The Foundations

Every building needs a place to start and the foundations are usually it......

Text in small letters is the output you should expect from AutoCAD.

3. The first shape you will draw is a square.
Change your viewpoint to one of the isometric views by choosing one of the buttons on the viewpoint toolbar. You will see that your UCS is on the ground plane.
Type: UCS (Press Enter)
New/Move/orthographic/Pre/Restore/Save/Del/Apply/?/World:
Type: World (Press Enter)

4. The first thing to create is the foundation slab.
Click on the layer drop-down list and then select the layer titled foundation.
Type: box (Press enter)
Starting Point:
Type: 0,0,0 (Press Enter)
Length/width:
Type: @14000,18600 (Press Enter)
Height:
Type: -2000 (Press Enter)
This creates a cube starting at the location 0,0,0 that is 18600 long by 14000 wide and -2000 high. A negative value for the height places it below the plane of the UCS. This ensures that at the top of the cube, at 'ground level' the z value, (or height) is still 0.

The @ letter in front of the co-ordinates 18600,14000 tell AutoCAD that this is a relative co-ordinate from the starting point.
i.e. From Point X move so far up and so far accross.
Without the @ sign the co-ordinate is absolute, meaning it is in relation to the UCS.
i.e From Point X go to a point in space called (x,y,z).
Although confusing this is a very useful tool in complex drawings where you may wish to go up 100 from point X and then across to point Y. Note also that you can miss out a step in the above by typing all three coordinates at once (@14000,18600,-2000).

5. The cube you have drawn may be too big or too small to be seen on the screen, so type in:
Type: z (Press Enter)
ZOOM All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/Previous/Scale(X/XP)/Window/:
Type: e (Press Enter)
Now you should be able to see the whole cube on your screen.

Accurate placement of the cube is critical as in this and upcoming tutorials you will develop a series of models in AutoCAD, Microstation and ArchiCAD that will be merged into one single model for rendering in Radiance and Lightscape.
To smooth out and simplify this process that at first seems a little daunting it is important that each of the models is in the same 'virtual' location to ensure window openings and window panes match up.