Place the Doors
using AutoCAD Architecture
The next step is to design the doors of the basement. The doors are placed in the project as objects with three dimensional attributes.
After these mounted on a wall, the wall will be automatically cut and processed, and the doors or windows remain anchored on the wall.
These are held on the wall and can’t be moved away. When the wall is moved or resized, the position of the door on the wall remains stable.
Open with AutoCAD Architecture, the drawing you created in the previous lesson, under the name walls, or if you wish you can download it by clicking here. Unzip and open it, with AutoCAD Architecture.
You will continue working on the Floor plan drawing adding the necessary doors in the floor plan of level-1, you've created so far. You will place the interior doorswith the layout and the dimensions shown in the sketch 'Floor plan level-1 Doors - Windows' (Fig. 2.1.4.1).
Placing the Doors
You can select the Door tool from Ribbon Home tab > Build panel Door fly out menu (hover on ►) 
select Door , or you can select it from Tool palette - Design (Fig. 2.1.4.2).
The doors selected from the tool palette-design (design Tool palette) or from the Table Build of the Home tab have the standard style.
You can use for doors and windows another style different of the 'Standard' style.
To do this:
In the Tool Palettes - Design click the Doors tab (Fig.2.1.4.2), to make the tool palette Doors active (Fig. 2.1.4.3).
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Fig.2.1.4.2 - Tool Palette - Design -
Fig.2.1.4.3 - Tool Palette - Doors
When you select a door tool, the properties palette (Fig.2.1.4.4) of the selected style door will open. In the fields of the Properties palette you can see its properties, such as style, height, width, head height and other that you can edit.
- For the door (1) on the wall (BC) of your plan, select on the 'Door tool palette' (Fig. 2.1.4.3) the Hinged - Single door style.
On the Properties palette which will appear (Fig.2.1.4.4), you will see the properties of the door style you have chosen. - In the Properties palette edit the properties as follows: In category Dimensions, type the following: Width = 0.90, Height = 2.10, Measure to = Outside of frame, Swing angle = 90.
- In Category Location select position = Unconstrained.
This choice allows you to set the position of the door by entering values using the dynamic dimensions (Fig.2.1.4.5) or to determine their position with the mouse.
- After selecting the door style Hinged - Single, appears the prompt: Select Wall, grid assembly or Enter: select the wall [BC] close to point [B].
After selecting the wall, the dimensions are displayed dynamically indicating the position of the door (Fig.2.1.4.5).
To make appear the Dynamic dimensions tool, the selection Dynamic Input
on 'Application status bar' 
has to be ON (it's color has to be cyan).
Move the cursor from left to right or from right to left to determine the location of the door along the wall you have chosen.
Move the cursor up and down from the wall to adjust the swing (swing) door.
The hinge point of the door can be changed using Handle points (grips)(Fig.2.1.4.6).
- At the prompt on dynamic dimension: Insert point or: type 1.80, which is the distance of the door from the left edge of the wall (BC) (Fig. 2.1.4.1), press ENTER to accept the value and press Esc or Enter, again to complete the command.
The dynamic dimensions, as shown in Fig. 2.1.4.5, indicate the distances of the door from the ends of the selected wall. The active dynamic dimension is indicated by a blue background.
Using the TAB key you can switch between activation of dynamic dimensions.
You activated the left dynamic dimension (the background was blue) and entered 1.80, which is the distance of the door you entered from the left edge of the wall [BC], is the distance from point [B].
You will now create, in the same way, the other three doors with tab numbers 2, 3, and 4 as shown in Fig. 2.1.4.1 "Basement - doors."
Selecting the door you mounted on wall (BC) (Fig. 2.1.4.5), you will notice the handles - grips (Fig. 2.1.4.6).
You can use the handles to move the door along the wall, change the position of the axis of rotation and change the width of the door.
In your example, you have to change the position of the axis of rotation for door (1) (the position of hinges), to flip it from the left to the right side.
In order to do this, with the door (1) still selected, press the handle which activates the Flip (hinge) as shown in Fig.2.1.4.6, and the door will swing to the other side of the wall.
Having selected the door, the Properties Palette will appear. You will then see the properties of the door you have choose and which has the Style 'Hinged-Single'.
• In the Properties palette notice that the properties of the serlected door is the following:
In category Dimensions, Width = 0.90, Height = 2.10, Measure to = Outside of frame, Swing angle = 90.
Install the doors 2, 3, and 4, in the plan of the basement, following the same procedure that you applied for the door (1). The result will be as shown in sketch Floor plan level-1 - Doors-1 in Fig. 2.1.4.8.
Using the mouse and grip points (Flip grips) of a door (Fig.2.1.4.6), you can flip the direction and position of the hinges, to be as shown in the 'Basement - doors' in Fig.2.1.4.1.
The interior doors which you created, have as width = 0.90, except the door on the wall [HG] that should have width = 0.80, so you have to change its width.
To change the width of the door on wall (HG), after selecting it with your mouse, in the Properties Palette - door that will display its properties, go to category Dimensions - Width and edit the value to 0.80.
The width of the door changed to 0.80, but it also moved from it's previoys position. You can move the door to it's previous position using your mouse.
For more accuracy you will use the 'Anchor' of the door properties.
Select the Door ► properties ► on category Location ► select Anchor to open the Anchor panel settings (Fif.2.1.4.7).
Using these Anchor panel settings, you can change the position of selected door relative the wall it is anchored to. For this door (4), under category 'Position Along (X)', for 'From' select Start of wall, for 'To' select Start Edge of Object and for 'Distance' type 0.30.
The floor plan of level-1, after the design of the doors, will be as shown in Fig.2.1.4.5.
Save this drawing under the nameDoors-1 in the folder house21 you have created.
The full path will be: C:\ACA\tutorials\house21\doors-1.
3D Isometric View
To have a 3D isometric view of your project, on the View Cube tool, at the upper right corner of your screen, click on the corner WS of the Cube.
You can apply a Conceptual style view in your drawing to have a more artistic view:
- To set the Visual Style of the drawing, on Ribbon > click on View tab > click the arrow on Visual panel (hover on ►)
, the drop-down which will open provides a choice of visual styles defined in drawing to make current (for the moment the current visual style is the 2D Wireframe) > select Conceptual, to make this visual style current.
The result is shown in Figure 2.1.4.9.
At the next lesson Place the Windows-1, you will create the windows for the level-1.
