Should plan align with north?

[madkins]

I think I've made a mistake here - previously when I've done plans I've just drawn them with the house in the most logical orientation and haven't been interested in site plans etc. Walls end up at 0 deg, 90 deg, 45 deg etc...

For our current property though I needed to do full site plans for council and it's a 7 acre property and I wanted to model elements of the terrain, boundary roads, sheds, dam, gardens etc etc  so I started with the plan so North was 0 degrees. I think that might be a mistake though as the house has lots of angles and they are now really odd - eg most of my walls are at 32.900006° or -57.099994° etc. I've kind of made it work by finding the "Allowed Angles" setting under "Plan" and adding some of these common angles there, but I've always wondered if I did the right thing or if I should have laid out in the most logical way for the house and drawn the property around that, letting north point something other than vertically...? Is there a right/wrong or is it just a matter of preference?

[solver]

Generally, you create the site plan, then you rotate the site plan so the house walls are square with the screen.

 

But it depends on the info you have and how your site boundarys are specified.

 

You might try Edit Area (All Floors) to select everything, then Transform/Replicate to rotate so the house walls are square. 

[madkins]

Thanks for the quick response Eric

 

3 hours ago, solver said:

Generally, you create the site plan, then you rotate the site plan so the house walls are square with the screen.

 

Ok that sounds like what I did originally (created off survey plan) and then just rotated site plan (Tools -> Rotate Plan View) so the walls are square - but the grid isn't and (I didn't on early versions but having just upgraded) I get all the off-angle wall warnings. Plus I have to add all the additional know angles for snap to work and then I get too many really as I get the normal 7.5deg snaps as well as my custom ones so can be hard to be sure without measuring what it's snapped to.

 

Or when you say "rotate the site plan" do you NOT mean Tools -> Rotate Plan View ??

 

Cheers

 

 

 

[solver]

6 minutes ago, madkins said:

do you NOT mean Tools -> Rotate Plan View ??

 

Read the documentation to understand Rotate Plan View, and yes, it's the wrong tool for this.

 

3 hours ago, solver said:

You might try Edit Area (All Floors) to select everything, then Transform/Replicate to rotate so the house walls are square. 

 

[madkins]

Thanks a lot Eric, that looks like it'll sort my mess out!

 

Cheers

[DavidJPotter]

I never, in 24 years have rotated a structure to obtain "Magnetic North"!!! That is what a "North Pointer" is for so you rotate it relative to the house and thus set the proper relative relationship to North and the default location of your structure in plan view. There is NEVER a good reason to rotate a plan for any reason other than to make the plan file harder to work on. Open your "Help" files and then search them for information about the "North Pointer" tool and then do not waste your time on any other Goose Chases no matter how enticing looking.

 

DJP

[madkins]

Thanks for the input, yeah I just wasn't sure what the best choice for 0 / 90 degrees was - whether to make it relative to a property boundary or orientation of the house itself, north, etc... if just drawing a floor plan for a house it's a simpler choice, but when trying to include a few structures on a several acre property it's not so clear cut as the two sheds aren't on the same grid as the house. But I've realised of course they are very simple floorplans so it's more tolerable to have them off-angle

 

But in my confusion I chose grid north for 90 degrees as that's what the subdivision plans I have is drawn to and I think I used north pointer then to reflect magnetic north (relative to grid north). I thought at the time that was sensible and it worked well for the site plan, but I ended up with a situation where 0 / 90 deg matched absolutely nothing on the property which is an ongoing pain for working on the house floor plan. So I think I will flip it around using method Eric suggested. That worked well on a plan snippet I tested it on.