glennw

If you are placing your cad details in a separate plan (or even the same plan), you could utilise Plan Views to quickly locate them. Zoom in to your cad detail wherever it is located and save a Plan View (check Remember Zoom and save the floor if needed), name it to identify the detail's name. Then all you need to do to find the detail is to select it's name from the Plan View dropdown or the Project Browser and Chief will go to the correct floor and zoom into the correct detail, ready for use.

Chief calculates drywall height including floor and ceiling finishes (Rough Ceiling Height), so make sure you are including the correct room height in your calculations.

Are you somehow toggling View>Crosshairs?

Doesn't the selectable Preview Width do the same as a zoom - only not as elegantly.

Neil, Looks pretty good to me. You need to get the height correct by changing the Subfloor Height Above Terrain or rebuilding the foundations to the correct height. I would not move the house, I would move the terrain and the terrain data - leave the house where it is. Work out where you want the terrain to go and then maybe place a point and use Point To Point move after selecting the Terrain Perimeter and Terrain Data. Otherwise, you can use Edit Area All Floors to move the house. You really need to get rid of those break marks on the top and left of the terrain - they are a classic! Reminds me of the time that the bricklayers were building the plan north point which they thought was a BBQ! As Mick says, there is no shortage of training materials - start with Chiefs training videos. If you open up the help file, there is a bar across the top of each page that says "Click to view related online training videos" - well worth a look.

One advantage worth mentioning is that the as built referenced floor plan is interactive. ie, if you open the as built referenced plan file and make any changes to it, the changes are interactively reflected in the referenced plan in the main drawing - no having to go through the process of making a new cad mask if the as built plan is edited.

They have a limited use for placing short notes on a 3D view.

Neil, They are controlled by the Text Style assigned to the layer your boundary polyline is on. Several ways to change it, here is one way: Select the polyline, Object Layer Properties on the Edit toolbar, Text Style, Define, Edit, Character Height. Be aware that if the Default Text Style is being used elsewhere as well, that text will also change (like the contours). You may nee to use another text style or create a new one just for your boundaries and contours. The contours are on a different layer, but are also using the same text style as the boundary polyline, so they change along with the boundary lines text. Do you realise that not only do you have a terrain, but you also have about 7 copies of a polyline the same size as the terrain. They are all stacked on top of each other - that needs fixing. I am at a loss understanding what you are trying to do with the 2 plans - why the need for 2 plans? You should be able to do it all in the one plan. What are you trying to copy and paste. I don't see any structures. I don't see the .pdf because you haven't saved it in the plan.

Mick, The Edit Behavior tools are not toggles, you have to select another edit behavior type if you want to get out of an edit bahavior - you always need to be in an Edit Behavior so a toggle would not work. Basil, Preferences>Reset Options...

Zowie, Selecting just railings is easy. Internal and external walls not so easy. Select a railing, Marquee Select Similar from edit toolbar, select Restrictive Selection from edit toolbar. Draw a marquee around the whole plan or select Select All Similar. Only railings will be selected.

I doubt if you will get too many offers of help with an open ended request like that. You will need to be a lot more specific with your request. You could start by looking at all the reference materials like the manual, training videos, erc.

Steve, I don't have time for a video at the moment, but a few things to get you going. Be aware that not only can we now have multiple reference plans, we can have reference plans that reference external plan files. ie a completely different plan than the current one. You can add referenced plans by using Insert Above and Insert Below. Each row is a different reference plan. The row number determines the draw order. Upper rows draw on top of lower rows. You can Move rows up and down to change the draw order. To reference an external plan file, click the drop down box in the Plan column and select Choose Existing Plan. Oh, forgot to mention, you can reference another plan (3D) in a 3D view - very cool. Sorry, that's all I have time for. The manual does a pretty good job of explaining it. And I am sure someone will do a vid for you - Chief has probably got one already.

I believe the only time that happens is when you have a single layer wall or, more specifically, no layers outside the main layer. Also, I don't think that I would be making the air gap the main layer. What is going to happen when you build a roof for instance?

Rocky, I am in Australia, so I really don't know what "tomorrow evening" is. If you leave Skype open (and make yourself active) when you are on line, I will try and make contact with you when I can.

You should be able to get what you want by unchecking exterior casing (if required). Then on the Window Specification>Frame panel......uncheck Fit Frame to Wall and play with the Depth and Inset settings.

Are you available now?

Rocky, If you would like another Skype session to run through auto roofs on that project, let me know. Why do it manually and go though all that when you could do it auto.

Mick, It is called Grid Snaps. I have it on my toolbar and assigned to GS.

Larry, This was a suggestion I sent in earlier on which seems to be along the lines of your request.

They are not standard elevation views. Vector elevation view with patterns toggled on?

When using auto roofs, if the roof is not correct after the first build, don't give up and go to manual. I find it is good practice to persevere with the auto roof build. Instead of trying to manually edit the auto roof planes, leave auto build on, tile a 3D view and floor plan, and edit the building structure or roof settings and see what they do to the auto roof build. More often that not, it just requires a change to either the Roof panel of the Wall Specification dbx or the Build Roof dbx, to get the correct roof to build. It should not take long at all to build an auto roof on a plan like that and you will have no problems with joining roof angles, rotated roof planes, baselines in the wrong location, etc...

Johnny, I agree that comparison just doesn't make sense. The terrain cannot be compared to a statically sized surface or piece of material like a sheet (or Cellophane). The terrain needs to be compared to a surface that can stretch and contract like a sheet of rubber. It would be impossible to create a terrain (other than flat) if the terrain surface could not expand and contract.

Looks like you will need some triangular mounting blocks to fix those mounting plates to.

If it is a room, decrease the ceiling height by 9".

Eric, I redid the roof correctly this time (still auto roofs) with the center ridge lower and not being a continuation of the left hand roof. And guess what - I get exactly same roof as you. Certainly not a roof that I would ever build! Yours: Mine: