BBoumaConst

We always do energy heel trusses so I love this new feature. It makes it a lot easier to get close to the actual truss drawings. R-50 attic insulation is the code here so it's pretty hard to achieve that without a higher heel height. 12" is our standard. Here's a typical truss design for us.

Seriously? In what scenario do interior wood framed wall thicknesses vary? They are always 4-1/2" from face of drywall to face of drywall (1/2" drywall, 3-1/2" actual size of stud, 1/2" drywall). All experienced framers already know that. All openings, joists and trusses are dimensioned to centers as well, at least around here they are, so it really isn't all that difficult to do the math in your head. Most of the framers I have worked with, in West Michigan, including my husband who still frames each home we build, layout interior framed walls to centers and exterior walls to outside edge. Basically exactly how SKB-ChiefUser described. However, this is not how most plans are drawn around here. I dimension that way because that is how my framers do it and what they have requested. They are the ones actually building the house so it makes more since to dimension the drawings to work best with their method over sticking to what’s “standard”. Seriously though, I’ve never been denied a building permit because my plans weren’t dimensioned the same as everyone else’s. Inspectors just want to see stuff dimensioned. Also, no, all framers DO NOT layout walls the same way. Every framer has their own process and preferred method. This has been proven within this thread’s comments in case you haven’t already noticed. So it is entirely possible that this is another thing that varies by region or just the individual framer themself, but no one is doing it wrong if the house is built to code. So stop being a **** about it. Good grief.

I know exactly what you are referring to. It also drives me nuts. There is no way to preserve the high resolution of the rendering when you send it to layout or import it as an image, even if you export it in the highest resolution CA is capable of. At least none that I've found. It seems like CA compresses the image no matter what once it is sent to layout. I usually end up doing a work around using Adobe Acrobat once I print plans as a PDF using a screenshot of the plan view rendering.

I really hope someone has an "in feet" macro also, because reporting a garage door size in inches is annoying. For now, I just have 18 x 8 written in the label box, since that is usually the door size we use. At least that way, I don't have to change the label most of the time. Side note, we received one of your drawings to bid a couple of weeks ago from Mosaic! It's kind of neat to see how other CA users utilize the program. I only opened it to see if the drawings were similar to the original ones from Edgewater planned with the hotel, otherwise I rarely look at bid plans. I was an estimator at Lamar Construction and that was one of my projects.

My iMac is a year older than yours and I keep getting fuzzy renderings, especially with detailed materials. It also now takes forever to ray trace so I definitely feel your pain! Haha I do also have a 2019 MacBook Pro and the difference in rendering is night and day. But it's also a pain to switch back and forth between the two computers just to render stuff. I hope someone on here does have the new iMac Pro, because I am also very interested in hearing what they have to say!

Thank you!!!

I'm having trouble getting the siding to show up over the rim joist lately. For some reason it isn't showing on this plan and didn't for a different one a few weeks back, but the last one I drew didn't have any problems. What did I do wrong? Can someone please take a look at my file and help me out? I would really appreciate it! Thanks! Gebhardt.plan

Ever since I switched over from Soft Plan to Chief Architect 3 years ago, I have been wondering the same thing... It is very annoying and you would think they could at least make it an option some how, like a check box to 'hide foundation below grade'...

Electromen, What did you do to make it show up? Or where did you find it at? Because it's still not showing up for me and our SSA is good through the middle of February... I was even told by one of the Chief Architect Reps at the IBS on the 20th that it would be in my Digital Locker, but it's not... Getting a little irritated. Any help will be greatly appreciated!