glennw

Todd, I would always import, locate and rotate the terrain into the plan. As for your levels. In the Terrain Specification dbx set your Subfloor Height Above Terrain at 100'. Select all your Terrain Elevation data. Open Transform/Replicate Object...Move...Relative To Itself. Enter a value in Z Delta (either positive or negative) that will locate your 100' contour at the correct height in relation to your 100' floor level. This will locate your floor level at the correct height (100') and all the terrain levels will relate to that floor level. ie, they will loose their original levels and will now relate to the house floor level of 100'. I assume from your posts that this is what you wanted to achive. This is exactly what D. Scott has been requesting forever. It is easier to do than it sounds.

Alan, What I was suggesting is to use only one wall type made up of several layers (you can have layers with the same material). The overall wall thickness would be 12" and the inner main layer would be 4" thick. This wall would be used everywhere - you do not have to use different wall definitions and thicknesses. Place your windows and then use a wall material region the same width as the window to cut away some of the wall layers so that you only end up with a 4" layer above and below the windows. You can stretch a WMR from floor to ceiling (or more) and pass over windows without affecting them. If I get time I will do a video. Or...I could do a Skype session if you want a live demo. You end up with something like this. Note - this is all one wall (2 layers) with tile section above and below the windows being a WMR which cuts out the external wall layer.

Isn't it logical that if you don't have a sash, you have nothing to hold the glass. So no glass - and no lights.

Open the Room Specification dbx. Structure panel...Ceiling...check Use Soffit Surface for Ceiling.

Jerry, Try this: Open the Wall Specification dbx. Materials panel. Exterior Wall Surface. Select Material. Check Use Default Material (down the bottom under the icons).

Not sure I follow 100% without a plan, but I would try using a 12" wall with appropriate layers for all the walls and then use the Material Region to cut away a finish layer (Cut Finish Layers of Parent Object) on the 12" thick wall where the windows are (just the width of the windows) to get the 4"walls. A plan would help - maybe in the appropriate forum?

Further to my last post... The wall layer you specify with Alt-Q will snap to the grid (if turned on), so that you could specify the internal wall layer and use grid snaps. http://screencast.com/t/P0i8YeniX4

Keith_A, Can you post the Chief plan file, or at least part of it? Don't worry about the .dwg file if it is a problem. Have you tried the Edit Wall Layer Intersections tool? I think your problems are caused by you using single layer walls which don't allow for many intersection alternatives.

Use Alt+Q (Defaults...Walls...General Walls) to set the position of the wall handles. This setting also affects other wall behaviours like alignment. Also, Chief will now auto flip a wall when a room is closed because it knows the inside and outside of the wall. This eliminates the need to draw anti-clockwise which was required in older versions. Although, you still need to be aware that when drawing walls in a clockwise direction, Chief will draw the wall with the outside of the wall on the outside - this is not affected by the Alt-Q setting.

Do you really want to be placing and sizing Wall Material Regions over all the walls in your plan? OK for 1 area, but not the whole plan. Another way to do this is with the Cross Section camera.

You could also use the rainbow tool (Adjust Material Definition). Define your wall siding material with one of the Material Classes that has Transparency. Then in a 3D view, use the rainbow tool to select the material and change the Transparency to 100%. This will change every instance of that material. In this pic, I have set the transparency to 50%, just so you can see the semi-transparent brick skin with the timber stud wall behind. Set it to 100% and the brick skin will disappear completely.

Barry, Uncheck "Cut Finish Layers of Parent Object"?

I would normally use Elevation Points to set the heights rather than the Elevation Regions that Scott uses in the video. I think that the ER's would effect the terrain differently than an EP (where there are no Terrain Breaks).

Same problem as your other thread. Your left side and rear walls are No Room Definition.

Joe, How many times do we need to tell you. PTFP!

It is rebuilding as soon as you delete it. You can go to Defaults....Wall...General Wall...and uncheck Connect Island Rooms. But this is not recommended as it may cause other problems. You would be better off making your fireplace walls "No Room Definition". Delete the room divider wall and it won't rebuild because your fireplace isn't a room anymore.

Chief auto builds the foundation (Level 0) if Automatically Build Foundation is toggled on in the Build Foundation dbx. Chief automatically defines a Garage room as having the floor provided by the floor below (it is a characteristic of the Room Type, of which there are several - look up room types in the help) - but you can manually change this later. In this case, yes, the ceiling height is set on Level 1 and because the floor is being provided from the floor below (Level 0), it's floor height is set on Level 0. If a room isn't defined as having it's floor provided by the floor below, the floor is created on the same level as the room and then you can create a normal foundation (either a mono slab or walls+footings) - you can set Chief to build these automatically. http://screencast.com/t/AMQFUWpHZbk

Keith, This is not correct. The conversion between degrees, minutes and seconds and decimal degrees is a bit more complicated. The conversion is D(dec) = D+M/60+S/3600 You can't just use the same digits and ignore the formatting.. Chief can handle the conversion easily by using Number Style in a dbx. eg, 42° 23' 44" converts to 42.395556° using this feature (not 42.2344º).

Preferences...Architectural... Circle Unconnected Wall Ends. But you are better off leaving this checked and fixing the problem with Build...Wall...Fix Wall Connections which fixes all wall connections in the plan, or you can use the Connect Walls tool on the Edit toolbar for individual walls.

Keith, The Elevation Regions were probably created automatically from closed polylines (contours). That's all an Elevation Region is - a closed Elevation Line. If you draw an closed Elevation Line (polyline) and open it's dbx, it is actually the Elevation Region dbx that opens - not the Elevation Line dbx.

Joe, I think that you missed what I was doing. I was not using reference sets to display the post on other floors in plan. I was using the reference set temporarily to locate the post so that I can draw a cad box on the other floors. And what you say is exactly why I do not use reference sets to indicate the posts on other floors. I do not like using individual posts on different floors because they are too hard to keep synchronised if they need to be moved. And I don't care about the material list. Each to his own.

I am not sure on a mac, but on a PC you can go View...Zoom...and set it to a smaller zoom value. This assumes that the post is not one piece spanning the 2 floors. I was also demonstrating the fact that you can place an object on one floor in plan and have it display on another floor in 3D. I don't use reference sets to do tis sort of thing because I couldn't be bothered changing reference sets or redefining reference sets to display these types of objects. I place the cad box once and it is there permanently.

This is what I do in this situation. I forgot to move the post, but you can see that if you move it in plan, it will move on all floors that it spans. I think this is a better way than having separate posts on each floor - it is a lot easier to control the objects over multiple floors - especially if they need to be moved. http://screencast.com/t/EbtGY6RFV

Johnny, Perhaps...could be another setting?.... http://screencast.com/t/6qUQmOcZg8

Keith, You have several Elevation Regions that are causing most of the problems. There is one main culprit in the top left corner of the site and several down in the lower left. The easiest way to delete them all is to select one, click the Match Properties tool, check Object Type (make sure it is an Elevation Region), OK. This will select all (well, most of them) the Elevation Regions in the plan, hit Delete. Rebuild the terrain. There are other weird things going on with the plan as well - but the above is the main cause of your problems. Here is a video: http://screencast.com/t/IiVcGgbeI