glennw

Johnny, While on level zero, you need to set the Stem Wall height to be the Rough Ceiling height + Floor Structure thickness (even if there is no floor in the foundation).

Or.. Select the objects start to drag in the direction you want to go. Hit TAB, specify distance and direction (various options are available. Or, Change your Snap Grid to 12.5" (I assume it is set to 1"). Select the objects and drag - they will jump in 12.5" increments.

Scott, Put my name down.

Johnny, It would help if you could post a simple plan so that we can see what is happening.

Coralie, Mostly (more often than not) you need to design holistically. ie, you need to consider what is happening to the roof as you are working on a floor plan. This would appear to be a case where it is unlikely that you are going to get a satisfactory solution given your floor plan and roof requirements. Something has to give to enable you to end up with a cohesive roof in lieu of a "patched" roof. Is this a new build or an alteration.

I think the problem with the auto interior dimensions is not that Chief is duplicating the dimensions, but rather, Chief is going around the enclosed room and dimensioning each wall. So that in a regular shaped square or rectangular room, you get a dimension for each wall. As it happens, opposite walls are the same length and so you get what looks like duplicate dims, but really, Chief is just dimensioning each wall. Try it with an L shaped room or rooms with more steps and L shapes in the walls and it becomes pretty obvious what is happening. And remember that some of the settings from the current dim style are applied to the Auto interior dims as well. Like formatting, setup, arrow, etc.

Curved roofs are easy to do with Chief using the Curved Roof option in the roof dbx. Read up about it in the manual.

Richard, That is definitely user error. When you raise the floor 6", the stem wall increases in height to 24" (the default 18" + the 6"), because you haven't told Chief to do anything else, the footing stays where it is and the stem wall increases in height to 24". Then, when you change the floor height back to zero, the stem wall height remains at 24", therefore it is lower than originally by 6". ie, the stem wall remains 24" high and drops 6" with the floor. When you change the floor back to zero, you also need to control the stem wall height by manually changing it back to 18", or check default if that is 18". How does Chief know when you do and don't want to actually change the stem wall height? You have to tell Chief what you want.

Joe, Isn't that what Spherical Panoramic Backdrop does?

If you post the plan, it should be very easy to build that roof automatically which would save a lot of time and effort. I see that the roof on the elevation you posted does not match up with what Alan is suggesting. Do you want the roof as per the elevation you posted (which would result from your initial sketch - and not an ideal solution as Alan pointed out), or as per Alan's sketch - which is how you would normally build it if it was a new house.

You can find a summary of the stair requirements here: http://nsw.hia.com.au/documents/2008/1.%20January/9th%20January/NAT%20BCA%2007-10%20Stair%20construction%20for%20class%201%20buildings.pdf Note that you need a landing at the top of the stairs min 750mm deep.

Coralie, Are you talking about no option to create an Auto Stairwell while on level 1 plan and selecting the stair? You don't get that option because there is already a stairwell created - it's the Open Below room above. By the way, you have a very dangerous situation created by that door at the top of the stairs. I think you need a landing in front of the door - it's probably a code requirement anyway.

Lew, No clicks or fussing with roof planes. Just auto build the roof - the cricket is built as part of the auto roof building. No settings to make, nothing to configure - it just happens.

Lew, Chief already does that automatically without a separate tool.

Antoine, I just did a quick run through and it took me about 50 seconds from go to woah. All seemed to work OK and I don't see a problem. I also don't see a change from X7 to X8. You obviously got the rotation (166.12deg) incorrect when you did the rotation. This angle may or may not be correct, depending on your frame of reference. Did you use relative or absolute and where did that angle come from - depending on the circumstances (and maybe in this one), you may need to use the complimentary angle - keeping in mind that Chiefs angles start with zero at 3 o'clock and go anticlockwise.

Chopsaw, With Add To Library unchecked and once the dbx closes, the symbol will be attached to your cursor. If you go to a plan window, you can place the symbol. But we are now getting off subject.

Chopsaw and Michael, It doesn't have to be a symbol - same behaviour with the polysolid - or any object. Chief has always worked like this. eg, if you want floor boards to run at 45deg to the room, you need to create a new material with the boards rotated at 45deg. Rotating the room has never rotated the floor boards. How would Chief know which way to orient the material unless you tell it? - it comes in as the default zero. Rotating a simple rectangle is a simplistic example - imagine you have an very odd shaped room or object that you have rotated and reshaped. How could you expect Chief to know what way to orient the material automatically? PS. OK, I didn't check with the symbol - I thought we were talking about objects and material orientation generally.

Antoine, I think I may know what the problem is. You are rotating the object that has the material applied to it, but the material isn't rotating. What you need to do is open the dbx for the material. Go to the Texture panel and change the angle to match the angle to 166.12 deg. The easiest way to open the material dbx is to use the rainbow tool in a 3D view. This will rotate the picture on the object you have used. I will do a vid. http://screencast.com/t/Fwxy2j2Xk

I'm more confused than before you posted the pics! What is a plan layout? What is a layout plan? What is a layout plan shown in 3D? I don't see any distortion, only different angles.

3D...Camera View Options...Toggle Textures.

They are auto generated walls that connect rooms inside other rooms. You can turn off this behaviour at Defaults...General Wall Defaults...Connect Island Rooms (Alt+Q). You may have room definition problems in certain situations with this setting toggled off.

Adel, Sounds like some sort of memory limit. Tech support is there to help - that's what we pay SSA for.

Or maybe, instead of deleting page 8, just delete the layout boxes (and any other info) and leave page 8 there.

Adel, Just a wild guess. Have you tried Clear Printer Info? I would be surprised if that was it though. Something corrupt on page 8? Save a copy of the layout and delete page 8 and see what happens.

What sort of distortion? A picture might help. A plan would be better.