Renerabbitt

Every cad line has a start and end point, under "selected line" you can either lock the star or the end point. Easiest method is to draw your shape in a clockwise order and then edit in a clockwise order. Helps to snap dimensions to your lines

Just an FYI, have had problems with 4 sets of La Cantina doors. On each set the last panel was pinned to the track on the hinge side as opposed to the striker side. When the doors are opened incorrectly (which is very easy to do even when familiar with proper operation) the weight of the last panel pulls the next panel into a twist and it breaks its weather seal. The magnetic catch on the door is just on the bottom, I feel as if it should be top and bottom to prevent the weight of the doors falling over and creating this same problem. Within a few weeks their is a fog on the inside of the glass. Just something to be mindful of ..seems to make sense to have the last panel ordered with a pin to the track to avoid such a aituation

Yes pbr...so fast

Designed this kitchen in 4 hours for a friend. Started at 10pm tonight and finished just now. It's not perfect, and some materials could use some help and some models could use some updating, but its a good reference for what can be accomplished with decent materials and models and some know-how in a short time frame: Maybe if I had some patience I would really polish these out but that would be on my time

Another Cali guy here as well, I'm in the North Bay...take your pick!

Why can't we get a decent track light system!!!...It's okay I made one = This library item is an architectural block. Within it is a stretchable track and 5 heads, each rotated a bit different than the other. Enjoy! download here: RABBITTS TRACK LIGHT ASSEMBLY.calibz

Glen, FYI part of the problem is that some of the roof planes have sides that are slightly off 90 degrees etc, things aren't perfectly snapped...might want to draw some cad reference lines and show him the "make parallel/perpendicular tool

I appreciate the post and the idea of a streamlined as-built process but I think some of my preferences for doing as-builts would make me stay away from her setup. My main issue is having to use an on-screen keyboard. Windows keyboard in tablet mode leaves much to be desired and I take notes about site observations as I go. The more info I can record with less time I spend on site is the goal. Sometimes a laser measuring device doesn't cut it and you have to break out a tape measure and then input via keyboard. I think the biggest difference in As-builts is a combination of great, great ,GREAT annotation sets, hot keys programmed to a mouse for say auto-exterior and interior dimensions, and common library items programmed to your toolbar.... having a few tricks up your sleave to tackle common problems helps as well. Take this screenshot: You can see in my toolbar I have one button clicks for common windows, meters, panels, switches, fans, as well as materials, tile, countertops, color tints, layer hiders, various cabinets, d/w, fridge etc. In this same screenshot is an ugly lil As-built I did yesterday...I was on site for 2 hours. I noted elevations from grade, setbacks from center of road using the assessors parcel map, elevation data from google earth, foundation and framing specs from California Residential Code. This is a split level house with an underground addition and some funny roof details. I think all things considered 2 hours is a reasonable amount of time and all I had was a huge and heavy 17" laptop, a 12-button mouse, a laser measuring device(non-bluetooth, an old Hilti PD-32) and a 16' tape. I use up to 3 "takeoff" annotation sets. 1 where dimensions are a very light grey with dimensions snapped to sides of openings, and another duplicate where cimensions snap to center. The third is for site measurements. Notice the dimensions are barely visible until I click on an item, and then everything that the item can be dimensioned from is highlighted in bright pink. Very easy to see. Every new architectural element that is added, I simply hit a key on my mouse and it updates the exterior and interior dimensions. Dimensions are truncated to whole inches even though the program will calc in fractions. This is so its simpler to see all dimensions

Using the cad line tool I drew a 45 through the corner of the walls. The point of breaking up the roof plane into several is only purposeful when you have several ridge heights. In this fashion we can find the ridge height and copy past to the adjoining ridge. When you are complete with your roof assembly, simply expand one of the smaller roof planes to snap to all ridges and now you have one big roof plane again and everything is aligned...then delete the individual ones

The largest problem with your plan was that the baselines were drawn in incorrect locations.

This would create variation where the roof plane sits on the wall...as builders, the wall heights should always stay the same, think of the roof baseline as the fulcrum-where the wall assembly rests..it is a constant and essentially locked, your ridge height and eave height adjust about the baseline. Many buildings have different eave overhang lengths, baselines need to remain constant.

