glennw

The molding cables are a completely separate entity than the railing wall. Draw a molding polyline in plan the rough shape you want next to the railing wall - it is easy to drag into place later. It should default to zero height - if your deck is zero, great. Otherwise you can change it's height so that it is referencing the deck height. Add a molding as shown in my pic - I used a round handrail molding. Copy and offset them vertically at the required spacing - mine are 100mm. Drag the molding polyline so that it is located in the middle of the railing wall. I always find it good practice to make the railing wall the same width as the actual railing wall.

It sounds like you have already done it. Keep in mind that you don't set wall heights - walls build up to the roof. All you need to do is set your ceiling height to 4' and then set the roof pitch so that the ceiling height at the high end is 8' - you could do it by math, cad detail, or trial and error. The roof will pitch off the 4' ceiling height (approx) - you ay need to fine tune.

Why pony walls - I don't think you need pony walls. Set your ceiling height to 53" (or whatever you need) and auto build the roof. Turn off auto build roof. Set your ceiling height to the flat ceiling height.

Are you after something like this? Do you only want the subfascia and not the eave fascia?

More details needed. What shape, materials, size,..........etc

Have a play with Preferences>CAD>Line Properties>Endcap Printed Length and see if that helps.

What I quite often do is use an open rail type which supplies the posts and rails, and then use a Molding Polyline for the cables. It only takes a minute or two to copy and space a round molding for the cables.

Sorry for that Larry. I think I quoted a quote in your post.

If this is your opinion of Chief after using it fo 20 years, the my guess is that you have not learnt to use the program properly in that 20 years - especially when you say "where it is all eye appeal dimensional accuracy is not necessary or important" just isn't correct. Do you really believe that probably thousands of users use the program in any given day and rely on it's accuracy for both documentation and construction would do so if it wasn't accurate? There is no reason why you shouldn't be easily able to duplicate existing conditions - you just need to learn how to use the program.

I meant to include this one as well. It shows how to set the top and bottom heights and lock them.

George, In this plan, I have duplicated your stairs as free standing - no need to muck around with rooms, etc. Are you going to build a terrain? You can use polysolids for the paths - drawn from a side view. GLENNS 2083640283_ElevationinCadImpoortLindfield.plan

George, I haven't downloaded your plan yet, but will do so. I can't see any reason why you would need external rooms to do that arrangement of stairs. I wouldn't do it that way. You should be able to draw the stairs on the floor plan you want them to display on and then use the settings like Top Height, Bottom Height, etc. You could then use poly solids, slabs, or some of the terrain tools, etc for the paths.

The trailing text is the thickness of the main layer in the newly created wall. In this case 11".

I am not 100% sure of your requirements but if you make the invisible wall between the 2 decks a no room def wall, or delete it, the deck framing will build correctly. It looks like that wall may have only been there for you to design the roof?

I can think of two reasons straight off that may require the stairs to be built in a room definition. 1. If you have any winders in the stairs - probably unlikely with external stairs. 2. If you want to break the stairs and see the one flight going up on the lower floor and down from the upper floor, you need to build an open below room on the upper floor. Or...use some other tricks to get the same result.

Let me know if you want to do a Zoom share screen and I will run you through the basics.

I think you know what my comment on that would be! Can you post a plan - save me drawing one? I prefer to do it manually by using 3 stair sections. The auto stairs use 2 stairs and stair landings for the winders and landings. And you only get 2 winders - easier with manual.

Post the plan. I vaguely remember seeing this or similar more than a few years ago, but can't for the life of me remember the exact cause. It was something like a room with a higher ceiling, or a taller door, or......... I won't be able to sleep now!

George, Pretty well as I said above...except. Once you have the stairs coming to a point, move the that point of the stairs that point to the correct location with Point To Point move. The stairs will probably then need the width adjusted - you can do that by dragging the outside of the stairs to bump the inside wall surface. Plan attached. I ignored the rails at this stage. 277319403_StairSample GLENN.plan

George, The winders first. Place a straight stair, lock number of treads at 3. Select the stairs and while holding Ctrl drag the top of the stairs around so that the top is at 90deg to the bottom. Drag the small grip on the inside of the stairs to the center point -- use some guide lines if needed. Make sure the stairs are inside a room or you won't get any winders. I couldn't read the dimensions on your posted diagram. I just noticed you posted the plan - I will post anyway and have a look at your plan a bit later.

Panels

Is this close to the type of fence you want?

You can use Wall Coverings for down and dirty solution.

You should be able to get most of the way there with the curved stair tools.

You can change the label location of an Elevation Line. As far as I know, you can't change the label location of an auto generated Contour Line.