Doug_N

This is really a bad design in my opinion. The wall, roof and whatever is constructed above would result in a lateral force trying to move towards the water facing wall. That should have been a stepped foundation wall. This is not part of what you are addressing either. Not that anyone asked me for my opinion, it just my comment. Doug

One more comment: The boathouse doesn't have a room because there is an opening where the masonry chimney is specified. Including a room divider (invisible wall) to close the room might help.

I downloaded your plan file and took a quick look at it. Walls are, by default, set up to go to the height specified in the room definition. Foundation walls are treated differently, and have a separate dialogue for a "stem" wall. The footing height may be adjusted separately in elevation views to sort out step footing. Wall heights are a struggle however, because they try to snap to the ceiling height. Without seeing the floor above (if there is one) it is hard to see what you are trying to accomplish. What is the purpose of the staggered wall top heights? Why is the building wall tops not symmetrical? Is this to resist soil pressure because of grade conditions?

That is a great question. I am going to try it out.

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

Glenn In the coach house file the rooms don't have Soffit Surface selected. It still has the same problem. That was a problem in the simple model that I posted earlier

Here is the actual plan file with rooms all specified to have no flat ceiling and the resulting cross section. Coach House.zip

This is a simple model of the more complex building that I am doing. All of the rooms are specified in that model it the program still behaves this way. Maybe I should post the plan that is the problem.

What the room is called shouldn't affect the ceiling when you specify what the ceiling is I would think.

That should be how it is specified

It seems that if I joists are used for a roof, and the room that is below that roof (actually all rooms in this case) are set to use the underside of the roof for a ceiling surface the ceiling plane is generated above the bottom surface of the rafters. I have yet to find out why this is happening. I don't remember having this problem in X12 Ceiling Plan Problem.plan

That is the answer to your question, and if you are printing (to a PDF) in colour that is multiplying the size of the graphic data by 32 as well (32 bit colour.)

Got to admit it, the ramp trick worked really well. Thanks Rob!

Ok so I am getting close to what I need but wow was this difficult to do.

Hi Larry, Yes that more or less represents the concept. I have included my actual plan in the original post.

General note, The ceiling is cathedral with the rafters being engineered wood I beams, called TJIs by one manufacturer.

Hi Glen, and to everyone else. My mistake, I thought that I had uploaded the plan file, but as it turns out the file failed to upload because it was too big. I should have noticed that. Glen, Yes! This is exactly what I am trying to do, but if you notice in your cross section there is a horizontal construction. I can build the railing on a curb that matches the roof on the bottom but has a horizontal flat section so that it tapers, but I can't have a horizontal section under the roof. Doug

Wow Michael, that is really counter intuitive and strangely brilliant. I will let you know how it goes. Doug

Glen, If you build walls at the attic level they cut through the roof plane?

Thanks Eric, I am just on my way to bed, but I will take a peak in the morning. Doug

Mick's doesn't work because I can't have parapets around the roof, and the roof must slope.

I know how to build it, but the trick is to model this in a way that I can do a reasonable visual facsimile and generate construction drawings. The roof must have a shallow pitch, and the intent is to make this a green roof with a planted surface. It is not intended to be a patio.

I have a project where I have to put a guard rail around a roof, and an access doghouse for access stairs Railings have to go where the red lines are, and the railing has to be 42" above the roof deck. Suggestions?? This one has me perplexed. Untitled 2.zip

Just for information, there is more than one way to convert values, for example in place of %$ga=(area.convert_to("sq m")).round(2)% m² you could also use %$ga=(area.to_sq_m,round(2)% m² and as Michael pointed out, anything between the % symbols is actually a macro, but it is not a recorded macro that you can reuse by calling its name, because you have not named it.

Great tip Dermot, thanks for that.