glennw

Yusuf, I found one of these in the Bonus Green Objects.

Dennis, I'm coming over a bit early to get some training from D Scott in San Diego and then driving up to San Francisco.

Larry, Maybe we could go on a date when I come over there.

Larry, You almost got there. Open the Define Material dbx - easiest way is the rainbow tool. On the General panel, select strip. I think you got up to here correctly. Set Height to the board width (we will rotate pattern next). Go to the Pattern panel and set Angle to 90deg. Done. You only need to use the Pattern Source section for complicated patterns like paving, complex brick patterns etc. Simple patterns you can control with the Material Type (Strip).

or...another way. in elevation, select the polysolid, on the Edit toolbar select Create Hole. Draw a hole on your polysolid

Or... Select the rail in a cross section/elevation view. Set it's height using the Temporary Dimension. Or, in a 3D view or cross section, you can temporarily uncheck it as a railing, drag the top down and then check it as a railing again.

It is probably here: C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\Chief Architect Premier X7 Data\Database Libraries\User_Library.calib You should be able to use the Import Library tool in the Library menu.

OK, I think I get it now. Yusuf is using the ramp elevation to set the height of the rails, or rather, set the bottom height of the piers.. I figured I can do this directly with the railing. In section, temporarily define the wall as a normal wall (no railing) drag the bottom down as far as required (you can't drag the bottom of a railing wall down) and then nominate it as a rail again. This would seem to be a lot simpler than using ramps - if I am understanding Yusuf's suggestion.

Yusuf, I am still not following your suggestion. Can you please post some pictures or do a quick video of what you are suggesting.

Dan, Yes, that works.

Yusuf, I'm not sure I follow you 100%. The Ramp railings don't have as much functionality as a Railing wall - such as auto spacing for the Newels (or ANY spacing for the Newels/Balusters). Can you post some further information on your suggestions?

You can do a symbol with a pier and footing for the balusters, but you can't control the height because the footing is part of the baluster and wants to sit on the floor and the foundation wall footing. ie, you can't have a level zero floor below the footing. It may be possible to do by inserting another floor and building the bearer/piers on that floor and then have the foundation walls/piers under on level zero - but is it really worth the effort? I'll have a play.

Perry, Yep, can do. Uncheck follow Terrain and the piers then sit on the level zero floor (even if there is no floor), which you can adjust as needed. You can also use a predefined combination pier/footing symbol from the library (Newels/Posts) if you need to show the concrete footings under the piers. Also works with odd shapes like tapered stumps, etc.

Select the roof and on the Edit toolbar, use the Break Line tool to add break points and shape the roof around the dormer.

Down here in Oz (or at least my work, and I have done hundreds of these), the owner usually stays in the house (95% of the time) while the upper floor is constructed. So it makes for a very clean job to leave the existing ceilings and framing and build a new timber floor platform over the existing ceiling. The other consideration is waterproofing the job asap. We remove the roof, build new floor platform (new floor framing and flooring). We then cover the whole floor platform with a custom welded poly tarpaulin that stays for the whole building time and the new walls are just built over it. At the end of the construction, the tarp is cut out room by room around the walls and taken away - rubbish and all. This process provides minimal disturbance to the owners living there - the only real disturbance is when the stair opening is cut through and that doesn't happen until the roof goes on and the new upper floor is waterproof.

Nick, Are you aware of the Follow Terrain and Step Terrain settings for railings/fences?

Mick, It uses a railing wall. Have a look at the attached plan - sorry about the metrics. Brick Piers and Bearers.zip

Mick, I'm not sure what dvx is - you would have to ask dscott.

Perry, The changes were all done automatically - well, it depends what you mean by automatically. I just didn't show the opening and closing of dbx's (sorry, dvx's), but the spacings, etc, were all automatic - I didn't do them all individually!

Scott, Did I give too much away in the vid? How did I know that you would probably be the one to figure it out! With your in depth knowledge Chief, I thought it wouldn't take you long. I was mainly playing around with a video technique to step through a process without all the manipulation, clicking, etc, as I only have 5 minutes to do the vid and was sometimes running out of time. It's sort of like recording a macro.

Here is a way to draw what we (here in Oz) call Bearers and joist construction for foundations. The building of the joists is taken care of by the Build Framing tool. So this is a technique to build the piers and bearer, and have control over the sizes, spacing, materials, etc. This will only work on flat sites, so please, please don't reply saying that it's no good because you have a sloping site! So, let me stress that I am not saying it is the be all and end all for building these, just that it is one way that may help some users under certain circumstances. http://screencast.com/t/HrCWjb6B

Larry, Works for me with attic walls. As per Micks answer, it is probably because of the Retain Wall Framing setting - not because it's an attic wall. You can uncheck Retain Wall Framing and then the icon will appear on the Edit toolbar.

Larry, Thanks for doing the vids - saved me a bit of work. Looks like you have got it figured out. I remember posting this technique for board and batt way back - I'll see if I can find it. One thing that you did miss though, when doing the gable infill wall thingy. You don't have to frame the walls for the whole model at the one time. You can set up all your options under default wall framing for the batten wall. Select the batten wall and then the Build Framing For Selected Objects on the Edit toolbar. Check Retain Wall Framing for that wall. You can then go back to the wall framing defaults, change any options and then build the framing for the rest of the house. PS Here is a link to an older thread about a year ago where I suggested this technique. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/137-board-and-batten-siding-texture/page-2?hl=board

Larry, When I posted my last message, I thought that the "battens" were what we call fretwork - spaced out from the wall. It seems that they are really battens on the wall surface. I still think it is easier to do it in the wall definition by adding a framing layer to the outside of the wall definition - this really gives you a 3D board and batten wall and still leaves plenty of scope for customisation and editing. I will do a vid when I get time.

Larry, How about this for a different angle to the problem. Forget about polysolids and build them all automatically! I just had a play and it seems to work. Wouldn't it be nice to have a bottom and top plate if you want (for fixing the verticals to), the tops of individual pieces splayed to match the roof pitch, shaped to roof or shape it how you want, etc, etc. Basically it uses a wall with one layer - the framing layer and no finish layers. I guess you can work the details out from there. There are heaps of options to get things the shapes and sizes that you want. Set up the framing defaults to suit what you want. Build the framing for that wall and then define it as Retain Wall Framing. You can then change the framing defaults to build other framing as needed. You can even place openings in the woodwork by using a temporary window, build framing, and then delete the window. You can edit the framing in plan, 3D or the Wall Detail. This is one I drew up in a couple of minutes just to see how it would go.