glennw

Johnny, What did you want to do to the sides?

Johnny, Not quite sure what you are doing. I draw a ploysolid in plan and generate a 3D overview. I can drag the height (from either top or bottom), drag the width (from either side), drag the length ( from either side). I can also use the dbx to all that and more (like making only one side longer). Whilst still in the 3D view, I can break an edge and reshape the polysolid (like making an L shape from a square. I can also do things like change edges to curves or splines. I can even use the Advanced Spline controls to reshape the polysolid The trick (sorry - wrong word - I should have said technique) is to select the polysolid on the correct side because the edit possibilities are determined by what face you select. ie, select the top to stretch the plan (or move it), select a side to change the height (or move it). The various Edit Behaviors (like Concentric, Fillet, etc) also work in a 3D view. Are you sure that you have "Allow Edit of Polyline Solids in 3D Views" toggled on? The Boolean operations work if you are using polysolids to polysolids, but not if you are mixing polysolids and solids. In that case, you can convert the polysolid into a solid and do a solid to solid Boolean. Once again, you have to make sure you are selecting the correct surface before doing the Boolean - usually the top surface, not the sides. and one shortcoming is that they end up the same height - in which case, convert to solids and then do the Booleans. I'm not sure I have seen this, can you post a plan? I wish I could do a quick vid, but I had trouble with Jing so I uninstalled it and now I can't even reinstall it. If anyone has any ideas, I would welcome them. Jing seems to be working now. Only trouble is that I hit the 5 minute limit - but there is enough to get the idea. https://www.screencast.com/t/s9UZgdJ30FmO

Johnny, I think that statement is a bit of an exaggeration? For sure you are limited in that if you draw a polysolid in plan, you can't drag its width in an elevation view (although you can drag it's height and elevation - as well as use the dbx).. BUT in an elevation view, you can use the dbx to change the polysolid. In a 3D view, you can shape and edit the polysolid in just about any way you want with the cursor and/or the dbx.

I just had another look at this and reread your original post. I forgot about the metal roof out the back. Check the deck to have a roof over. I also think that you will have to drop the roof pitch to more like .5:12, otherwise the roof geometry doesn't work

Newell, Delete your Roof Baseline Polylines (on the Roofs, Baselines Polylines layer) - you have 2 of them. You shouldn't need to use Roof Baseline Polylines on that plan - although there is nothing stopping you from using them if you want. Change the ceiling heights of the his and hers rooms to 97 1/2" to match the rest of the house - if that is what you want Define the front porch with an invisible wall and make the ceiling height 97 1/2". Turn on Auto Rebuild roofs - make sure Make Roof Baseline Polylines is turned off. The roof should auto build correctly. That house should have no problem with the auto roof builder - you just need to get all the ducks lined up in a row. You will need to clean up the walls, floors, etc, in the front porch. If you really want to use Roof Baseline Polylines, build them now and they will build correctly - but in this case, I wouldn't worry. You could then delete the invisible wall defining the front porch.

Mick, Autosave does not work on a file if it has not been previously saved.

Graham, I am not sure that is a solution - I would probably add too much salt and burn it anyway. Easy to order take out and get it home delivered - unless I wanted something really simple like toasted cheese. And if I wait long enough and expose that piece of timber to enough pressure, I may get a diamond.

That doesn't look like a very comfortable lounge! And...also...why can't Chief cook my dinner?

I wouldn't contemplate it either. Lets not forget that Chief wasn't designed or developed to draw free form furniture. It was developed to design and document buildings. I think that we should be thankful that we can at least draw basic furniture pieces as illustrated in the previous posts. If you want to draw complex free form furniture, buy the appropriate software to do that and don't complain that Chief won't do something that it was never intended to do.

Yusuf, Some oft those settings have been changed in X9.

I think that using Terrain Regions to do that is just plain daft.

Or you can do a Backup Entire Plan which will save all the associated files (including textures). With this option you can also create a zip file for sending to another user or for archiving.

Brown Tiger, What sort of rebuild are you talking about. Moving a door or window label in an elevation view does not force an Auto Rebuild Walls/Floors/Ceilings for me. It does however cause a rebuild of a mono slab if I have one. You can check this by turning off Auto Rebuild Walls/Floors/Ceilings and then moving the label. I do not get a "need to rebuild icon" next to the cursor and no rebuild takes place - except for the mono slab rebuild which happens even if I turn off auto rebuild foundation.

