glennw

No, not a hardware issue. All your lines are parallel, but they are not at 90deg and 0deg. they are at 0.022778°. I don't know how you did that though. To check, draw a horizontal line, make it parallel to the site plan, check it's angle.

Use a 30' high Terrain Feature and give it a transparent material.

Could you be confusing square feet with square meters?

Thanks Joe, I know it works for wall definitions, but I wasn't sure about symbols.

I don't have access to Chief at the moment, so I can't check, but if you change the layer for a symbol and then save it to the library, does it maintain the layer assignment?

Phyllis, Probably a good idea to post the plan.

I think the best way to do a retaining wall is not to use a Retaining Wall. Use a Terrain Break to get your change in levels (you don't need a retaining wall to do that) and then use a standard wall to just face the retained bank. You get this sort of effect: You can see the bank on the left hand side which is made by just the Terrain Break. There is a standard wall on the right, drawn in after using the Terrain Break. The standard wall is much easier to edit than a generated Retaining Wall, which usually ends up a mess with a many, many beaks in the top and bottom that are just too hard to edit.

Lisa, I really don't do videos - I am not set up for it so I leave them to the experts. Maybe d dot could do one? You should be able to work it out from the plan.

Mick, I also thought that it may be that they have Behavior Indicators, but Angle Snaps has a Behavior Indicator and that preference is saved between sessions.

This came up in another thread, but I thought I would start a new thread for the topic. Preferences are meant to save between sessions, but why don't Preferences...Edit...Behaviors...Rotate/Resize About Preferences...Edit...Behaviors...Rotate/Resize Edit Type Preferences...CAD...Options...Edit Object Parts save like all the other Preferences (I have not checked them all). Is it a bug or am I missing something?

Busssaw204, It depends what you mean by convert the plan. If all you want to do is display the dimensions as imperial or metric, do what Greg says. But that is not really changing the format of the whole drawing environment (dbx's etc.) - to do that you need to start with the correct Imperial or Metric template.

Phyllis, It isn't in the manual and the support don't know about it because it is just something I worked out today to try and come up with a solution to this old, old problem. Like most of these "workarounds", there are always some things that don't work 100%. Do you want to see handrails in plan, or Newels and Balusters, which you can already do. In my example, you can just turn them on to display in the stair dbx. PS. By the way, I didn't worry too much about making the stairs reach floor or tidying things up to much in my plan. I just wanted to get the process down to see if it would all work, so please don't post that the stairs don't reach the next floor or this little thing is wrong or that the toilet door is above the stairs, or that.......it is the method that is important, not the detail.

How about this for a partial open railing stair - as Fun2Learn is describing. It's a bit of futzing around - but it does work pretty well. It uses 2 stair flights on separate layers. This allows different settings for each stair - things like line type railings, width, transparency, etc, etc. No need for a landing either. You can control the stair heights manuall to get the upper section at the correct height. It utilises 2 layer sets one for the lower floor and one for the upper floor. The line types are set By Layer so that when you change floor, you need to change the Layer Set to get it all to look correct - not too hard. This setup allows the stairs to look correct on both floors and 3D. It allows you to see under the upper stairs (like seeing the toilet under). I'll attach the plan and some pics. Just remember to use the FLOOR PLAN Set for the lower floor and FLOOR PLAN Set 2 when you are on the upper floor. stairs.zip

d dot, I think you overestimate my knowledge of Chief. I didn't have a clue how to resize an image. But it only took about 45 seconds to find out how to do it and post the answer - and now I know.

Todd, The text size will only control the size of the Camera Callout if the Automatic setting is checked in it's dbx on the Plan Display panel. So...best to forget the automatic text style thing and do it manually - then you get exactly the size that you want. You can manually control the size of the Camera Callout by opening it's dbx, going to the Plan Display panel and unchecking Automatic for the Callout Size. You can then specify a custom size. The camera callout will not display in the plan or layout once you have sent it to layout and you don't have the camera view open, and you uncheck the display of the "Cameras, Inactive" and the "Cameras, Labels" layers. The fact that you send it to Layout, saves the camera, even though the Camera Callout is not displaying.

Jim, If that's "bologna", then how come I can have 3 "floors" in my plan. I have a room on floor 1, no rooms on floor 2 and a room on floor 3. I can set the floor and ceiling levels on the third floor room to exactly the same as the room on floor one. The third floor room appears exactly the same as the floor 1 room. I said in a previous post that floors can be used to associate different levels (floors) so that they appear on the one floor plan. So ...floors aint really floors! In this picture the left room is on floor 1, nothing on floor 2, and the right room is on floor 3 - go figure!

Tommy, To reshape (as opposed to resizing) the whole image. Select the image. Right click and drag a corner handle.

You can also assign a hot key to Down One Floor and Up One Floor.

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.