Gawdzira

I am trying to get my windows to "pop" in elevations sent to Layout. I have was hopeful that the Exterior Casing layer would actually affect the line weight of the window casing in the vector views but it appears to not do that. In the attached image I have the Exterior Casing layer line weight set to 222. If I turn off the Exterior Casing layer the window casing goes away so there is a direct link.

One way to achieve what you are looking for is by using the Reference sets. You need to learn a bit about these to make good use of their potential. Basically, once you set up a reference set you can use it to display objects on other floors. Check the file I uploaded and go to the Foundation Layerset. The reference display set is properly set in this file and I altered the reference set to only show the footings for the posts. You can make multiple reference sets so that you can use others for the various files that get sent to Layout. Backing up, you really, really need to study Annotation sets for about 10 minutes so that you can produce drawings in an efficient manner. Not using the Annotation sets is ignoring one the most valuable production tools that you paid for when buying CA. shuey 2nd house tweaked ref display.zip

Upload the files to DropBox if the forum is problematic. Either way, 1.save and then close out the files in CA 2. zip the files 3. the upload feature for the forum is 2 steps, first you select the files then there is a button to upload the files For larger files I usually use Drop Box. Easy to set up a free account.

I believe you may want to post your plan and layout files in order to get a good response to your questions. It is all guess work at this point without looking at what you have done to organize the project.

I am getting gorgeous exterior ray traces in about 2-3 mins with minimal set up other than figuring out where i would like to the sun to shine. If you don't get paid enough to produce those renders than you might want to raise your rate.

My work flow is this: Existing/as built plan (this is a unique file to my remodel plan file) -> hide all layers an only expose Walls Main Layer-> Cad detail from view -> select all the lines of the cad detail and change them to line style dashed with line weight of 10 -> assign the lines to the layer "Existing Walls Dashed" (this is a custom layer) -> block the cad lines together and assign that block to the "Existing Walls Dashed" layer -> copy and paste in place into my remodel plan file -> lock the layer "Existing Walls Dashed". Any walls that don't change will read normally. Any walls that do change expose the dashed lines and therefore delineate the removal of an existing wall. The whole process takes less time to do than the time you just spent reading my post. As long as you read all the way to the end, the end, the, now.

Two good sources below. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/65-chief-architect-help/ http://www.chiefexperts.com/ When I was first learning the software I bought several hours with the Chief Architect Training. I would work for about 8 hours and then have an hour booked to deal with the questions I developed. Someone like Dan or David will have a lot of real world project experience to go from and can probably customize something to your needs.

When I first bought the software I also bought 4-6 hours of tutoring that I used in the first 2 weeks with the software. I considered that an essential cost.

Dennis is better at reading before I get my coffee.

Even though you have not offered an image or a plan file I am going to be really, really generous and make a guess based on the horribly inadequate information you have presented. Is the segment you are trying to close have a spline that would connect with a straight section? If so, CA does not like to close these.

The hot keys are completely customizable so you can transfer a lot of your habits to the keyboard. I have not used Vectorworks so I have not input regarding your main question. When I chose CA (about 8 years ago) it was based on the price for what it had to offer. I have been very pleased with my choice. For a residential design specific office it is a great program. You will need to some time to get up to speed but you will be able to be very productive once you have your main file set up to your specs.

@ Dermot, thank you for your informative post. @Lew, do you really consider being knowledgeable in how to work the tool at your fingertips a "workaround"?

The project I have up is a fairly simple model but I have no issues viewing in Standard mode with shadows on. Very smooth movement. I have a GTX 660 card. Specs shown in images. I had my hardware edge smoothing setting at none this morning but I don't notice any slow down (with this model) with a better smoothing setting.

You can use the edit area tool to grab what you need and move it all to the correct location. Use the point to point tool for the move. The edit area tool has options for selection criteria. As far as to why this happened it is referred to as a U18. That is a problem with the User about 18" away from the monitor.

These are my results using Open Office. I work almost exclusively with Rich Text so this is the first time I pasted a table in with plain text. I would like to be able to either remove or accentuate the table lines but I have not found that magic pill yet.

I tend to go for the simple approach. Sure, you can make cad blocks with his symbols (Hieroglyphics), or, you could modify his shear wall symbols to look like what you can easily make in CA. My engineer calls out those 4 shear walls as P1, P2, P.... you get the picture.

@Kilgore, I have unique layersets associated with each Anno Set. Therefore, when I sent my site plan it has a layerset called "Site Plan Layerset" and an anno set called "Site Plan Anno". If by copying the layerset you mean allownig cheif to make a new layerset, no.

Larry, yes and no. When I send a plan to layout it defaults to "Using Active Defaults" as the anno set. Clicking back to the plan file from Layout brings up the mysterious "Using Active Layersets". If you go in and set the anno set in the layout box it will work correctly but there is that extra step to get it to recognize the anno set of choice. At least this is what I am experiencing.

I had never investigated the setting "Using Active Defaults". I had assumed it was acting similarly to X5. I will need to take the extra step of opening the layout box to set it to the proper Annotation set.

This is not a new problem (although your exact description is possibly unique). From Layout, double click on the layout box to take you back to the plan file has always put the Anno Sets into a funky setting rather than just taking you back to the Anno Set that you sent to Layout. Always check your current Anno Set when jumping to the plan file in this fashion. Once you reset your Anno set all should be well.

Make the porch railing walls follow the photo. Then place the stairs accordingly.

Is it reproducible? If not it is just a glitch. If it is reproducible than you should probably stop messing with Allen's house and get back to work.

Not at the training but I am hoping to get to PCBC on Wednesday. How is the class?

The arrows will not show in dimensions that are smaller than the arrow size.

Bizarre. Somehow my Min Display Pixel size was changed to 99. I don't even have a cat in my office to jump on the keyboard. Maybe this is an Elves and the Shoemaker sort of thing but the Elf is telling me to go home?