Doug_N

I agree.

Wow, thank you Joe and Ben. Ben your solution is very elegant,

Here is a little macro I made for displaying area in meters instead of sq ft. a=area*0.092903 a.round(2) As a habit, I use the three letters own or ref to tell if the macro is to be used in an item label or attached as a referenced macro. If I put this into a macro such as "object_area_own_metric" in an imperial drawing, and insert the macro into an enclosed polyline it returns 112.52 SQ FT. Why is it attaching the units to the output? If I use a referenced macro "object_area_ref_metric" and connect a text box to it the output is 112.52 with no units. Obviously I want sq m not sq ft after the output, Any idea how to stop the units from displaying if I use an owner macro in a polyline label?

Sometimes it helps to use a macro that says what floor level you are looking at in the view. It will look something like this And then placing the text box in a room will look like this (except for the red rectangle that I added for clarity. Then when you send the floor plan to the layout, you can instantly see what floor is being displayed.

That looks like a pretty slick macro. How do you use it? Is it a custom field in the room schedule?

Thanks Rob

I have a pdf of a skylight installation details, and it prints as expected. However, when I imbed the pdf in a CA file, the printout is so faded that you can't read it. The plans examiner has refused to accept an attached sheet, and is calling for the detail to be on a drawing set title block page. I have tried importing the pdf to the layout directly and putting it on pg A5, and importing it to the plan file then sending it to the layout page. The printed result is the same in both cases. I also tried the Chief Architect save as PDF and Nuance PDF print driver, they both have the same result. Printing directly to paper is even worse, so the problem is not with the PDF files, it is with CA and printing in general For any of you that are interested, I have included all the files for the project as it involves both the layout file and the plan files. The image on the left is what you see in CA and the one on the right is the resulting printout. Printing the source PDF file exhibits no fadeout at all. PDF_Printing_Problems.zip

Ok guys Michael came through again. There was still one closet with a slightly different floor level, but the real answer was a new feature in X12 framing groups. More on this later. Thanks Michael.

Yup, I did all of that.

Robert, The problem is that there is a mix of new framing matching up with the existing framing. There are second storey additions to the rear and the front of the house. several existing second storey joists are going to be removed and replaced with cantilevered joists.

I tried to duplicate the problem in a fresh plan file, and if I change any second storey floor height it makes rim joists around that room. If I make that room go back to default floor height, then the problem goes away. That isn't the case in my client's plan. That plan was created by him using Home Designer. For a first-timer, he did a remarkable job of getting the as-built design done but with a bucket load of hand grenades as well. The double floor generation was one such problem that Michael managed to uncover, but this rim joist and floor joist direction phenomenon just has me baffled.

Ok so I checked all the ceiling heights and corrected all of them. Then I made sure all floor elevations were correct for the first and second floor. Next I turned all the interior walls to "No Room Definition" and the floor joists generated correctly. So then I deleted a few walls on the second floor, and the joists under the walls corrected. So I replaced the wall with a "vanilla" interior wall, 1/2" drywall, 2 x 4 studs 16" OC.and the damned system once again created a rim joist under the vanilla wall.

Michael, Thanks again. I will check all of those, this particular project is really giving me heartburn.

I opened your file in X12 and pulled the siding down as per your post. Here is the result. So maybe this is an X11 glitch, or maybe try one of the following. 1) Restart your system and try again 2) Reinstall X11 and try again 3) Install X12 (I really like it) Hope one of these works for you

As a side note: This is the same plan that was causing double floor layers that Michael sorted out.

I have a strange problem with floor joists on this project. Once again a client-supplied file that I have made lots of adjustments to, but when I generate floor joists each room on the second floor generates a rim joist around it, and the joists go all over the place. Here is a view of the first floor prior to generating joists. And here is the view of automatically generated joists Note the seemingly random direction of joists in closets and in some floor panels. Why is the program generating floor joists around each second floor room? Floor_Framing_Problem.zip

Hi Dermot, thanks for that update and in that case, here is an issue that I ran into. Michael (Alaskan Son) helped me solve the problem, and you may not consider it an issue but it is easy to duplicate the problem and hard to find what is causing it. This is an example of putting the wrong info into the floor layer dbx and that information causes very unexpected results.

Perhaps, but AutoDesk publishes a list of known problems to show they know there are problems but they are working on them. By doing this, if you stumble upon a known issue, you aren't posting about it because that would be a waste of time. In my opinion, it shows that the company cares about the user experience and that they are on top of the development.

Hi Joe, hard to offer an opinion when the plan is not posted.

If you post the plan I will have a quick look at it. Maybe offer a few pointers.

Carrie, Is there a list of known bugs? If your development team already knows about some problems, it would save people looking for answers that don't yet exist, and it would let us know what we have to work around. Thanks. Doug

Ahh I see.

Well, I don't think that the joist direction symbol had anything to do with it because the double floor problem occurred prior to my using joist direction. I did the joist direction in an effort to track down what was causing the problem (not very successfully as it turns out.) But the joist direction tool did offer me a clue by indicating a silly joist value. In any case, maybe one of the tech staff will read this thread and offer an opinion.

Michael, You nailed it. This is how it was set up. Amazingly, even though it lists the TOTAL assembly assy at 8 1/4 inches, it made TWO layers at 16 1/2" I kind of think this is a bit of a gotcha. Here is my dbx following your comment Should this be reported as a bug? It seems like a bug to me. In any case, erasing all framing and regenerating creates a floor with only one layer. I now have significantly less hair than I had this morning Thanks Michael. Doug

I have tried the simple things, including your suggestion. In fact, to simplify the model I erased everything but one area of the building to get rid of any possible interference from other things. After each change, I delete all framing and regenerate. Every time two layers of floor joists appear. Simplified.zip