MN_JohnH

I have been searching and can't seem to find any information on working with SKM files. I use 3dwarehouse a lot and it is great for the SKP files but if I want to use some of their texture files I am not able to import them to a new material in Chief. I don't have sketchup so going back to that to convert them is not an option.

Thanks, that does help. The thing is, I never drew any extra walls or anything like that. It's hard to know if a drawings has somehow gotten uncleaned up. When I tried to pull that wall back like you suggested, it didn't let me. The wall just kept generating. But I think when I went to a camera view and clicked on that section and deleted it and the rest seems to stay, I was basically accidentally doing the same thing you were saying to do. Here is another puzzle that I assume is related to these walls somehow having become "unclean": Both these roofs have boxed eves but I can't get the one side to build that way. I deleted it and mirror copied to correct one over and it is still the same and the one with the correct boxed in eve the gable frieze board doesn't go all the way down. I think it is like this in that plan I uploaded earlier. So when you say you keep plans "clean", well is there a way to know they are "dirty"? As far as I know I didn't draw any extra walls or don anything unclean. I knew it had something to do with those walls and I was fiddling with them trying to get the siding to not protrude so at that point I may have done something that dirtied it up but the problem existed before that. How did you go about analyzing the problem?

Well, dragging that wall up didn't seem possible, it just kept coming back. I set the ceilings to default and that didn't do anything but then I deleted a wall there, (I think, I was just fiddling around), and it fixed. Still, why in the world would just the siding on any wall stick through the roof? It's a rhetorical question, I am used to some things in Chief being just not explainable. Thanks!

I can't figure out why my siding on this wall wants to stick through the roof Wall problem.plan

I have had problems with squirrels chewing through the ez screen plastic windows so for our current 3 season porch project I found these https://www.monray.com/ glass wall products. I just drew a very simple representation of one in their 81.25x37.25 size and I have the plan file attached if anyone wants it. If you do like Alaskan Son says and save as a fixture and have it insert into wall it works pretty well. Although I don't know if you can stretch it like a regular window. Anyway, it was the first time I had done this and I was happy with how it turned out. It will work for my purposes for this project. Mon-Ray glass wall 37.25x81.25.plan

As long as I have worked with Chief I have had this problem with materials. Same wall and materials but the upper floor sections have this glare or something. Sometimes it's darker, on this one it is a glare or lighter color, almost as if the material has a shine to it or something. I have read about similar problems on the forum and I have made every possible adjustment in the cameras etc and it is always the same. I can't load the plan, it is way to big, but you hopefully get the idea.

I am thinking that what I am asking here is not possible. My thought was that I could tweak my 360 renderings a little bit in a photo editing program and then upload them in place of one that I already have there and I wouldn't have to send a new link out for someone to look at it, it would always just be the same link and would get updated with my new picture. I know I can do it from my CA program but I think it would be nice if I could do it from a 360 panorama picture saved to my computer. Probably time for me to get a better computer so I can generate the graphics I want right from my machine...

I see that I can replace/overwrite a 360 file on my Chief cloud when I export and I see that I can upload a 360 panorama from my computer to my Chief cloud but I don't see a way to replace a 360 Panorama on my Chief cloud with one from my computer? The idea is I can update the cloud file so that the same link that I use to share it will still work. I can touch up my 360 file in a photo program so I would rather do it that way rather than straight from my CA export tab.

I guess I am just another guy a little bit non-plussed with the 3d viewer. I have accepted we can't get the physically based camera but it would be nice if we could get the lines drawing over the standard view. (Yes, I realize I can do it with PDFs etc).

I am wondering how you got the lines drawn over your framing drawing to show up on the 3d viewer here?

Hi Glenn, I did see it and I like the idea. I may try and play with that in the future. The nice thing about that is it cuts around the windows. Or at the windows. Anyway, the log homes we built back in the 80s and 90s that I am often going back to for remodel are quite a different animal. We actually used logs taken right out of the woods from local loggers and then we peeled them with a draw-knife. That was my job in the early days of my time here in the woods. But I quickly graduated to using chainsaw and axes and chisels to carve these logs one by one and stack them up. That is what I spent the last 15 years of the 20th century doing. Later we moved on to conventional construction and I am now 62 and have been mostly working with designing homes and running the business for the last decade or so. More than anyone wants to know I am sure, but that way of building had the first logs being half logs and then they were stacked up alternating sides and alternating the tapers on the logs to bring the walls up level. More or less. It was a very inexact craft. So when it comes to cutting in the window holes later, they rarely fall between logs. We always cut a piece out of the log above and below. I know I don't have to make my drawings with this detail and I am thinking I might still be able to do it with your molding idea alternating the height of the moldings on north and south walls etc. I would also need to do it on the inside... Anyway this thread has been very helpful and I appreciate all the suggestions. I am way ahead in my solid manipulation from where I was a few days ago. Here I have a picture of the house I am doing the "as built" drawing for and a picture of my drawing so far. Still a bit of work to do. Thanks again.

