Welcome back to our exploration of walls in AutoCAD® Architecture. Let's have a quick look at Cleanup Group Definitions (CGD) and then proceed seeing how other AEC objects interact with walls. You can assign different CGD to different walls (e.g., brick, partition, etc). Only walls within the same CGD will clean with each other. Creating CGD and assigning it to walls is quite simple.

• From the Design menu, select Walls – Cleanup Group Definitions.



• Create a new CGD by right–clicking on Wall Cleanup Group Definitions.



• In the Design Rules tab, set the desired options and click OK.

The settings are simple. I want you to concentrate on one of the powerful and useful settings, which is Allow Wall Cleanup between host and xref drawings. With this option checked, walls in the current drawing will clean up with walls in the xref! Another option allows you to prevent copying or moving objects such as doors, windows, and so on to walls in a particular CGD. This helps you avoid inadvertently placing objects in walls that should not contain them. By default, you can move or copy objects between walls with different CGD.

Tip: By default, all walls are assigned the standard CGD. It is good not to modify this CGD. Create your own CGD with unique and meaningful names.

In the above figure, you can see how walls with same CGD clean up and walls with different CGD do not. You may wonder why the wall with the brick CGD passes over the wall with the same brick CGD, instead of cleaning up fully (see yellow highlighted portion). This is due to the component priority setup at the wall styles level, which we will see later.

Assigning CGD to a wall

• Select one or more walls.
• In the properties palette, click the entry forCleanup Group Definition. You will see that standard is the default.
• Click the drop down arrow and select the desired CGD.

Having understood enough about the basics of the wall and how one wall interacts with another, it's time to see how other AEC objects interact with walls. Let's try to add few doors and windows to walls.

• Draw a few walls around.
• Make sure that Dynamic Input at the AutoCAD® status bar is on (see figure below).



• From the Design palette, click Door. Alternatively, you can use the 'Dooradd' command.



• At the Select wall, grid assembly or RETURN: prompt, select a wall.

  

  Tip: If you press 'Enter' at the 'Select wall, grid assembly or RETURN:' prompt, you can place free–standing doors.

Check out the dynamic measurements appearing on either sides of the door. You can use the Tab key to toggle between these values and key in your own value. This way, you can place a door precisely on walls.

Try to move the door and watch the walls cleaning up automatically. You can copy, array, mirror, and delete doors without spending much of your drafting time. Once you place the doors, click the intelligent grips on the doors. Refer to the following figure.

Tip: Make sure the 'Dynamic Input' at the AutoCAD status bar is on when you use the move and width grips. After you select the 'move' grip, press the ctrl key and cycle twice to see two more move options.

Don't worry much about the way the default door looks. Later on we will see how to create door styles the way you want. What I love about AutoCAD Architecture is that it doesn't boast a huge library; rather, it gives you the design freedom to create intelligent object styles the way you want.

Try: Try placing windows the way you did for doors. Refer to the following figure for window grips.

The above tips for doors also apply to windows. You just had a feel of how other objects interact with walls. Now let's get back to walls and see some useful wall tools.

Offsetting walls (Copy or Move)

Earlier, I mentioned that you can use the AutoCAD offset command to offset walls. However, the offset will be based on the justification of the walls. Refer to the following figure for a better understanding.

Whatever the current wall justification, you can have more control on the offset using the Walloffsetcopy or Walloffsetmove command.

• Alternatively, you can select the wall, right click and choose offset – Copy.

  

  Tip: You can select multiple walls to offset.

• At the Select the component to offset from: prompt, select the side of the wall from which to offset.



• Key in the desired value or pick on the screen.



• You can continue to offset further with different offset values.
• Press 'Enter' once you are done.

Actually, when you create more complex walls with various components, the walloffsetcopy command is useful as it allows you to select the component to offset from. Refer to the following figure for a better understanding.

Make sure that Dynamic Input at the status bar is "on" while offsetting. In the next article, I will describe more useful wall tools. See you then!

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Tharakesh Ananthakrishnan is technical/project manager for OMNIX International - Dubai. He has more than 12 years of experience as a user and an instructor of CAD software in the AEC and GIS fields. His Autodesk product specialties include AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, Revit Architecture, Autodesk VIZ, 3ds Max, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Land Desktop, and AutoCAD Map. Tharakesh was the first Autodesk Certified Professional in the Middle East and is an Autodesk Authorized Instructor, an AUGI member, and AUGI Training Program instructor. He can be reached at a.tharakesh@gmail.com .