LevisL

After Mark mentioned the off-angle edges, I looked more and I'm finding all kinds of precision issues with the roof planes on your plan, which explain many of your problems:

1. The upper roof planes are not identical on both sides and aren't properly joined at the ridge. One side has a pitch of 4.002289" (change the dbx to decimal inches to see).

2. The overhangs are not exactly 24" all around, due to the off angle edges Mark discovered.

3. Your lower roof with the "different ridge cap" doesn't actually have a ridge cap because it isn't properly joined either. Part of the ridge on the lower plane is also at an odd angle.

4. That 3:12 roof in between the upper and lower roofs is a couple inches to high and doesn't extend all the way to the upper wall.

If I can give you a few pointers to improve accuracy:

1. Make sure your object snaps are on, as well as angle snaps

2. Work with line weights turned off to be able to see better if things are lining up

3. Use the 'Join Roof Planes' tool instead of manually joining ridges

Still trying to figure out the wall intersection problem. I'll keep you posted on that one!

Zoom in real close on this point and you'll see that your overhangs don't quite match. I made them snap to the point you have there and the fascia looks like it should after that.

1 minute ago, rgardner said:

Do you have any manually placed ceiling planes that are not snapped to the drywall or main layer by chance?

Or maybe an errant attic wall floating around somewhere?

10 hours ago, Connelly said:

When a layout is saved as a pdf and then printed, the scale is off. Paper size is ARCH 24 x 36 and scale is set to 1/4" = 1'. The error factor is different on different printers. The printout from Office Depot, a 40' dimension measures 38' 10.5" using a scale ruler. That is an error of 2.8%. The printout from our Engineer, a 40' dimension line measures 39' 7" on a scale ruler, a 1.5% error.  Either way, it presents problems in the field. How do I make sure the scale on the print outs are accurate?

The problem might not be how you created the pdf... it could also be on the end of whoever is printing the pdf document. Are they printing at 100% scale? Often times the default setting when printing from a pdf reader/viewer is "Reduce to printer margins" or "Fit to paper" or something along those lines. 

I'm guessing you have 'Floor Supplied by the Foundation Room Below' checked in the structure tab of your garage room. If that's the case, put your room divider on the foundation level and it should work. You could also use a floor material region.

You should be able to do that from whatever pdf viewer/editor you are printing from. Here's a screenshot from the print dbx in Adobe Acrobat Reader on a Mac.

1 hour ago, robdyck said:

How many? What I'd do if I were you, is model the under slab insulation and make a fixture. Set it's stretch zones, and set all the Object Information and Components. Then, I'd add it to my library as well as my template plan for heated garages. 

You could also do it with a molding profile assigned to a polyline around your perimeter (or more than one molding if you want to do the edge, skirt, and angled insulation separately).

32 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

In case you’re unaware, you can actually just select the stretch plane in the preview and relocate it by dragging it.  

Well I definitely was unaware of that one! Thanks Michael!

4 hours ago, Leckie said:

Definitely took a lot of trial and error, but finally got what I was looking for.

Thank you very much for your input Levis.

Good to hear. Just FYI, I had a look at your symbol... you don't need 3 stretch planes in the Z axis for this one. A single stretch plane anywhere between 16 1/2" and 67" would accomplish the same thing. 

Multiple stretch planes come in handy where you have more than one part of the symbol that you don't want to distort, or want to stretch on either side of a particular element. For example, let's say you have a set of 4 shelves evenly spaced apart. You could add 3 stretch planes in the Z axis (one stretch plane between each shelf) and the symbol would always keep even shelf spacing, no matter the symbol height. Or for a custom cabinet or piece of furniture with drawers, you could have a stretch plane on either side of the drawer hardware in the X axis, so no matter the width, the hardware looks correct.

Once you create a few symbols with stretch planes, you'll get the hang of it!

1 minute ago, Leckie said:

I am assuming that the Height Z column is where I want to set the perameters.

Do you know what I need to do or input for th bottom 18" to stay solid/unchanged and the top (above 18" to adjust in height?

I put 18" in Item 3 but it is still not working the way I want it to

 

It's a bit of trial and error to get the stretch planes in the right location. That's why having the preview on helps. It'll show where the plane is as you type it in the dbx. If you want the bottom 18" to stay unchanged, you should simply need to place the stretch plane higher than 18" in the Z column. Try 24".

18 minutes ago, Leckie said:

Maybe I blocked the image wrong, because I am not seeing the stretch plane box

 

Right click your symbol, then Open Symbol, then go to the Sizing tab

2 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

Look like the OP has X6

Oops. Missed that. Hopefully their signature isn't up to date! 

