If you’re documenting an existing floor plan, you already know where the rooms go. However, if you’re designing a new space, you probably want to start with some conceptual designs that you can refine before committing to wall placement. You can use one of the space shapes to approximate room locations, which you can easily rearrange as you experiment with your design.
Space shapes have two distinct purposes:
You can rough out the areas you want with space shapes, and then convert the shapes to walls to create a building shell and rooms, as Figure 18-3 shows.
You can use space shapes as they are to designate space within existing rooms, such as in an office. This specialized use is associated with space plan drawings, in which space shapes can track facilities information. Space plan drawings are described in detail in Chapter 26, “Managing Facilities with Space Plans.”
The Visio 2007 Space Plan Wizard makes creating and designating spaces much easier. We’ll cover this new feature in Chapter 26.
You can also draw a rough space plan using the drawing tools. As long as you start your drawing using a template from the Maps And Floor Plans solution, Visio 2007 includes the command to convert shapes you draw into walls.
Tracking Assets and Other Data in a Space PlanIn Visio Professional 2007, space shapes can be used for tracking people and assets in a floor plan. When you want to use space shapes in this way, you don’t convert the space shapes into walls. Instead, you drag space shapes into an existing building plan to designate offices. The space shapes automatically size themselves to fit an office created by using Visio 2007 wall, door, and window shapes. To convert any plan—floor, home, plant, or office—into a space plan for tracking assets, moving employees, and managing facilities information, choose Tools, Add-Ons, Maps And Floor Plans, Enable Space Plan. Visio 2007 displays the Category Explorer window and adds commands to the Plan menu for working with data. |
Depending on which Visio 2007 edition you have, you can designate space in a building plan in one of the following ways:
Drag space shapes onto the drawing page.
Draw lines, arcs (with the Pencil tool), and rectangles to represent rooms or the outline of the floor plan, and then convert the shapes to space and walls.
Either way, Visio 2007 automatically creates walls based on the perimeters defined by your spaces.
To start a new building plan and define spaces using space shapes, follow these steps:
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2. | If you’re starting a new drawing, choose File, Page Setup. On the Page Size tab, verify that the drawing uses the size settings you want, and make any changes. Then click the Drawing Scale tab, verify that the scale is the one you want, and make any changes. Click OK. For details about setting up page size and drawing scale, see the section titled “Setting Up Measurements in a Diagram” in Chapter 16. |
3. | Drag the Space, “L” Space, or “T” Space shape onto the drawing page. In Visio Standard 2007, the Space shape is on the Walls, Doors And Windows stencil. In Visio Professional 2007, the space shapes are on the Walls, Shell And Structure stencil. The area of the space is displayed on the shape. Note To define space within an existing structure, drop the space shape away from the existing walls, and then move it into position. Otherwise, if you drop the shape onto a building shell or other walls, the space is automatically sized to fill the area. |
4. | To adjust the size of the space, drag a handle on the space shape. |
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7. | To change where the text appears on the space shape, drag the yellow control handle. |
If you want to convert the space shapes to walls, or add walls to them, see the section titled “Converting Space Shapes into Walls” later in this chapter.
Note
You can change the formatting of a space shape. By default, space shapes appear with diagonal green lines. To change the background fill of an individual shape, right-click the shape and choose Format, Fill from the shortcut menu.
Drawings created with one of the building plan templates include the added ability to convert shapes you draw into walls. You can specify whether to add dimension lines or guides to walls. If you’re creating a floor plan that will be used as part of a facilities or space plan, you can create a space shape within the walls you’ve drawn when you convert the original geometry.
To start a new building plan and define spaces by drawing, follow these steps:
1. | Choose File, New, Maps And Floor Plans, and then choose the template for the type of building plan you’re creating. You can also start from an existing floor plan as long as it was created using a template from the Maps And Floor Plans solution, which adds the Plan menu to Visio 2007’s menu bar. |
2. | If you’re starting a new drawing, choose File, Page Setup. On the Page Size tab, verify that the drawing uses the size settings you want, and make any changes. Then click the Drawing Scale tab, verify that the scale is the one you want, and make any changes. Click OK. For details about setting up page size and drawing scale, see the section titled “Setting Up Measurements in a Diagram” in Chapter 16. |
3. | Click the Drawing Tools button on the Standard toolbar to display the drawing tools and then select a drawing tool, such as the Line tool or the Rectangle tool. Then draw overlapping boxes to form an area in the shape you want. Line tool
Rectangle tool
Note To create areas with curved walls, use the Arc or Pencil tool. |
4. | To create a single shape that represents the space, select the shapes, choose Shape, Operations, and then choose one of the following commands:
For details about combining, subtracting, and intersecting shapes, see the section titled “Merging Shapes to Create New Ones” in Chapter 22, “Drawing and Editing to Create New Shapes.” |
5. | To convert the shape to walls or walls plus space, select the shape, and then choose Plan, Convert To Walls.
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6. | In the Wall Shape box, select the type of shape you want to use for walls. The list includes wall shapes from all the stencils you have open.
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You can change the look of a space shape, including its format, labels, and units of measure. By default, Visio 2007 space shapes display diagonal green lines with a centered label identifying the space and its square footage. Space shapes that you draw typically have white fill and no label. You can manually format individual space shapes to change their fill pattern and color. The labels and measurement units that appear on space shapes are properties that Visio 2007 stores with the page, so if you choose different options, all space shapes on the page reflect the change.
To change the fill for a shape, right-click the shape, select Format, Fill, and then specify new options in the Fill dialog box. You can use different colors and patterns in space shapes to designate different areas in a floor plan, as Figure 18-4 shows. If you later convert the space to walls, the fill pattern and color are discarded.
Follow these steps to change labels and units for all space shapes on a page:
When you’re ready to commit to the design of your space plan, you can convert space shapes to rooms, as Figure 18-5 shows. To do this, you use the Convert To Walls command, which is available on the Plan menu or when you right-click shapes.
Note
The Convert To Walls command is available when you right-click a space shape. The command is also available on the Plan menu.
When you use the Convert To Walls command, you can specify which wall shape to use as well as display options, such as whether to display dimension lines or add guides to the wall shapes. After you convert a space shape to walls, the original space shape is deleted unless you specify otherwise. If you plan to track space in a drawing apart from other structures or want to display square footage in rooms, you can retain the space shape after conversion. The space shape sizes separately from the room or building it’s in.
Note
If you are going to use your building plan with the Space Plan template, keep the original space shape when you use the Convert To Walls command.
To convert the space shapes into walls, follow these steps:
1. | Right-click a space shape, and then choose Convert To Walls.
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2. | In the Wall Shape box, select the type of shape you want to use for walls. The list includes wall shapes from all the stencils you have open. |
3. | If you want to display dimension lines on the room’s perimeter, select the Add Dimensions check box. |
4. | If you want to display guides with the walls, which makes it easier to reposition walls, select the Add Guides check box. |
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6. | Click OK to convert the space using the options you selected. |
7. | To adjust the position of a wall, drag a guide to which the wall is attached. As you drag, the walls glued to the guide are resized. If you retained the space shape, it doesn’t change size. To update the space shape to match the new area, right-click the shape, and then choose Auto Size. |
Note
You can also convert rectangles, squares, and trapezoids drawn with the Line tool into walls.