glennw

Select the poly solid. On the Edit toolbar select Convert To Solid.

Don't worry, I see what you have done. It's just the polyline solid. The layer was turned off in the camera view.

All I get in that floor plan is a polyline hole. Can you try again. Close Chief before zipping the plan.

Joe, I am glad things are working for you. My apologies, I assumed that by telling us your setup, you wanted to help solve this particular problem so I was suggesting something that may help us track the problem down. Don't bother changing anything if you are not trying to help and if you are happy with your setup. Maybe you should start another thread to deal with your other topic.

Post the plan

Joe, What happens if you try running with your LB & PB undocked for a few days.

Here is mine.

Gene, posting the plan would help.

The Aerial View works well for navigating around large drawings. I also have sequential shortcuts like ZA (zoom all), ZW (zoom window), ZI (zoom in), ZO (zoom out), PA (pan), ZP (zoom previous, or Undo Zoom), ZB (zoom building only). These make it easy to go exactly where you want.

Curt, Briefly, you need to draw a new WMR for each wall layer that you want to "expose". But keep in mind that the wall layers we are "exposing" have no direct link to the actual wall - we are not really exposing wall layers. In other words, we are not really exposing the walls layers, we are using WMRs to draw the materials in a hole in the wall. The hole in the wall is automatically cut down to the main layer if the "Cut Finish Layers of Parent Object" is checked. So you will typically need a WMR for each displayed material and each WMR will have 2 layers. Layer 1 is the material you want to "expose" - give it the correct thickness and material. Layer 2 is the spacing out from the wall's main layer - give it the thickness from the wall's main layer to the back of the "exposed" material and give it a material Insulation Air Gap or No Material.

Gene, Do you have 3D View Defaults...General Options...Auto Rebuild Terrain toggled on? If so, try toggling it off.

Perry, I have often thought that this forum must be a huge cost saving for Chief. With guys like Scott doing videos and all the other advice given, it must take a huge load off Chief's support departmen.t

The new Wall Material Region is good for doing wall cutaways:

Thanks for that Kilgore, sometimes it's hard to think of everything!

Kevin, I think you will find that things like Drip Edges (Gable and Eave), Edge Flashings, Ridge Vents, Valley Flashings will be calculated in the materials list although they do not display in 3D.

Gene, Pretty easy to fix for 3D. In the window dbx go the Options panel. Mullion Depth.

View...Toolbars. Try the toggle and see if they come back.

Put all the original .plx files in the one directory. Open the .pl1 file in Chief X6. This should combine all the floors and display the whole model. Select everything on Level 1 and delete it. Open the file that you amended in X6 (the original .pl1 file) select everything and copy/paste into Level 1 of the new X6 plan. You can use Edit Area to make sure you get everything for the copy/paste.

Yes, I can confirm. In X6, I just opened a .pl1 plan from an old file. The directory also included the .pl2 files, etc. The whole model opened in Chief - all the floors, the attic, terrain. Dimensions were a bit of a mess, but a change in the dimension dbx fixed that very easily.

You could also use a Roof Baseline Polyline and set it height to suit.

Have you tried the setting in the Build Roof dbx at Roof...Roof Height...Raise/Lower From Ceiling Height? This is what happens:

Kirk, I am on a PC and have the same settings as you. Same Chief build version. I don't think it happens much (if at all) during the same computer session. Even if I open and close Chief several times in the same computer session, things seem to be OK. It is particularly noticable if I reboot and then open a new Chief session. I am still testing the above method to see if it has permanently solved the problem.

Try opening your template plan and then opening the LB & PB and save them to your preferred size and location. Save the template plan. Close and reopen Chief. The PB & LB should open where you set them.

Ok d dot, we are getting caught up with semantics. If you changed the defaults in the default plan and saved it as Plan 1 and that is what now loads when you start Chief, then these are NOT the OOB settings. OOB means OUT OF BOX - OOB doesn't mean when Chief loads. Take the Chief DVD and install it on your computer - you will have the OOB defaults. Once you change the defaults and save then to that Plan 1 template plan, they are no longer OOB - they are your new defaults. Doesn't matter if they load when Chief starts up - they are not OOB defaults (by definition)! I think I might just give you another negative report!!

The OOB settings come from the Template plan specified at Preferences....General...New Plans...Plan Template. If you never change and save any default settings to your template plan, then yes, you will always get the OOB settings. But, as soon as you change a default setting and save it to your template plan, you will no longer get the OOB settings. Using your SAM method is no different than using a Template plan. When you start a new plan, how do you open your SAM plan? This plan is your template plan - whichever way you look at it.