glennw

Doug, You could try File...Print...Print Model...uncheck everything except Roofs. Print to .pdf and then import the .pdf back into Chief. You should end up with something like this:

Good call Johnny, There are actually symbols in the library (wainscoating) that are made from cabinets that can be customised.

Johnny, Yes, wall types, details, line types, blocked text. Anything you can store in the library. So you could have a "Walls" tool bar with a whole lot of wall types that you could select with 1 click.

Y Johnny, The closest you could get would be to use the Layer Hider which I have mapped to the LH shortcut. There is also a toolbar button for Layer Hider. Custom buttons can only be used to place library items.

Johnny, Here you are wall.plan

Javatom, No, not another floor. I thought I explained it pretty well - but obviously not well enough. It is a pony wall with the upper wall defined as a solid railing with a tall top rail. The top rail is the third wall level, the solid rail is the middle wall panel and the lower pony wall is the bottom wall level. All one wall. All on one floor.

You could try using a pony wall with the top wall turned into a solid railing using a metal material. The transparent top section is then a tall top rail using a glass or other transparent material. This will allow you to work with the wall structure as all one wall. Or did you want it this way?

OK Johnny, I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but I think i know what you are talking about - finally! Unlock the Cross Section Lines layer. Drag a marquee around the whole cross section. Only the cross section lines will select - not any objects. Open the dbx and change their layer. Or, if you do select an object, go back and try again with that object's layer locked, NOT hidden. But you shouldn't need to do that. And yes, if you turn off the display of the walls layer in the cross section view, they will not generate cross section lines - expected behavior and a good way to generate only the cross section lines you want to move to another layer. The drag marquee for selecting section lines works the same way a drag marquee works to select all the Auto Detail polylines for editing or deletion.

Johnny, You can't isolate the section lines on the Cross Section Lines layer. They are deleted and auto regenerated when the model is changed You need to move them to another layer. Although I think I am still misunderstanding you. Are you turning of the display of layers in the plan view or section view? What do you want to end up with?

Johnny, Sorry, I got a bit lost with your post and don't quite follow what you mean. Can you explain it again please.

Another thing to be aware of is that opening indicators will display in a section through anything that has the ability to display opening indicators like windows, doors and cabinets. It's not so obvious with a cabinet because the opening indicator is almost flush with the door. It is more obvious with doors and windows.

Johny, Unlock the layer.

Hi guys, Sorry I missed the workshop, but thanks to Chopsaw, i just watched the video. I was surprised to see that no one mentioned or used the Cross Section Lines layer. When a cross section is generated, the cut lines are automatically placed on the Cross section Lines layer. Try changing that layer to red in a cross section view and you will see what is happening. These lines are dynamic, meaning they are updated with changes to the model. By default, they are not selectable because it is a locked layer. However, any of the cross section lines can be copied or moved to another layer and edited so that they can be used to alter the appearance of the cross section. Once the lines are on another layer, they are safe from any auto editing or regeneration. Well worth having a look at.

Use Craftsman type in a Fixed window with 1 light across and 3 lights vertical. Or, if you want the choice of top third or bottom third (or anywhere really), use a Single Hung window and use the Bottom Component Size setting to place the muntin. Or, you can always use Custom Muntins.

Ahha, Thanks Scott, that clears it up a bit. I could sort of see a relationship between the correct dimension and the displayed dimension being scientific notation, but i wasn't aware of that incarnation of scientific notation - it's been a long time since I was at school! A variation on Scientific notation called Scientific E Notation. A sort of "shorthand" scientific notation. We'll see what tech support has to say as to why it is happening.

Scott, It doesn't look like scientific notation to me. Scientific notation is expresses as a number (less than 10) x 10 to the power of a number (superscript a - the number of places you move the decimal point to get the number to be less than 10) Its a weird one because it doesn't seem to save with the plan. It is more system specific than plan specific. Chop, If I reboot Chief and open the same plan, the problem is gone. So not a custom unit as far as I can figure. I have sent it in to tech support.

Has anyone seen this sort of thing happening to all numerical values - including those in all the dbx's?

Mark, That doesn't really fix the problem though. That will make things look OK, but when you use the join roof planes tool, the roofs revert back to how they were. You play around more and find out exactly what is wrong. Or you could just do the above and move on.

Mark, Grab the Baselines for the 2 truncated front hips and move them just a little towards the house - I just used 1 click of the left arrow button. That seemed to fix all the problems.

I think you will find that Chief will do an auto rebuild when it opens the plan.

Just to clarify: Select the object, click the copy/past button, on the edit toolbar, select Reflect About Object, click on the line you want to reflect about. Done.

Because it doesn't appear that the grooves go into the window/door recesses, I would start by trying to use molding poly lines with multiple moldings applied. The molding would be the height and thickness of the grooves, same material as wall and drawn on the outside of the wall. I think they will be easier to control than Material Regions. Here is a really quick one.

Depending on what you want the shadows for, you can always do a Top View of a Vector View, Technical Illustration, etc. This gives you shadows, but it is not a plan view "drawing" - it is a "plan view 3D view".

Sherry, It is your snap distance that controls the snapping to the wall centre. Turn off you grid snaps. In Preferences...Edit...Snap Properties...Options...Snap Distance - change this to something like 5 and see what happens. I think this will depend on your screen resolution and your zoom level. Have a play with the setting as see what works best for you. Is it presently set to 20? - I don't know what the OOB setting is.

Jonathan, You can do this with one molding poly line. The corners can sometimes get a but screwed because of the fixed spacing of the pickets. All you need to do is draw your deck with only the posts and no railing. You can then draw the poly line and the complete rail will build with toprails, pickets, etc. I forgot to chamfer the bottom of the pickets, but you can get the idea. The moldings look like this: