glennw

Change your Grid Snaps to 2'.

How about this. I can even make a sphere from a slab. I don't know what tool Joe is thinking about, but I would like to compare it to a slab. Sorry, Joe, I'm not interested in rule #6, so I guess I'm out of the race.

It should work as soon as you close Preferences - it does for me.

Nicinus, The setting that you mention at Preferences...Appearance...Minimum Display Size...Dimensions...Zero, should do it. if this is not working, maybe post a plan demonstrating the problem.

Without going through the whole process of designing each item, I think you could make an infinite number (well, a large number anyway) of items starting with a slab. They can be manipulated and edited in many ways, including the Boolean operations, extruding, revolving, etc., including the creation of compound curve shapes like this one that started as a slab. Joe, I am pretty sure that a slab can't be described as a primitive solid or cad.

Perry & Nicinus, It can be done. If you place a wall, change it's layer to, say, "My Interior Walls" and then save it to the library, it will retain it's layer assignment. So that all you need do is select the wall from the library. Or, better still, place it on a toolbar icon so that you can select it with one click and then start drawing the wall on your custom layer.

Doug-o, It sounds like you used Rotate Plan View to flip your plan. I would strongly advise against ever using this tool unless you know exactly what you are doing. It doesn't just rotate the plan on the screen, it actually rotates the "drawing board", including the coordinate system and other things - as you have discovered. It's as if you rotated your whole drawing board 180deg and now need to draw upside down. I think this is a good case for one of Lew's locks - Rotate Plan View lock or a warning asking if you really know what you are doing. Better to use another method to rotate your plan.

Nope, I'd never noticed that either. I assume you're referring to the triangle that lets me rotate the wall. Thanks for that tidbit. No, I think you are assuming wrongly. When you select a wall and get the temp dimension for it's length, the dimensions arrow is at the wall end. There is no dimension arrow on the wall start. The selected wall's grips will locate on the wall location specified by the Resize About setting when you select a wall. This was in response to post #4 by John where he describes relying on the grips to determine the wall direction. His described method could lead to confusion, depending on the Resize About setting.

You mean something like this which will show in both vector and standard view. A bit tedious though.

Keith, Try not to think of the number of floors as defining the number of floor LEVELS in the plan. Rather think of them as what floor LEVELS you want to show on each plan drawing. A little hard to explain without getting hung up on the terminology. eg, I could have a garage floor 100' above a house floor level, but I may still wish for them to appear on the same plan drawing. In this case, I really only need one floor level which would show both the hose and garage in plan. By setting the appropriate floor and ceiling for the house and garage the 100' difference would show in 3D views. This becomes more obvious when you have a three level house (one section a full 2 stories with a mid level attached on the side). You can draw it with 2 floor levels to represent the full 2 storey section, but then you can draw the mid level floor on either the lower or upper floor plan, depending on which floor you want it to display on. Either way will look identical in a 3D view.

If the model was a long way from the origin, it used to cause z fighting problems. I have a vague idea that they fixed that, but worth a check anyway.

Place the base cabinet in the corner. It should place with a diagonal front. To get 90deg doors instead of the diagonal, open it's dbx... Front panel...Options...uncheck diagonal door. To get the curved door, General panel...Size/Position...Bow Depth. Edit: you can use a negative Bow Depth to get a concave curved front.

If you can't get it back by playing with the library browser, try Preferences...Reset Options... Reset Side Windows.

The edit handles are located according to the Resize About setting (Alt+Q). So you need to be aware of this.

This is done all in one plan - I wouldn't even think of doing it any other way.

What would you do in real life?

Joe, Yes, you are correct. But I don't think that I was wrong - it does work that way. But, yes, yours is the better and easiest way.

I assume that you are talking about Moldings and not Millwork - there is a difference. To work on a Molding profile, use it on a molding polyline. Take a cross section through the Molding. Cad Detail from View. You can now edit the shape, copy, paste, etc.

Curt, I was doing some housekeeping and deleted all my pictures. Which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake. You will just have to use your imagination!

I would put the house and garage in the same plan, even though they are at different levels. That shouldn't cause much of a problem. It is easy to define the garages own levels, etc. I have done this many times. Too many disadvantages putting them in separate plans.

My opinion, for what it is worth, is to do the garage and house in one plan and place the adjoining buildings as you have outlined. There should be no problem controlling the garage and house, even if they are separate structures - well, maybe some small problems, but none that would be a deal breaker. Orient you plans on the screen as you want and do not rotate or move them - move and rotate the terrain instead.

Joe, I just had cataract surgery, but not for cataracts. I was both long and short sighted which meant wearing multi focals 100% of the time, which is a real hassle for sports, etc. I had my old lenses removed and replaced with Zeiss Intraocular lenses. I now have better than 20/20 vision and no glasses for the rest of my life - fantastic!

I believe you can't break the wall because you are trying to break it too close to the end of the wall. Chief insists on a minimum wall length which I think is about 1.5x the wall thickness. One way to overcome this restriction is to use a very thin invisible wall placed perpendicular to the wall you are trying to break. Place the invisible wall away from the corner with a break in the main wall. Drag the invisible wall close to the corner and the break will follow the invisible wall. Probably easier to use some other method though.

Well then, why can't you just use a hotkey for Select which will cancel the current command and put you in selection mode.

If you want Esc to return you to Selection mode, why don't you change it to do that. OOB Esc is mapped to Cancel Selection/Previous Command - but that can be changed. So if you wanted to retain that command (Cancel Selection), you would need to assign that to another hotkey. It may be just me, but I think I would prefer to keep Esc as Cancel Selection.