ACADuser

Dim Control in CAD

See attached CAD dimension control options. CAD Dimensions.pdf

When the lead carpenter reads the plan & calls out the dimension to the worker like 15 feet 5 inches & 3 of the little ones. Do you think more training will solve the issue. Or do you stop putting eights on the plans? True story by the way.

For the pyramid builders, if they can't read the measuring stick they get a hammer to work with. My builder friend said to make all dimensions from rough framing. Lessens the in-head calculations. So all exterior dimensions are in block modules, 4" or 8" but interior you have to use 1/8" off the block wall (7-5/8") But the rest of the dimension are 1" or at most 1/2". There are always exceptions but we avoid less than 1/2". .

Not sure if this is new to X13 but in elevation & section views often the snaps do not appear. It seems like Chief does show objects snap if you are drawing a line but not when using End to End Dimension. https://youtu.be/UCgmd_ApA0M

Thanks for trying. The solids do work and easy enough to manage in Autocad. I'm sure someone could find a way to use ceilings in Chief but solids will gave to do. In Chief make 1/2 barrel shaped solid and then use some other simple solid to subtract the unwanted portion. No lights in the groins yet

Yes but I got some warning message. As I recall the issue with the ceiling planes is that you can get the base height correct (116") bit getting both barrel vaults at the same top height was not working for me. I did my version & then Eric's version & still no luck. The issue in my mind is that the room is not square. So her are the specs: 14'-4" x 17'-9 7/8" 116" bottom of ceiling & 144" top of ceiling. And I'm trying to fit this into a roof truss and it's very tight. The middle of the room the trusses are fine, just the exterior wall that may be too tight for the truss company. This is an addition so the roof is new but ties into existing & plate height is fixed.

OK I created the solids in AutoCAD & exported as DAE. That saved me so much aggravation as I tried to manage the solids in Chief. Ceiling planes seemed impossible. See the imported results below. I painted the near one. There should be an easy way to do this in Chief. Groin.dae

Thank you for the videos, Eric My situation is that the wall to wall dimensions are different. 14'-4" x 17'-9 7/8" Perhaps that is my issue. Looking at Dave's picture above, all the Groins are in a square space.

Wow looks interesting Dave. I'll come see you.

Yes I saw the videos back in 2019 but looked last Wednesday and the video link did not work.

Guess I don't know what I'm doing here, The groin ceilings will not cooperate. Trying to get the base of ceiling at 116" and the peak at 144", I must be doing something wrong. I need a beer! Untitled 1.zip

Nice tip David. Is there a way to Reset to 0,0,0 in Chief? This issue is also a problem in Autocad. They provide a origin reset command so no need to move geometry.

Wouldn't this work? Exchanging Floors Select Build> Floor> Exchange With Floor Above or Exchange With Floor Below to swap the Current Floor with the floor above or below. The floor that was moved becomes the Current Floor at its new location. You can easily move a floor up or down several floors by using either one of these buttons repeatedly.

OK I guess I asked for that. PARALLAM PSL BEAM

I usually draw in wood & then submit to Engineer. In Naples the wind forces may require steel but you can do a lot with parallel lambs & structural sheeting on both sides of the wall.

Use Joey's suggestions & create the girders first. Every other truss should build correctly.

Working on a house with 2 exterior stairs & the room open below is nice but one stair has AC equipment on a platform that I want to show on the 2nd floor as well as the first but that is not visible in the open below room. This seems like odd behavior. Did I miss a setting?

Scratch that it is working as you said. Not sure how I got off track.

Yes but NEW windows placed in the plan did not use the "Specify Label" they still use "Automatic label" I was looking at Eric's routine as the only way to get feet & inches.

So I changed the Window Default to "Specify Label" and added this: %automatic_description% Top @ %height% But the new windows in plan view default to "Automatic label" is this normal behavior? I would also like %height% to be Feet - Inches, do I need a user macro to do that?

Nice Job. Thanks for sharing.

New codes Old house. I would talk to the building inspector to see if they would indeed require the landing. If so I would install a PT wood landing & remove it later if you like.