glennw

Diane, I am assuming that you want to retain the fill, but have it greyscale rather than colored? To do this, you can use Live View + Always Update. The display of color in layout is then controlled by the Color toggle in the original elevation view. Live View (with or without) Update Always is pretty cool because it reflects exactly what your camera view displays, including Rendering Technique, shadows, color/b&w, etc.

Scott, Huh? I am not sure what you are saying here, but if I understand you correctly, you only have one dimension default which you have to use with each annoset? Are you saying that when you change annosets, you can't get the dimension defaults to change? You can set up as many Saved Dimension Defaults as you like and then use any one of them with any annoset. Either you are missing something or I have misread your post (which is highly likely). I believe that most of the confusion and problems you are having setting up your anno/layer sets is that you tried to go too complicated first up, and now you are trying to back pedal getting it to work. IMHO it would have been easier to start simple and get more complicated as you went along.

You could try Preferences...Reset Options...Reset Toolbars. This will load Chief's default toolbars and you will loose any customisation. You will probably have to restart Chief after doing the above.

I am not sure I agree with David's answer. You can turn off the color fill all together by left clicking the layout box, opening the dbx, go to the General panel...Camera View Options. If you are using Plot Lines, you can uncheck Color Fill. If you want the color fill, but just want to make it lighter, you need to do that in the elevation view itself (not the layout). Open the elevation view and use the rainbow tool (Adjust Material Definition) to select the roof material. Go to the General panel...Colors...Material. Click on the color box and then select a lighter shade of the color by using the side slider. You may have to update the view in layout.

Upgrade to X9 and use the wall niche tool

I agree, water disposal is going to be a big problem. Even with huge rainwater heads, I think you are going to have problems. Here is a similar one I did a few years back. I designed a near flat central roof that fell to each side and the water was then picked up in some oversized gutters. This worked well with no water problems.

OK, lets first deal with the terrain perimeter itself. I think what is happening is that when you are importing the data, you are telling Chief to import the terrain perimeter. So what is happening is that Chief is creating a rectangular terrain perimeter over the small plan to the left. Once Chief has created this terrain, it won't create another one as you can only have one terrain in a plan. Display only the Terrain Perimeter layer, select and delete the terrain perimeter. Now you will be able to create your own terrain perimeter.

Ross, That was really simple - only took a couple of minutes.. Polysolid with General Material class with transparency - I started with Milk Glass. 3D text with similar material.

Something like this?

This discussion reminds me of the scripting language that Generic CAD had way back when. It basically used the hot keys (or the native command) strung together along with operands to create very powerful scripts including things like user input. eg: ; Separates the commands in a script. Scripts must end with a semi-colon (;) as well. @ Tells Visual CADD to wait for you to type the coordinates of a point or for a click on the drawing screen. @@ Tells Visual CADD to wait for a Pen Up command to finish a continuous tool before moving to the next command. $ Retrieves the current value of the variable it precedes. =;@ Matches the entity you select. UIoff Closes the specified speed bar. UIon Opens the specified speed bar. exename; <path to external application>; run; Tells Visual CADD to run an external application from within Visual CADD. dllname;<dll filename>; dllfunname;<functionname within the dll>;dllrun; Runs a function defined in a .dll file. NOTE: Scripts never contain quotation marks (“). You could do things like this: CS;SX;@;@;CO; Copies objects you first select using a crossing window. MulLineStyle;1;MultiLine; Sets the Style to 1 and starts the MultiLine command. SYMROT;$SYMROT+15; Sets Symbol angle to 15° more than current angle. CS;SB;@;LE;NP; Prompts to select a leader and flips the text of the Leader. TextRot;=;TL;@; Sets text angle to the angle of an object you pick in the drawing and then starts the Text Line command. SetLayer;3;SetColor;12;SetType; 6;SetWidth;1; Sets the properties for layer, color, linetype and linewidth. The next object you draw will take on these properties. Each one of these scripts can then be assigned to it's own shortcut, toolbar or menu item.

Are you using Terrain...Elevation Data...Elevation Spline? Do you have Connect CAD Segments toggled on - if Connect CAD Segments is toggled off, you will only get individual straight lines (no splines). To get the splines, the lines have to connect.

Scott, Just because a dimension is on the Dimensions, Automatic layer, doesn't mean that it is an auto dimension. As soon as you edit an auto dimension, it is no longer classified as an auto dimension - it becomes a manual dimension, even though it resides on the Dimensions, Automatic layer. Did you change those auto dimensions in any way? Even going into the annoset and changing the dimension default will change them to manual dimensions - although still remaining on the Dimensions, Automatic layer.

Scott, Once you have used Reflect About Object to reflect the plan, including the text, you can rotate each text block about itself (rather than about the center of all the selected text boxes) by selecting all the text boxes, opening the dbx and changing the Angle (probably to 180 deg). When you select multiple text boxes, it looks like they flip about the top center of each text box So, you may still need to adjust the location of the text boxes as they will probably not flip to the exact location you want.

Are you sure that you don't have Scrollbars toggled off?

In the 3D framing view (you will probably be using the 3D Framing Set layerset) , try turning off the display of the "Walls, Normal" layer (or whatever layer you have your walls on).

Scott, In Windows...Settings...Personalization...Colors, there is an option to Show Color On Title Bar. I wouldn't have a clue on a Mac, but maybe a similar setting?

Whilst in the Materials List, click on the Display Options icon on the toolbar (a square with a red tick in it). Go to the Columns panel. Is Size checked?

Steve, Just an additional note, if you don't use the above method.. With Angle Snaps toggled on, you can sometimes get a dimension that is not perpendicular to the lines. You can then use Make Parallel to make the dimension line perpendicular.

Steve Toggle off Angle Snaps. Just to simplify things, toggle off all other snaps except On Object and Perpendicular Extensions. Drag an End to End dimension between the 2 lines. The On Object snap ensures you snap to the lines, and the Perpendicular Extensions does just that.

Or, you can use an End To End Dimension and add some Trailing Text.

Bill, Preferences...Appearance...Line Weights...Show Line Weights. Or, View...Line Weights.

Looks to me like it could be a Wall Covering strip. Open the wall dbx and see if there is anything specified on the Wall Covering panel (like Insulation Rigid).

Chopsaw, Chop, I can get this with most objects apart from a baluster (millwork) used in a railing. Is that any use, or do you specifically want to use it for balusters or newels in a railing? One proviso would be that you can't use the bounding box to resize. Can you describe how you want to use such an object and I can tell you if my method would work for you.

Michael, Yeah, it is the long way around, but should work.

I don't think you can do it directly as I believe the default plate material uses the default Framing material. So.....what you could probably do is assign different materials to studs, roof framing members, floor and ceiling framing, etc, and leave only the plates to use the default Framing material. In this pic I have left only the plates to use the default Framing material (Color - Gold)