LevisL

I thought of doing that, had the grading been flat around the house. Since the grading slopes down and I needed to add wall material regions for my parging anyway, I just made those material regions a bit taller to cover the edge of the slab. It was a bit of a pain to get the corners to look nice since the material regions don't wrap around (I ended up using small slabs on the corners), but it worked.

Thanks guys. Appreciate your feedback. Rod, that's pretty much what I ended up doing. I also added a couple material regions on the exterior to mask where the siding extended lower than I wanted it for my exterior elevations and renders. ShaneK – your solution achieved the same result as setting the main floor structure as a slab... the siding still extends too low! I was hoping I was just missing something, but I guess not! It would be nice if we could control if we want the siding to cover the edge of the slab or not when we set the main floor as a concrete slab.

I'm trying to model this ICF foundation with a slab sitting on top of it. I've tried a couple methods, but both have their drawbacks: 1. Build foundation with the slab at the top of the stem wall (main floor slab provided by foundation). The problem with this method is that the slab sits INSIDE the stem wall instead of ON TOP. It requires a bunch of CAD work to mask it and show like I want in sections. You also end up with an odd gap at the inside foam layer for some reason... 2. Set my main floor structure to be a concrete slab. This method looks much closer to what I want, except the siding extends down to the bottom of the slab – I want the siding to start at the top of the slab/bottom of framing. This appears to be hard-coded in Chief. Am I missing something? Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance,

I got it working now. Thanks guys!

I just tried creating a composite macro, but all my user macros are greyed out. I can only use Chief's OOB macros. Are you saying it's different for you?

Thanks Joe. The client ended scrapping the whole loft idea, so I don't have to worry about it now! From what I could find though, I don't think a ship's ladder would've been allowed in this particular case with the size and ceiling height of the loft.

I have a client that wants a ship ladder to access a small loft. Just curious if there's any code requirements for such ladders in Canada. Are they even allowed? I can't find anything that says they are allowed in the Alberta Building Code. The closest I found is that stairs do not need to conform to the rise and run requirements if they serve areas 'only used as service rooms or service spaces' and requirements for 'fixed industrial stairs', which would tell me they're not allowed for a loft. How do tiny homes get away with them?

Instead of a 2nd terrain, use a terrain feature. Set the height to 0" (at grade level) and thickness as desired. This way it will follow the contours of your terrain and you can leave your terrain as large as you need for your perspective views. You can put that terrain feature on a unique layer if you have other ones in the same plan and/or to turn it off in perspective views. You can adjust the size/shape of your view window in layout if you want to bottom to be flat.

If I had to guess, you're importing the layout/paper space page instead of the model space where the floor plan actually is. That would explain why you only get the drawing titles and revision clouds...

I was in the same boat when I switched over to Mac about 5 years ago. I ran Windows on my Mac via Parallels Desktop for a while to keep using QB desktop until QB Online came out for us up here in Canada. I wasn't a huge fan of the online version at first, but I got used to it and, as Perry says, they add new features all the time. The bonus with your data in the cloud is you can access your data wherever on multiple devices. For example, I can go deliver a set of plans to a client, pick up their check and just use QB on my phone to apply the payment to the invoice on my way to the bank. No need to lug around the laptop. I could do up the invoice from my phone if I wanted to as well. Another bonus of the online version is that you can grant access to your accountant so they can log in from their office.

The last Chief update fixed the problem that caused crashing in Sierra. You should be good to upgrade now.

I'm having similar issues on my MacBook since I upgraded to Sierra. My iMac seems to work fine though (also running Sierra). And it worked fine before updating the OS.

I'm seeing something similar on my MacBook Pro, but not on my iMac. Both are running Sierra. I replaced the SSD drive on my MacBook to a larger one right after upgrading the OS, so I thought the crashing was related to that, but now you've got me rethinking that... I haven't had a chance yet, but I'm planning on trying a repair installation (if that's even an option) or just deleting and reinstalling Chief. Have you tried that?

You could check out this program. I don't have any personal experience with it, so I can't say if it works as advertised. http://www.ampsoft.net/utilities/WinOFF.php I use an app with similar features on my Macs called 'Amphetamine'.

I'd probably use molding polylines.

No it won't. Try it. The automatic terrain hole is will be the same shape as the building perimeter of the level it's on. So if the terrain is on level 0, it will only make a cut out a hole in the shape of the building on level 0. Anything above will be ignored. The OP didn't post his original plan, so I'm not sure how his was set up, but if I had to guess, his terrain may have been on the same level as the blue siding portion of the building and he adjusted the elevation in the dbx.

Sherry is right. I always put my terrain on level 0 for that reason.

It could be a rich text default in one of your annosets too.

Just download the 'Tools and Shop' bonus catalog. No need to import from 3D warehouse. Might not have everything, but the 3 you mentioned are in there, and a bunch more.

Hi Monte, Here's a fifth wheel that I kept in my library. I think I got it from 3D warehouse a while back and haven't used it recently. The number of faces on it is quite high though, I remember that... Fifth Wheel.calibz

I've seen that problem and reported it a while back. Now I always check my angular dimensions before printing. I've been caught a couple times with large angular dimensions on my prints... . I was't sure what caused it. You might be on to something with it just happening when editing rich text in a cad detail. I'll have to experiment. I just knew that sometimes they changed scale, sometimes the scale stuck. Anyway, I found I just have to double click on the layout box with the angular dimension in question to open it. Then close the view right away and it usually fixes the problem, at least for a while!!

Good point Michael. Now I remember I used this method on one project a few months ago! Never updated my template though!! With this method, you can also play with the fill transparency to get a grey fill even if your layer is set to black.

That's what I found. When I switched over from AutoCAD, I was used to all the colors and created a 'working' layerset with everything in different colors, but I don't even use it anymore now that I'm used to working on a white background. 95% of the time, I just work directly in my 'print' layerset with everything black or grey. I have color in my framing plans to distinguish different types of joists, beams, trusses, etc., but that's it. You're correct. There's no way to control the wall fill colors with layersets. I made a suggestion a while back that it would be nice if there was an 'alternate fill' column in the wall definition dbx. Then we could assign a 2nd fill, which would be on a different layer than the primary fill color, and thus be able to control the fill with our layersets. Until then, you could use Joey's method (all walls grey... or whatever color you prefer), or use fill colors that look different on screen, but look the same/similar when printed in greyscale. I would avoid changing the fill color before printing, especially if you have several wall types in a plan.

Not yet. Hope they add that in X9. The best you can do for now is add spaces to the start of the shorter line to manually justify.

That didn't quite work. But I got it to work by appending the subs to the end of the other result line: result.to_s.sub(", ","/").sub("[","").sub("]","") Thanks again!