Drawing an Exterior Garage Door in 3-Space in Vectorworks

Size of Door

• Three sizes to consider - details may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer
  • Nominal Door size - this is the size of the inside of the door jam. Some of the doors in this classroom are 36" x 84". (this is the opening size of the door jam)
  • Actual Door Slab size - this is smaller than the door opening size. the width is reduced by about 0.25" on each side and the height is reduced by about 0.25" on top and 0.75" on the bottom. In the class the 36"x84" doors have an actual size of 35.5" x 83".
  • Rough opening size - this is the size of the wall opening required to fit the door frame (door jam, door stop, and door sill (if required)) the rough opening size will be the size of the door + accommodation for the door jam + shims. For an exterior door a wood door jam would typically be 1 3/8" thick and there should be a 1/2 " gap on each side of the jam to allow for shimming.
    • this makes the rough opening width = 36" +1 3/8" + 1 3/8" + 1/2" + 1/2" = 39 3/4" round off to 40"
    • the rough opening height = 84" + 1 3/8" + 1/2" = 85 7/8" round off to 86"
• For our door design use the size of the class door but we will need to convert to S.I.

  • 	Imperial	S.I
    Nominal Door Size	36" x 84"	914 mm x 2134 mm
    Actual Door Size	35.5" x 83" x 1 3/4" the	902 mm x 2108 mm x 44 mm the
    Door Jam	1 3/8 x 7.25 "	35 mm x 184 mm
    Rough Opening Size	40" x 86"	1016 mm x 2184 mm
    Door Stop	5/8" x 2 1/4"	use 15mm x 55 mm

Drawing in 3-Space

• go to the door&window layer
• click on the selection arrow in the 3D tools pallet (if the pallet is not available activate it under the Pallets menu)
• select the front elevation view
• zoom into centre using 2D tool pallet
• create a box using the 2D rectangle tool that is the nominal door size
• create the side door jams using the rectangle tool, then the top door jam. (all on the outside of the nominal door size)
  • extrude the door jams 184 mm
• create the door stops on the inside of the nominal door size and extrude them as well.
• create the door slab and extrude. Use the move tool to centre the door. (under the tool menu)
• in the 3D tool pallet select top view. Use the move tool to correctly align the door jam, door stop and door slab using the 2D move tool.