glennw

I wouldn't waste my time trying to do anything with that file. It's a series of nested cad blocks which contain multiple duplicate cad entities. It would be a whole lot faster to draw it from scratch in Chief - a lot faster than the time spent here.

If they are actually doorways (ie, no door, just an opening) and you want to infill with a color or material to fill the opening, you could try using a Wall Niche or Wall Material Region and change the Backing material to suit.

Michaels suggestion will bring the ML in as a text box. ie, no column names, no row numbers, no coloured rows, etc - really just the cell text. You could also Print the ML to a .pdf and then import the .pdf into the layout. It would then look exactly like the original ML

As far as I can see, the only thing that Chief can't do is the graded fills.

Move the cursor back to where the main wall runs through the bay window and they will place inside the bay.

David, I agree it needs a fix, I was just trying to get you out of trouble. I will have a play and see if I can figure out why it happens. I think the same situation came up way back with one of Scott's plans and there was a different solution.

David, You don't get the wall remnants under the box window if you make it at lest 15" deep. This distance is correct for your wall types, but it does vary depending on the wall types

I posted a similar example a few weeks back. Someone wanted to account for paint volume. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/19195-interior-wall-paint-estimating/?tab=comments#comment-157570 You could end up with something like this

And a big advantage of Jon's picture is that it is all 3D (I think)!

Have a play with a room designated as "Shelf Ceiling" - a room with a lower ceiling than the room that contains it - a mezzanine.

Placing the camera on the floor and pointing up will not give you a reflected ceiling plan - the result will be the reverse of a normal "reflected ceiling plan". A reflected ceiling plan is a plan drawn in plan view (the camera facing down) to show what would appear on a mirror placed on the floor (or anywhere under the ceiling). You would normally draw things in a plan view and control the display of objects with layers and layersets.

You could also use the Wall Covering option on either a wall by wall basis or room by room basis. This will calculate to the Material List as area in the Interior Trim section. This option may give you more flexibility by keeping away from the wall definition and avoiding zero thickness wall layers which can sometimes cause problems. Once you have the area, you just need to calculate the volume of paint by using the paint manufacturers coverage rates. You can do this by inserting a formula into the ML to convert the paint Trim area into paint volume. If the coverage is 16sqm/Litre (sorry for the metrics), divide the Trim area by 16 to get the litres of paint (you will have to change the units from square to volume). Double click in the Count column and Interior Trim paint row. It should say "= automatic_count". Edit this so that it says "= automatic_count/16" (or what ever your paint cover rate is). Double click in the Unit column and scroll down and select a unit for the paint quantity (pints, gallons, etc). You may need to create a new Unit Conversion if a suitable unit is not available. In the ML, you will get the paint volume on a wall by wall basis (as well as a total) and prices if you enter any costings. You can end up with something like this:

Douglas, Try this. I have used a single layer wall for the posts - just a framing layer. You can specify the post size and spacing in the Wall panel of the build Framing dbx. When you uncheck "Use Wall Framing Material" you can then specify stud thickness and spacing. Once you have built the framing, you can alter the size and location of any of the posts. Before building the framing, I placed a Wall Material Region on the wall. The Wall Material Region is the walling layer. Have a look at the Define Material dbx and see how I have set up the material to be the correct size for both render and vector views. I am not sure that the Terrain Path you have used is the best method - but whatever works for you. With my wall, you can easily edit the size and location of the posts, adjust the height of the walling, step the wall, set the posts down into the ground....etc. timber retaining wall 2 GLENNS.plan

I am not so sure that I would be building brick piers on a timber deck!

OK, this way may be better as you can control the height of the posts and walling independently. You also get the pattern in vector view on both sides of the walling Use a single layer wall and make it a framing layer. Apply a Wall Material Region for the walling - click on the wall to cover the whole wll in one go. If you move the wall, the Material Region will move with it.

You may be able to use a wall with 2 layers - one for the walling and one for the posts. Make the post layer a framing layer. You can then control the post size and spacing in the Build Framing dbx. Make the top and bottom plates zero. One drawback is that you won't see the wall pattern in a vector view because the pattern only displays on the outside of the wall. The rendered views look OK though. You should be able to change the size of the pattern on the General tab of the Define Material dbx. Hint: to get a vertical terrain step, use a Terrain Break and snap your Elevation Regions to the Terrain Break. I think this is an easier and more flexible method than using Terrain retaining Walls. ie, don't use a retaining wall, use a plain vanilla wall.

I usually find that occurs as a result of the floor platform building through the walls, commonly caused by either the main wall layer or the "build platform to" layer being designated incorrectly.

Joe, I am not sure I follow you 100%. You can assign Wall Coverings on a wall by wall basis, or by the room basis. ie, Wall Coverings don't have to be "applied to all the wall surfaces in the room". But yes, all the Wall Coverings in the room are listed in the 1 column.

4 Because the roof pitch setting in the wall dbx overides the roof pitch setting in the Build Roof (or Roof Defaults) dbx.

From the help file: "There are a maximum of three rows of automatically generated dimensions per exterior wall direction. The innermost dimension line locates exterior walls, interior walls, and all openings in exterior walls. The second dimension line locates exterior and interior walls. The outermost dimension line is the overall exterior dimension." Chances are that you won't be able to get exactly what you want. My advice is to make the best of what Chief provides and don't fight it.

Sorry, I meant to say the outside surface of the main layer.

He should be able to just build a stick frame gable over the hip trusses.

I think you need to explain in a bit more detail exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Or...if you don't want to create a room, you can control the stairs in the stair dbx. On the General panel, you can control things like Top Height, Bottom Height, Riser Height, etc. Uncheck Automatic heights first. You can also Ctrl drag stairs and they will draw down from a floor instead of up. "Lock Top" to the floor and then change some of the parameters.

It looks to me like you need to change the Elevation of the Terrain Elevation Region. In this picture I changed it to -400".