glennw

Don't forget that you can also spin a 3D view with Ctrl+Alt+S.

Chad, Use the Walkthrough Path tool - it does external fly-arounds as well as internals.

Having that stupid Reference Grid displaying is one of my pet peeves! I hate the thing but I find it is turned on in just about every Chief plan I look at.

There shouldn't be any problems getting close to or exactly what you want. Why not post a pic of one of your hand drawn plans and someone here can probably tell you.

Using a 120" hight stem wall will not do what you want. I think you will find that once you change the stem wall height back to zero, all your problems will be solved.

My tips are: Don't use Elevation Points - use Elevation Lines/Splines. Use Elevation Regions as much as possible. Don't overlap elevation data. Don't use Retaining Walls - use Terrain Breaks and normal walls placed after. Use Elevation Data instead of the Terrain Modifiers. Don't use Automatic Subfloor Height Above Terrain. Tile a 3D view with the terrain plan as you work so you can see the immediate results of your input.

Why do you have a 120" high stem wall in the new section? I would fix that before doing anything else.

Just for the record in case this comes up again. The problem was caused by having that external wall down the left hand side of the 3 rooms and the garage, marked as a Double Wall - Furred Wall. Changing it to the more normal Frame Through fixes the problem. You should also check the wall at the top between the Covered Patio and kitchen - it is inside out.

If I understand you correctly, you should be able to use roof planes. Can you supply the information about the roof geometry - how are they setout?. How is the soffit a different angle to the roof? What does "back down to the exterior wall" mean?

Preferences>Reset Options Reset Side Windows or Reset Toolbars - you will lose any customisation though

Framing Reference Marker may do what you want.

Don't forget that if you use a dimension line, you can always drag the dimension text to wherever you like and you can change the dimension text size. Th beauty of using a dimension is that if the geometry changes, the dimension will change as well. Not so with a leader.

Use a Point Marker instead of a Place Point.

There is one case I know of when this is not correct. That is when you have an image that you want to resize (rotated or ortho) using the images perimeter (as opposed to click any points within the image). You can resize the image by clicking the Point To Point Resize in one corner of the image. You can then drag the cursor along the image edge to the other corner - the cursor will stick to the image edge, no matter what the angle. Click the second corner and the dbx will open. Although this works, there are probably easier ways to resize the image like using it's dbx.

You will need to post the plan if you want more help.