What you need to adjust is the stretch planes in the symbol. Make sure the icon in the top right (see arrow in image below) is turn on so you can see where the stretch planes are being placed.

And here's the same screw pile that's in the image.

Screw Pile.calibz

33 minutes ago, Doug_N said:

Levis,

The third floor is required to create the raining walls and the penthouse.  The Open to Below is so that the floor of the third floor does not interfere with the actual roof.

The penthouse is also on the third floor.

The walls have been nudged to make sure the outer surfaces align.  The railing wall is a pony wall.

Thanks for taking a look at the problem.

Doug

I know that’s why you have a third floor. What I meant was, do you really need the ‘open to below’ room? Or can the railing walls just be ‘no room definition’ and just have the penthouse be an actual room on the third floor? That seems to solve the ceiling problem, but I’m not sure if it cause other issues.

Doug,

The problem is related to the fact your 3rd floor (aka the roof) is defined as an 'Open to Below' room. Does it need to be a room? I just made one of the railing walls 'No room definition' and the problem fixed itself, but now the 3rd floor is no longer a closed room.

Also noticed you have a couple of those railing walls slightly out of alignment with the walls below, which might not help, just FYI.

51 minutes ago, SNestor said:

On a MAC you can use "migration assistant" to move files from a MAC to MAC...or from a PC to MAC. I've never used this feature...so, I cannot vouch for how good/bad it works..but, my new computer is on it's way and I'll know soon enough.

 

Here's a link: Migration Assistant

It works really well! And super easy too. You'll like it!

17 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

You don’t even need any polylines.  You can just use the Room Fill.  

One drawback with room fills is you'll get white gaps at doors and doorways. A polyline on the back drawing group gives a better look I think.

19 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Took me a few minutes to figure this one out, but it can be changed.  Long story short, the material for those Parametric (non-library symbol or "smart") Door Styles seems to be sort of hard coded but you can trick Chief into changing the referenced material.

That's awesome Michael! How the heck did you figure that out?! Now I can finally have white glass panel doors even though my default exterior door is a six-panel door. Definitely getting an upvote for that! 

42 minutes ago, fcwilt said:

Non-library Doors appear to inherit a surface color of Bone from somewhere but I have not found it yet.

I'm curious to know if that can be changed as well. I hate always having to change that ugly Bone colour!

1 hour ago, JonathanWilliams said:

Getting the Girders and diagonals correct is a challenge and if any are off then some of the jacks then generate as cantilevers rather than raised heels.

In cases like this, it can be tricky to get the diagonals and small jacks to behave like you want, so it's often quicker to just draw cad boxes/polylines on the framing plan and be done with it! Especially if there's no section cutting through that area. That's what I did here. Most of the trusses are actual trusses in Chief, but the hip corner is just cad boxes on the truss layer and nobody can tell the difference!

8 minutes ago, jasonN said:

...of course one could cheat the Rvalue above the top plate as it had been done for decades

It's not really cheating... it's allowed in the Code! Up here where half my projects are in zone 7B (or 7A without HRV), it would be a fairly high heel to get the full R60 + air space under the heel. For a 6/12 or under roof, I usually try to have a min. 12" heel and that usually leaves about 2ft around the perimeter with reduced insulation. 

40 minutes ago, robdyck said:

This is best to note near the beginning of a plan set in your general notes. In Medicine Hat for example, no one frames to the sheathing, but go an hour north, and no one seems to have ever heard of measuring to the stud. So, when I know the regional preference, I make sure to note this in my General Notes.

I do the same. General note. When I worked in Edmonton, it was very common to frame with the sheathing flush to the foundation, but up here in the Peace Country, it varies. I always dimension to the studs and let the framers figure it out. Hopefully they're smart enough to know not to take the 3/8" out of a bathroom (if they choose to frame that way)!

The one thing I found you have to watch for... the truss designers will sometimes assume the sheathing will be flush and they subtract 3/4" from the truss span...

2 hours ago, Rpadge said:

Probably doesn't help you but It prints fine for me.

It does on a Mac too, but just not if you print from the Preview app (and certain others I guess). That's where there's a bug and any image with a transparent background with come out with a black background on the printout instead. 

5 minutes ago, djhplanning said:

Hi LevisL, I'm finally playing around with this again.  I did download a PDF reader pro lite app and tried printing.  Still getting the same thing happening.  I was just wondering what adobe app you were using?  I know there are some other app options available.  

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is the app I use. I just recently tried the free trial of Foxit PhantomPDF and it worked as well.

Bluebeam Revu for Mac used to work too, but Bluebeam stopped developing the Mac version and it doesn't work with Big Sur anymore...

Seeing as you're near Chief's headquarters, have you looked into personal training right from Chief?

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/training/#personal