glennw

Perry, I'm glad you mentioned this. Here is my take on this. Because Chief is room based, when you have auto build foundation turned off and you build an enclosed room, Chief needs to build a floor. By default, Chief builds a mono slab on level 1 and I don't think that you can change this behaviour (to walls with footings) without having a foundation floor. So...when Chief auto builds this "virtual slab", it is really just building a mono slab under the room without a foundation floor (level 0) below. It is not really a "virtual slab" - it is a real mono slab under a room - it's not a Floor Supplied by the Foundation Room Below slab. You can't have a Walls with Footings foundation without a foundation floor level (level 0) - you can only have a slab, so...if you don't have a foundation floor, Chief can only build a mono slab - or a slab without footings. The upshot is, it isn't a "virtual slab" - it is a real mono slab on level 1. I very often build a house with a mono slab where the mono slab is built on level 1 (the main floor level) without a foundation level (level 0) or without a foundation floor. Chief is just building a Floor Under This Room as a Monolithic Slab Foundation, without Floor Supplied by the Foundation Room Below. Clear as.....

It even gets a bit weirder. Have a look at the attached pic. The red line in the plan view on the right has been rotated -20deg using Rotate Plan View. It was then sent to the layout and the layout box was rotated 20 deg so that the line is vertical. Notice that the text in the line still changes at any angle greater than 90deg (12 o'clock). ie, the text is still changing in relation to the monitor and not the drawing page, layout sheet or layout box. No big deal in the scheme of things, but still interesting.

Mick, Doesn't matter wether they are Chief provided or custom linestyles. Both types will behave that way. I don't have a clue about importing from another cad program. Text in linestyles actually behave a little bit oddly in that they change when they are at a greater angle than 90deg (12 o'clock), BUT, if you use Rotate Plan View, they behave exactly the same. ie, the reference is the screen (12 o'clock) and not the drawing sheet. I would have thought that the change angle (where the text flips) was relative to the drawing sheet and not the screen.

I am not sure that you can do anything to change that. Chief automatically rotates them so that they read correctly from the bottom and right hand sides of the drawing sheet. This happens for lines drawn at an angle greater than 90d. Those lines are drawn at an angle greater that 90d - is that the angle they are meant to be drawn at?

Ross, No, it is a lot more than a polyline solid. If you only have thin finish layers on a wall, you won't see much difference with cut Finish layers on or off. You only have a 10mm finish layer on your colorbond wall, so you won't see the full effect when you use a WMR with Cut Layers checked. Increase the colorbond layer to something like 100mm and you will see what happens. The WMR replaces the finish layers of the wall with its own layers, into the depth of the wall's main layer. This allows you to do things like recess the colorbond panel into the wall. And by using various layers (and invisible layers) in the WMR, you can cover various scenarios.

Ross, I'm glad it's sorted. I just amended my last post with a suggestion regarding the Wall Material Region.

Ross, Have you changed the wall material in the Materials panel of the wall dbx or painted the wall material? Select the wall over the door and open it's dbx. Go to the Material panel. Select Exterior Wall Surface...Select Material...Plan Materials. Scroll up to the top of the list and select Use Default...OK...OK. That should do it. Just a tip if you only want the Colorbond over the door itself. Leave it how it was and use a Wall Material Region to place the colorbond over just the door. Use a single colorbond material and Cut Finish Layers options.

Mick, You said what I said, but you beat me to it. My post was superfluous, so I deleted it.

Bill, From the help file:

Here you go Mick. Because it is a railing wall, it can contain all sorts of information like spacing, beam size, height, setback, roof pitch, roof o/hang, column size, materials, etc. All these can be saved as the default settings with the wall or edited in the wall dbx after placement, Porch Rail.plan

Scott, You said exactly what I was going to say. If you want to drop the wall height and leave the above ceiling/floor alone, use a railing wall. If you drop the ceiling and expect the floor above to stay put, then you need to "fill in" the space above the new dropped ceiling. You could do this with a thicker ceiling/floor structure, or some other way, BUT, you have to make up for the height that you just dropped the ceiling by.

Steve, This is really easy to do with a predefined wall type that you can save to your library, or place on a tool button. Select the wall from the tool bar and draw - couldn't be easier. Johnny, I don't understand, why would I want a more non-automated way to do this? Why would I want to make it more complicated and take longer? http://screencast.com/t/GrLixLW2i4ip

Larry, I have come in late to this thread and I am trying to catch up. I think the original problems were caused by the foundation room settings, as the floors on level 1 are supplied by the foundation rooms - thus, the floor heights were actually being set by the foundation rooms and not the level 1 rooms which is where you were trying to change them. Quite often, with mono slabs, you don't have to have the foundation level supplying the floor for the room above. You can just have the level 1 room supply it's own mono slab. The trick is that you can't do that if you have foundation rooms on level zero. You can delete the foundation rooms on level zero and then have the level 1 room supply its own mono slab. In the pics below, why do you have a lot of ceiling framing (Ceiling Joists) that is higher than the roof framing (Rafters and roofing)? Why do you have polyline ceilings in the hallway and the laundry? I think some of your problems are caused because you are trying to do some things manually instead of letting Chief do them automatically (and vice versa).

Go Preferences...Reset Options...Reset Side Windows.

If you post the plan and an indication of what you want, you may even get it done for nothing. :-)

Scott, Count me in if you want to do a GTM on this. As long as it isn't in them middle of the nite for me. I will be back home from travelling tonite.

I think you could also use a primitive pyramid with a truncated top.

Alan, I haven't got access to Chief at the moment, so I can't open your plan. But, to get the rail to setback from the edge of deck, you can change the railing wall definition to include an invisible layer (use No Material), the thickness of the setback.

Bruce, Did you change the Pad Elevation in the terrain dbx?

I have said it before, but it is worth saying again. Rotate Plan View does not rotate the plan on the drawing sheet (although it appears to) - it actually rotates the whole drawing sheet, and the plan with it. That means (among other things) that the coordinate system also rotates. It's easy to see that complications can occur! Better to use one of the other rotation methods instead.

Kelly, Use Rotate Plan View to rotate the plan 90deg. Now use the imput line tool to draw a line at zero degrees. Zero degrees should be at 3oclock. What happens?

You got it Rich. Don't use Rotate Plan View. I have just got back into civilisation after having travelled across the remote north Australia by 4 wheel drive. It's nice to sleep in a bed for a change.

Way to go Alan. Exactly the same as mine - logical and easy to remember. Even if you forget them, they are easy to guess.

Rich, Off the top of my head, without access to Chief.... Can you use the Delete Surface tool to delete the end "caps" and them convert to a symbol with appropriate stretch planes? Or, you could make your moulding a double surface " C" shape with the open part of the C just about touching. The join goes against the wall. That's similar to how they are actually made in Oz.

Thanks Joe, my mind is definitely not on the job! - I was close though! Scott, we are off to northern Australia - the "outback".