X. And X. And allow-- here you can either allow or not allow the flipping. If I don't allow the flip, hit OK. And I'm only going to put in 1 for this, OK? So I'm just going to do 2 by 4 beam. The block is 2 by 4 lumber. The width is zero. And we close that down, save, the changes.

And the difference between the two now is if you drag it out, you get multiple representations. All right? How am I doing? Do I have about two minutes left? One? All right, let's see what I can do in one minute.

All right. So you can see that as you draw this out, you can have as many or as few lumber component beams as you wish. Now, do one more thing, because I really want to close this down correctly. I'm going to go back to lumber beam. Select it. Edit it. Edit the component. Go over back to the parameters.

And then these two, three buttons here. This one here is Create a New View. This is how the Detail Component will either create section elevation or plan representation views of your detail. So, nice and quick, because I am definitely running out of time.