glennw

Tony, I se that you are getting plenty of help and suggestions. How does this look? With the 45deg roofs pitched at 4.25:12, the valley's and hips are about 45deg. Note the ceiling encroachment indicated by the Ceiling Break Lines.

Here is my stab at it. To do what you want, you have to lower the pitch of the 2 roof planes that come off the 45deg walls. To keep the same eave height, the o/h has to be smaller. You can't meet all od the parameters - eave width. eave height and 45deg hips - something has to give. It's up to you to decide what gives. PS, just saw your posted plan. If you tell me, in order, what are the most important parameters. Eave height. Eave overhang. Roof pitch. You can't have them all!!

When you want to auto build roofs and you don't want the roofs to follow the walls, we have a tool to do that. It's called a roof baseline polyline. You do realise that with that roof geometry, your plates will be at different heights and not level? Also, I think you are going to have to change the pitch of some of the roof planes to get that to work. You can't have a hip at 45deg running up from an eave corner that is 135deg. I believe it is impossible to build that roof like you show with all the pitches the same, same overhangs, same eaves height, etc. I will do an example an post in a few minutes.

Here's my take for what it's worth. The name of the panel in the Roof Plane Specification is Structure - not Structural - there is a difference between "structure" and "structural" or "structural element". I would consider the roofing material (Surface) to be part of the "structure". Under Surface, we can now have user configurable multiple layers - how would this be handled on the "Materials" panel?

Scott, I didn't realise that you are putting me in the hotseat. You probably know more than me about Chief's idiosyncracies than myself and most others. I am happy to attend and help if I can and look forward to a round table discussion. It would be great to have as many of the Chief hotshots attending as possible.

Do those layout pages have .pdf's on them, or is it all layout pages?

Scott, Wed June 8 @ 4pm (your time) sounds good to me. That is Thurs June 9 @ 9am my time - you got it correct! Will you organise a GTM?

Scott, Sounds great, I will try and fit in with a time that suits, but I would prefer other than 3am! I know you only need 2 hours sleep a nite, but I like my sleep. It would be great to get together a list of all the little things that need a fix. Sat and Sun afternoons are usually hard for me.

Tony, Why not let Chief auto build it? Do you need something more like this? This is how Chief auto builds it. I think there is another way to do the geometry on a bump out like that, but see if this way helps first.

Michael, You are joking, correct? You forgot the smiley face! Is there any remote chance that these comments could have something to do with your familiarity with the imperial system? Using metric, we would not refer to a portion as 25/100 (this is an imperial fraction). We would refer to it as .25 - very simple. Likewise, a third is .33 - not 33.33/100.00 (I love the way you can mix imperial and metric).

Alan, This is easily controlled by the Scaling Unit on Export/Import. The hard part is sometimes knowing the correct unit to use.

Scott, A .dwg file is a native AutoCAD file format. A .dxf file is a Drawing Interchange Format file. I believe it was developed by Autodesk for file exchange between AutoCAD and other programs, but a long time ago. It is really just a text file that you can open and look at in a text editor like Notepad. If you export a layout, all the objects drawn straight into the layout will all transfer with their own layers, as you would expect. But, any objects that have been sent to layout and are contained in a Layout Box will end up on the Layout Box Export Contents layer after the export of the Layout. I think if you want to preserve layers from the original plan file, you need to export from the plan file and not the layout. You can Export either a dwg or a dxf. Start the Export process and when you get to the Save Drawing File dbx, it will default to AutoCAD Drawing (*.dwg) down the bottom in the Save as Type dropdown, scroll down and select DXF (.dxf).

Lew, Those posts have absolutely nothing to do with your claim and the reason for my original post to you: I am still waiting to see a post where a user has said this - or even implied it. If I am missing something, please enlighten me. On the contrary, rather than trying to shut down the dialog, I am trying to continue the dialog and get some clarity from statements that, to me, seem unfounded.

Are you talking about manual or auto dimensions?

Lew, Just as I figured.

Lew, I can find plenty of posts that contain "workarounds". I can't find a post where someone has insisted that where there is a "workaround" available then the suggestion or "fix" is not needed. I assumed that because you made the statement that you would know of such instances - maybe a wrong assumption? I would appreciate it if you could help me find one.

You can open the beams dbx and change the settings for size and height to whatever you need. Did you use the Floor/Ceiling Beam tool to draw the beam? If so, it should have auto located under the floor joists. My guess is that you used a library beam which will auto locate on top of the floor joists.

Lew, Can you give me at least one example of a post where this applies?

Yes, that should be easily to do in Chief. Post some specs or a sketch of exactly what you want and I will have a go.

Alan, You can then use the Heat tool from the edit toolbar on the tube (to make it expand) so that the shaft will slide in.

Dermot, Does this vid change your assessment in any way, or does it reinforce your explanation? http://screencast.com/t/qoj5l4neESij

Yes, I can reproduce your problem with an object changing layers when the layer set is changed. I have never seen that before. Probably one for tech support.

Those options will become available once you change the wall top or bottom height from the default. The easiest way to do that is drag the wall down in a section/elevation view. Or use the temp height dimension if you want accuracy.

I would not use this method as all the internal walls and the existing ceilings, etc. will not move up. They will retain their existing heights. If you don't want the slab to rebuild, turn off Auto Rebuild Foundation. The best way to change some of the rooms, IMHO, is to use the Match Properties tool as Michael has suggested. Change just 1 room to what you want. Select that room. Click Match Properties from the Edit toolbar. Click Select All. OK. Select Apply Properties from the Edit toolbar. You can now "paint" those properties on to as many rooms as you want.

Perry, I am assuming it is this type of thing. This is page 5, Elevation 7. But yes, a more accurate indication of the exact problem and a posted plan would help.