javatom

Use a glass door with a broken arch top. Place a window in the same place that is higher and wider. Settings for window - Arch top broken arch, no sills, sash at 1/8 inset 5" (or whatever you need to have the glass in the same location as the glass of the door, frame 1/8". The mullions are a bit wacky. You will probably want to create a custom mullion.

The notes you have added on the layout side of things will not be in the exported file. If your engineer needs them, they will have to look at your pdf file and recreate those notes.

Your roof is too low. Take a section view of that area and you will see that the baseline of the roof is below the top plate of the lower level.

You can always send it to a layout and create a pdf of the layout.

Try making the radius of the curved wall bigger then it will work.

The problem is the curved wall. A window can be placed at an intersection but not one that is curved or angled.

I'm not so sure how accurate it is. It shows an 18' drop from wilbur ave. to canfield. It is pretty flat there. I also checked it against a lot I own east of town that I have a topo for already. It is right for some of it and off by 20' on others. Great tool but might require visual confirmation. Good job finding the site. Thanks.

maybe a molding polyline?

You could create a new wall type that has a different looking fill pattern as determined in the wall definition.

Create 2 plan files. One as is the other one with the grading changes. Both versions can be fed into one layout.

There is a quick fix. If there are a lot of dark materials and you do not want to add lights you can go to the 3d defaults and increase the ambient setting. It will look a little brighter on your monitor but a LOT brighter on a print. I think the color will stay accurate. It sounds like a luminance problem.

There is a dome in the library under "shapes".

Classic example of the software allowing something bad to occur. What would hold the weight of the bricks? Full size bricks need a brick ledge to bear upon. If you are using faux brick, you should change the thickness of the brick layer for accuracy.

x8 has a new feature of sending views to layout as "live-always update". This feature will slow everything down. Start with that.

absolute height is the only one that does not ever move. Individual parts of an overall blocked item probably have to be designated before you block them. It might be an interesting experiment if you mixed different height determiners in a group blocking. Which type rules?

The drop of the soffit is tied to the size of the sub-fascia, not just the pitch. Glenns method is a practical solution.

If the city is concerned with EXTERIOR wall surface, how is a dropped soffit cheating?

many ways to do this. One option - pull the roof planes back to flush with the wall then frame the roof. Turn off auto framing and pull the roof planes back out.

You may have inadvertently placed two windows in the same place. Save the plan under a different name and start deleting windows until you find the culprit.

Scott, I may have figured out how you can do your retaining wall with a glass rail on top. The picture is a narrow ramp with the base set at 60" thick. Open the dbx and turn off handrails. Then place a panel rail above the ramp and set it to "follow stairs". I'm showing one that is level (no slope) and another one that slopes and is curved. Set all the materials of the ramp to your desired retaining wall. It is concrete in my example. One last thing - there is a bug. If you change the slope of the ramp, the slope of the panel does not automatically update. You have to click on the panel, open DBX then close it again and it will update. I also show a couple of other things we talked about. The closet that does not go to ceiling was done by making the telling it to have no ceiling, make attic walls of closet invisible, place p-solid cap. The solid rails at the opening to the floor below was done with rail walls set to solid. If I remember right, you had done it with a normal wall and changed it to a rail wall. It's just a couple of steps faster.

Yes, you can stack windows on top of each other. They can also be designated level 1 or 2. It may bee easier to place it in elevation mode so you can see which window you have grabbed.

Because if there is currently no second floor, things could move when he adds the floor.

You can place a ceiling plane manually. Then drag the wall tops down to that point.

That's a nice looking pediment.

I guess there's the solution if he is comfortable with that look.