Okay Rocky I fixed the right half of your roof, I will leave you to fix the left for learning purposes. There are a few things to note. In this screen shot:You need to set your current floor height according to what is listed in your CAD plans. Your Roof baselines should all correspond to the room height. Since we are doing this backward, see what the ceiling height is by default and subtract it from what the true ceiling height is. This should give you a dimensions such as 30" ...write it down. Next, go to the "build" menu at the top of the CA browser and go to drop down roof/roof plane(or simply hit "Q" on your keyboard). with build roof plane selected, hold your shift key and drag a marque around all roof planes. This will select only roof planes. You can hit ctrl+e to open up all of the roof plane's DBX's and raise the baseline heights by that dimension(30" or so)...remembering to keep the "pitch" designation locked. This will make it so that your roof planes dont intersect your ceiling planes(which creates a dashed line in your plan as well as some other potential problems)Next are some key instructions to building roof planes manually.Notice in the screen shot of pulled reference 45 degree CAD lines from all wall intersections. This makes it easy to snap roof planes to these cad lines. Assuming your roof has the same overhand at each intersection.Your roof baselines are shown in green..I left a note....they should be aligned on your main wall layer. You were working in the all layers on layer...with all layers on, the layer marked "main wall layer only" will make it so that you cant see your exterior cladding layers. When drawing roof planes, they should(in most cases) be snapped to your exterior cladding layer...so "Walls,main layer only" needs to be left unchecked. here is your plan file with half of the roof fixed: 219-01-10-T ROCKY SHEPHARD SCHOOL ROOF.plan

In conceptual design we typically start from the roof down its true but unfortunately chief wants us to build our walls first. This roof would be very simple to accomplish if you added the interior walls and defined the ceiling heights and ceiling structure in your room dbx's. Then the automatic roof tool would get you 90-100% of the way their with no frustrations. Going the manual route, albeit more difficult can still be accomplished with a few tricks. First break your long ceiling plan into sections, that way the various ridge heights can be tabulated and copy pasted to adjoining ridges, taking out the guess work. (match ceiling plane tool can create problems as you've seen. Once you've established the ridge locations you can rebuild the long ceiling plane. You may want to start with drawing cad lines through your wall intersections so you have something true to snap your ceiling planes to. I know that your roof baselines are too low or the ceiling planes or too low according to your room heights as chief as drawn in dashed lines where the roof plane cuts into your ceiling planes

I imagine both, I believe your video was relevant and most likely appreciated...for someone new to the software, layer and anno sets open up a world of possibility

Personally I always start with automatic roofs. This means you will need to build out your rooms first and set your room elevations in order to properly auto-build the roof. There is a funny valley/gable detail here and I imagine it has to do with varying room elevations

A few problems in this file still to work out. Something to note for split level or multiple ceiling heights, make sure to get all of your construction assembly defaults set. Your roof planes were at a lower elevation than the room ceiling heights. Also instead of setting up pony wall assemblies, try and set your exterior wall at the room with the heigher ceiling height and in the wall DBX go to the roof tab and check "lower wall type if split by butting roof" and assign your interior wall to the drop down menu. Still some things to fix in this plan but maybe a good start? I deleted your sloped roof, I assumed a parapet, for the purpose of con docs you could leave it and specify the method for sloping(sister/wedge/shaving) Keep in mind the roof assembly was using 2x4's and your ceiling assembly is using 2x6 and the 2 are still at opposing elevations. STUDER.plan

is this a parapet roof at the clear story?

ahh, I misunderstood the problem. @tracer Just opened your plan file, quite a few problems here, trying to figure out what's going on...give a second

could try a point-to-point move or hold ctrl while dragging any object supersedes snaps in most cases

If you draw a wall or polyline simply drag the match-type/continuation diamond handle thing-a-majig and it will draw perpendicular to the first off angle

HAHA, nice, posted here and in original post as en edit: stair example.plan The end user will probably get missing texture warnings, I never use stock stuff

@Richard_Morrison For you! hope this helps Also @Alaskan_Son and @Kbird1

This has been brought up a few times and I just had a face-slapping moment...of-course there is a very easy way of doing this! Simply place a curved railing on top of your staircase. Go to the staircase dbx and at the "rail style" tab, scroll down to "build from" and check the box marked "Follow Stairs." Next, on the same tab under "Specify Railing" check "Panels." A very simple wainscot panel can be created by placing the "raised panel doors" cabinet door symbol into a plan and pulling a 3d view. In 3d go to the "Tools" menu and scroll down to the "Symbol" drop-down menu and select "create a symbol" Select the drop down menu and select "millwork" for your new symbol. This will add it to the user library as millwork, which can then be applied to your curved railing as a wainscotting. Go to the railing dbx and scroll to the "Newels/Balusters" tab and under "Panels" select from Library and find the millwork you just created. Make sure to set your newel spacing to something like 16" and your newel size to 0" Here is a simple result which took 5 minutes to create: plan file for reference: stair example.plan Thanks to @TheKitchenAbode for sparking the idea

Kbird and solver have this right. CA can be finicky at times with railings. You may make a change and all of a sudden the railings all go wonky. Sometimes it is worth the time and effort to turn your railing into a symbol when you've got it placed correctly. I've even made custom stacked railings into panels and added them to my library. If you are mainly doing custom decks it may be worth your time

Can't remember who it was, maybe DS Hall, but came up with a solution a while back where you set the garage to a typical room and then check unconditioned. Set you floor and stem wall heights etc and then set your walls to have a concrete pony wall. There is an option buried somewhere to have the exterior surface of the upper wall extend down past the lower wall when aligning on main layer outside, which completes the look. This way the slab continues through and you have a curb