glennw

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:

No, not at all - this should all be able to be done with auto roofs. I managed to get the front roofs all auto built, but couldn't go any further because I don't know what types of roofs you want at the rear, and what ceiling/floor heights you want: Eric, I am curious - would you really build a roof like that?

You are going to have to explain what you are trying to do in more detail as it is not clear from your post. Aren't text and markers already aligned? There is nothing to unlock - they are just dimensions.

If I make the room definition (the decks) other than a Deck, the auto roof builds without the overhang on the top roof. Not sure why at this stage. But there is something screwy going on with your default settings. Maybe check your default floor settings and try and use them. eg, Why do you have a 600mm ceiling finish? I'm not saying that is the problem - but it wouldn't hurt to clean things up.

The simple answer is - don't use walls. It looks like you don't nee traditional walls anyway. Depending on your exact needs, there are other tools such as solids that you can manipulate.

I would use Wall Material Regions the width of the doors/windows with Cut Finish layers if needed. Leaving the whole wall as a single wall type - easier to work with than a wall broken into different wall types. The vertical cladding above and below the window is a single WMR.

Preferences>Appearance>Display>Images and Pictures>Display in Color When Possible?

Chris, Wall Specification dbx>Foundation panel>Footing>Vertical Footing?

I assume you are talking about the vertical centering. I don't know why that happens, but you can fix it with the margins. You can enter negative numbers for the margins to get it exactly as you want. Probably worth a bug report or at least ask Chief why it happens that way. I suspect it may be that the centering is correct if you use lower case letters instead of uppercase because Chief is accounting for descenders and ascenders - which aren't used for uppercase.

I am not sure what Eric did, but there was already a terrain in the plan which did not allow me to generate another terrain. I guess he must have deleted the existing one.

Is there more than one terrain?

Your terrain is on a layer called BOUNDARY, so make sure that is toggled on in the camera view. Open the Terrain Specification dbx and change the Terrain Surface Smoothing to Medium or any one except Linear. It looks like the terrain needs some work.

Eric, You reminded me of the Single Wall Hole option. If you mull the windows, uncheck Single Wall Hole and specify 2 trimmers, you get the same framing as I showed except that the casing displays are different.

Set the Minimum Separation to what you want - and make sure it is large enough to accomodate the framing and Rough Opening size. Either turn of casings or make sure they are small enough to fit the Minimum Separation size. Set the Trimmer Count to zero - I think the thing that causes Chief the problems is it is trying to build both normal studs and trimmers as well in a confined space - so forget about the trimmers. You should get you close to what you want. These studs are 38mm wide with a 10mm Rough Opening (96mm). I am not sure what your header or trimmer requirements are, but any minor changes can be made manually.

Rocky, This is standard behaviour. You can't change the length of a line by selecting the dimension. But...you can change the length of a wall by selecting it's dimension.

You can't extrude a rectangle. Were you in a 3D view of floor plan?

Thanks Mick - fixed.

Neil, Do yourself a favour and build the roof auto. It is quicker to set it up for auto build than it is to alter the roofs manually.