Thanks Eric, this is making a big difference.

Stacking up poly lines would be a simple process if they just did what you want them to do. I draw one of my cylinders or even a block and try to move it and it will change elevations, it will move higher or lower in relation to finish floor. Sometimes it happens when I just grab a side of an object and stretch it, it will suddenly be a good distance lower or higher. I can't figure it out, it makes me want to pull my hair out, (but I have no hair left). Sometimes I have an object on one side of the house and I reflect copy it in plan view to the other side and presto, it is 6 feet underground. Sometimes I open an object and it is the correct distance from finished floor and sometimes I open an object that I know is about 80" Above FF and it says it is negative 115" below FF. What's that about? Sometimes I split a long cylinder by subtracting a block out of the middle and suddenly one end of the piece drops a foot into the ground. I could stack up logs very quickly and get this done but I am constantly fighting these crazy behaviors. I am talking about just plain freshly drawn cylinders or square cubes whether I draw them in plan view or an elevation. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to how they will behave when I try to manipulate them. The plan is too large to attache and I doubt if I can replicate the behavior in a sample plan but maybe someone can enlighten me on what governs the height from FF on these ployline solids?

Thanks Rene, I tried that and it seems to help sometimes and other times not so much. Same with the regular polyline solid, sometimes the subtraction works fine other times no. I think the best workaround is to use separate pieces of log like Eric suggested. Anyway, I appreciate all the help as always. My other question was concerning the facet angle setting: When I copy the object, it will retain the same facet angle setting but when I cut the object in some way it reverts back to the automatic facet angle setting. I can't find anything in the default settings where I can make that automatic facet angle what I want it to be. Thanks again.

Thank you, that was the conclusion I was coming to too. Any thoughts on my second question: Also, I change my facet angle on the logs to minimize surface counts. When I copy the object, it will retain the same facet angle setting but when I cut the object n some way it reverts back to the automatic facet angle setting. I can't find anything in the default settings where I can make that automatic facet angle what I want it to be.

Also, I change my facet angle on the logs to minimize surface counts. When I copy the object, it will retain the same facet angle setting but when I cut the object n some way it reverts back to the automatic facet angle setting. I can't find anything in the default settings where I can make that automatic facet angle what I want it to be.

I have read all the threads on log walls and have tried different approaches but have settled on making the wall out of glass and then just adding cylindrical polyline solids and stacking them up. The problem I am having is when the window hole has to cut into part of a log. So I am creating a square block the size of the window and then subtracting it from the log solids. Some times it works fine but often I get this distorted effect with the remaining portion of the log that has been cut. It seems there might be a workaround but I can't find it. But really, why would this be happening in the first place? Log problems.plan

I found the tool to convert to polyline and I thought at first that was working but I see that I still have the same problems with the distorting of the shape after I cut into it by subtracting the other solid. But I can't find a tool for converting to polygon.

OK, I give up. I can't figure out what you mean by "convert to polygon" or how to do it. I have searched everything, (except where the actual information is obviously). If you could help me with this that would be great. Thanks,

I often have this problem where I create the log as a p-solid, I stack them up and cut out the window holes by creating a polyline solid block the size of the window and then subtracting the block from the logs. Often on the top and bottom logs of the hole where the cut is only halfway through the log, I get some deforming. I am not sure what causes this. I have created a simple log wall plan where this is happening and an image showing what I am talking about. Log problems.plan

Awesome! I knew there had to be a simple way but apparently I just didn't know what to search for. Thanks! This is truly a game changer for me!

The problem with this method is you can't cut the windows into the logs. You can put the logs around the windows but if a window opening cuts halfway through a log on the top or bottom of the opening you can't cut it out if you use the log symbols. I have built whole log homes using polyline solid cylinders and then you can cut them away where the window top or bottom cuts into the log. But of course using solids create a huge surface count and bogs everything down. One question I have is, why do the log symbols have less surface count and how can I draw my own logs with a lower surface count? Or if I could take the log symbol and turn it into a solid that would be helpful too. I built a lot of log homes back in the 80s and 90s when they were popular and now a lot of new owners of those homes are coming back for remodels etc so I have had to draw a lot of these and have not found the best way to do it. Mostly I have used the log siding and a thick wall but if I want to take it to the next level I use the solids or the log symbols. I make layers for perlins, beams, log loft joists, log ends and log walls so then I can turn off layers I don't need as I am working to keep thing from bogging down. I see this discussion is a few years old but I figured I would see what would come of this and if there are any new ideas.

Thanks!!

Dang, I thought I had checked that. Thanks! Now I just need to figure again how I am going to change the walls over the roof on that dormer to be exterior while keeping the walls under the roof interior. Seems like I need to relearn this every time but I know there is a video somewhere... Thanks again,

Thanks, that works. Now I have a similar issue on the other side of that same plan. I tried pulling the roof planes back a little but that didn't help.