Nicinus

Ok, thanks, at least good to know I wasn't the only one doing this.

As the title says, just curious. I prefer to have interior walls on a separate layer so I change them afterwards now, and I can't seem to figure out how to default interior walls to my 'Walls, interior'.

Could that be by design? I'm just thinking that the 2x4 would provide very little support for the joist if it was aligned with the rim joist.

I tend to remember some tools to group transoms etc in elevations, where they are sort of grouped and one can stack windows. Can't figure it out now of course.

Btw, seems to be a elaborate house design. Any more pictures?

How did you create the cap on the front? Seems like the solution to the sides should be similar.

Thanks, Joe. Good idea that gives great control.

How great it would be if one could create a closed polyline on a layer and then give it a name and extract info from it with a macro, like %polylineX.area%. I could then have a layer I called 'areas' with multiple polylines with different fill colors, and create my own custom labels/legends.

Thanks, if I've understood it correctly the living area includes the walls, except when bordering to unconditioned space when it is calculated from the center.

I wonder if my local building office will see it the same way.

As suggested in an earlier post, I really wish there was a way to get a visual verification overlay of the area included in 'living area'. And while they're at it also be able to define multiple areas with colors.

I've seen some discrepancies between the total of my rooms and the living area displayed by Chief so I removed all interior walls in my basement in order to create one large room and compare, see the enclosed pic.

How did you open the aerial view? I get it by right clicking on the library browser bar. I can then see if the project browser and aerial view is active.

Again, I'm relatively new but I'm basically using the SAM as well as it is virtually impossible to keep track of all the small refinements to default settings etc while working on a project. I expect this to be less and less as I learn the program and become more settled in. Still, it would be nice if Chief could ask when creating a new layer or annotation set if I want to save that to the template the plan is based on as well.

You know, I think the lack of a curtain wall tool is one of the only reasons some architects don't use

Chief.

I think stronger CAD tools and better control of line weights etc would do wonders in terms of attracting architects. Chief is also a wonderful tool for conceptual design and trying out things, but sometimes all the automation gets in the way. Less and less so the more I learn though.

You meant 'Framing' in default settings, right? I think I'm slowly getting there. In default settings under 'Foundation' I can check 'Hang 1st floor plattfor inside foundation walls' which seems to do the trick. I now just have to figure out how the treated sill plate and rim joists affect this, I guess. Thanks again.

Thanks Lew,

I didn't quite get that. Do you mean in the 'Build Framing...' dbx? I tried removing trim joists but nothing changed in section.

Could you possibly elaborate a bit on the steps involved. I haven't actually used the framing tools yet except for quickly trying some of them out.

I am in the midst of working on a design and have come to realise that I would prefer a lower first floor in relation to ground, and need to change to joist hangers instead of being on sill plate. How would I accomplish this the easiest?

My first thought was to change the defaults for room structure, but besides being uncertain how to define joist hangers on a level, all options are greyed out?

As a side note, how can I select all rooms on a level without clicking them one by one?

Really? It creates a square that I have to work with instead of letting me choose a shape I've created with the CAD tools?   That's got to be an old tool.

Old topic now, but for those that search for it I've found the following:

1) Sometimes when I use the middle mouse to pan in the 3D window, I accidentally press the MMB sideways and the geometry scoots away for me. I now know when this happens and a couple of taps in the other direction brings it back. Initially I tried to recover by using zooms and dolly, which generated massive distortion and consequently not a good idea.

2) The view can be reset with '3D/View Direction/Restore Original View"

Select the road.

The last tool on the Edit toolbar is Create Hole.

This will create a hole in the road, including a curb , which has  it's own curb settings, independent of the road.

This one seems to be the most logical and perhaps simple way, but I could never get it to work. Whenever I clicked 'Create hole' and selected my polyline hole (regardless of it was solid or not) it created a little square hole instead?

You could also use a molding p-line for the curb

Thanks, good suggestion and the route I would have tried next if the road object continued to baffle me.

polyline subtraction seems to work. Draw your polyline shape and convert to polyline solid then to road perimeter. draw your circle (hole) where you want and convert it to polyline solid.Leave as polyline but then subtract it from the road. Seems to work on a quick check but may be some bugs? Side roads and sidewalks seem to connect in OK.

I finally got this method to work after messing it up for myself for quite a while. Since I had spent time on the shape I didn't want to recreate it and instead created a scrap layer and created a copy. Unfortunately this copy was still generating a hole even if it wasn't visible. This brings back that old discussion with having different walls in the same location, not a good thing for a BIM program. I thought I had converted it to a polyline CAD item, but somehow it was still seen as a road by Chief.

Anyway, after cleaning this up I got to the point as you describe and I can adjust the curb for the hole individually. I then copied in place the hole, converted to polyline and finally converted to a terrain feature in order to manipulate the material in the hole. Thanks.

I've done this twice now but so far they haven't sent me the link, and I'm starting to wonder if it is because I'm using a hotmail address. Have anyone else been lucky downloading their books? I'm usually very careful with giving out company emails to marketing oriented sites in order to avoid spam.

I played around with road splines but as you say it does not seem to be possible to do this in a precise way, and I need to show radiuses etc that makes sense.

Isn't there a way to create a shape for the driveway and the convert it to a road somehow and have a hole for planting, etc?

To add to my confusion I now realize that the spline I used for subraction retains a live link to the boolean operation, so when I delete the spline or change it to polyspline in order to create a terrain feature my hole disappears.  :/

So I cut a hole in the road by using subtraction, but it still doesn't give me curbs on this interior perimeter. Is there a better way to cut holes?

Ironically I had a hole before but just can't remember how I did it.

I would also like to add curbs, how do I add curbs to a specific road segment after it is created? If I add a curb it is added to all sides but I don't want it where the driveway goes into the garage. Can't seem to figure it out and the manual is no help.