Griffin, I opened your plan and there was no terrain information let alone a terrain. I also didn't see a .pdf of the levels. I am happy to help if I can, but it would be good if you could at least make a start on the terrain and give us something to work off. Once you get something more, I could do a Skype session and try and help you.

Scott, Post the plan

...or a glass wall with a molding polyline in each direction with multiple moldings. These can be broken and have no molding where doors are needed. Or individual molding polylines multiple copied in each direction which can be broken and have no molding where doors are needed. A bit hard to put doors in that.

Or .....Chief has it's own Screen Capture tool.

Without a plan being posted, it is hard to say what the solution is as we don't know what you have already done. My best guess is that you can achieve what you want very easily by using Elevation Regions (with or without Terrain Breaks) in combination with the other terrain tools - DO NOT use Elevation Points.. Is this so? Where did this information come from?

That's what Undo is for.

Richard, Yes, I grew up with Generic CADD - an absolutely fantastic program until Autodesk purchased it and killed it off. I have tried to base my hotkeys on the 2 letter CG shortcuts and it seems to work pretty well. The easiest way to share the hotkeys is share either Create Hotkey List (.html file) or Export Hotkeys (.xml file). I am happy to share mine. Glenns hotkeys.html

Joe, One of my favorite topics! The OOB Chief hotkeys are absolutely useless as they use the simultaneous hotkeys and not the sequential ones. Several big problems with these - they are simultaneous (I only have 2 hands, 8 fingers and 2 thumbs - lets leave the feet and toes out of this) which makes them extremely hard to use and they are almost impossible to remember. The sequential ones (particularly the 2 letter ones) are easy to remember, can be very logical and easy to physically use. I have many 2 letter hot keys like: ZI zoom in PA pan window ZA zoom all (fill window) ZW zoom window ZO zoom out RS render standard RV render vector RW render watercolor BR build roof BT build terrain TS terrain specification CF full height cabinet I already use CB for base cabinet So...I think you are exactly on the right track. I would love to see Chief ditch the OOB simultaneous hotkeys and replace them all with sequential hotkeys. By the way, just to complicate things, you can have a combination of simultaneous and sequential hot keys (for the one tool).

I think that you must be confusing those 2 dbx's with the Roof Defaults dbx which DOES have a Gutter tab where you can specify the profile for the auto drawn gutters.

Cheryl, If I understand you correctly. You want the scale of the layout box to display for each layout box. To do that you need to open the layout box dbx and use %box_scale% Using %scale% in a text box on the layout sheet will display the visual zoom level for that layout page - probably not what you want.

My last guess without seeing a plan is that you have your rooms defined as Unconditioned areas. Or if you have Use Default set for Conditioned Room, you are using a room type that defaults to Unconditioned (like a Balcony, Attic, Deck, etc). Unconditioned areas are not counted as part of the thermal envelope and thus do not show up as such in the General section of the ML. Otherwise, post the plan.

Scott, You may need to take that class in terrain building. The Subfloor Height Above Terrain setting has nothing to do with the shaping of the terrain (apart from the Flatten Pad setting). Subfloor Height Above Terrain only allows the user to set the relationship (the relativity) between Chief's zero floor level and the terrain level. I don't think it is a bug, I think the terrain just needs more elevation data. I never use Elevation Points - I always use Elevation Lines/Splines or Elevation Regions, etc. If you read the manual: Chief Architect requires many points to make an accurate approximation of your site. Even small sites may require over a hundred points to generate an accurate model of the terrain if it is sloped Elevation Points are most effective when they are imported. When adding elevation data manually, use Elevation Lines and Splines instead. See Importing Elevation Data. PS. There were 4 elevation points in the original file, not 3 - one in each corner. I was just having another look at the terrain pic you posted. It is a bit hard to tell because the elevation points are small and feint, but it looks like you have deleted 3 of the elevation points and only left the one in the top left hand corner. Or you may have reduced the size of the terrain so as to exclude the elevation points - I think I can just see the bottom 2 down below the terrain. But I can definitely only see the top left one inside the terrain perimeter. Guess what - if you only have 1 elevation point - you get a flat terrain.