ebdesign

Nicinus, I think of "Show Line wgts" as a VISUAL aid to help me distinguish between different line styles in the same view. w/out it enabled, all line work displays the same thickness, regardless of the assigned wgt. It makes linework "pop" in a video or screen capture, so I will enable that if I remember to do so. Normally, I don't have that enabled while I'm working. I also use it as a kind of pre print check for elevations & sections in layout as I use the "Edit Layout" tool. AS Glenn said, what you see is largely determined by your screen resolution. What "Use Layout Line Scaling" controls is the PRINTED output. A line w/ a specifc wgt will print exactly the same thickness regardless of scale or source of the view. All you have to figure out is what wgt do you want to assign to this layer/line/object in a specific layer set. Drawing scale is NOT a consideration at all. I generally advise to start w/ a basic line or a wall, determine what line wgt prints how you want, & then go from there (up/down) w/ the line wgt you use for each layer.

If you have views already sent to layout, you can enable "Use Layout Line Scaling" by right-clicking on the view border & accessing "Change Scale" on the Edit toolbar that pops up.

When you send any view to layout, be sure to select "Use Layout Line Scaling" in the Send to Layout dbx. Leave your Drawing Sheet Setup/ Advanced Line Wgt Options in plan @ 1=1/100.0mm. Have the same exact thing in layout. Then it's just a matter of getting each layer's display properties what you want for each particular layer set. A line wgt of 25, for example, will print the same thickness regardless of the drawing scale used in layout. You can print the floor plan from plan view or from the layout, they will look the same as long as the layer set is the same in both views.

Is that dbx from roof defaults? Is the roof already built? If so, use "Edit all Roof Planes" to change the framing properties of existing roof planes.

".....make it a solid"? Use a 3D molding polyline drawn in elevation. Draw an arc in elevation over the top of the window & then use "convert polyline" to assign the molding. Once you have something to see in a camera, play w/ it in that camera so you can see the results of your edits immediately. There are brick soldier courses in the library. Once you have what you want, move it into place if it's not already where you want it.

Use a molding polyline instead of a p-line solid.

Scott, That would be talking to myself (minus 15yrs), which I try to limit as much as possible these days.

Stairs

Mr McCrump. Here's my lame attempt at a video explaining how to do those bay roofs.

That's right Perry. For instance, where garbage cans will be located. They wanna see it on the plans.

Create the plan footprint in the CAD Detail that is your site plan. If you create a plan footoprint while in plan, Chief creates a CAD Detail to display it. You can't copy/paste a plan footprint.

Yeah, that takes some getting used to. I think it works better though, because you're always dealing w/ all 3 axis in any camera, even in sections/elevations where you can only see 2. But you can move stuff along that hidden axis, & movement stays consistent regardless of camera orientation. Very handy. CAD details are only view that only has X & Y axis, left/right, up/down.

2nd Floor.

Adobe Acrobat has a zoom tool that let's you use your mouse wheel. It's called "continuous zoom'. works great!

I "print" the pdf in color. Other than a nice colored rendering of some sort on the 1st pg, there's not a whole lot of other colors present, some dark reds, blues, greens- all linework. The pdf looks great on the monitor & the actual printed hardcopy (grayscale) is crisp too.

MickeyToo, Add this to the Suggestions forum. It's a legitimate request & a suggestion no one should have any problem w/.

If you can't find what you're looking for in all the various libraries available, you can always make one.

A great deal of the basements I do up here are completely unfinished; maybe a room or two is conditioned. So I would disable the finished flr layer by default in the basement if I could. A basement room type w/out a finished flr, room moldings & finished cl'g would be perfect & then auto rebuild foundations can be left on longer & my floor camera will show what I want. As soon as you assign most any room type (& disable auto rebuild....), you get a finished flr layer, etc automatically, so I'm not sure what the problem would be; but then again, I don't want a finished flr in the basement by default. The ability to do that in the foundation defaults beforehand would keep us all happy. Choice is better than no choice.

Sounds like MickeyToo wants to leave "auto rebuild foundation" on, so that the basement/ foundation stays current w/1st flr walls abv. "auto rebuild foundation" has to be disabled in order to remove the finish flr layer. You can't even got out of the basement room spec dbx after you've removed the finish floor layer w/out agreeing to disable "auto rebuild foundation" (if it was on to begin w/).

How do you open the floor defaults dbx before the floor is built? Only default available beforehand is "Rooms" & if you remove the finish floor there, every room/every floor that uses the default floor finish doesn't have a finish flr anymore. I think that is how it works. Unless I'm not following you Joey. that's very possible too. Mickeytoo, I hear you. how it works for me, basements come in as "Unspecified" room type. It's one of those values that are hard-coded in Chief & no way that I know of to get that correct beforehand. It's the same as new flr clg hgts coming in at 97 1/8". no way to change that either- before the fact. Chief has 3 room types w/out a finish floor- garage, porch & slab. Use them. Gotta do it every time you build foundation. if you leave auto build foundations on, you gotta live w/ it until you're ready to take over.

It's 6 one, halfa dozen of the other right now. &, I can't really get what I want w/ pdfs right now. I just do what I gotta do to get it done until one of the apps gets better.

I convert the pdf (each page) to an image in AA & then crop the image in Photoshop. AA has a cropping feature, but it doesn't actually "crop" the page when importing to Chief.

There's not really a table of contents, but you can use the drop down to narrow your search. There's plenty of videos by users explaining how they do it, but I would always start w/ the Chief videos 1st when dealing w/ a particular subject. Drink lots of coffee.....or Red Bull.

Thanks Rob for the pointer. Just drag/drop the *.skp into Chief plan view. Easy-peasy. That would be the easiest way. SketchUp Pro '14 cannot import *.shp files that I can see. Chief may not be able to handle latest *.skp files. although I go back & forth w/ *.skp files outta my version w/ no problems in X6 that I remember.

can't do that in X6. been suggested before. add yours in Suggestions. You never know.