michaelgia

Not sure what a "special use" arrow is, i'll have to look that up. Do you mean a text macro that calculates stemwall height as a difference between room/floor elevation and top of footing? If so, as Joe mentioned I would have to create rooms for each varying stemwall height in my foundation. Or am I missing something?...

Ok thanks. I guess i'll stop chasing that one...

As far as I can see there is no identifier for stemwall height when I select a foundation wall in the ruby macro console. Is there a nifty way to get a text box which points to a foundation wall to display its stemwall height? Presently I create varying hatch patterns over the varying foundation walls and a legend which shows the stemwall heights for each. It's not a very automated procedure. I would love to just have text boxes pointing to each foundation wall and have it return the stemwall height. Anyone?...

I start every plan by placing a temporary point at the origin, that is, absolute origin 0,0. The bottom left corner of my exterior facade starts there. Everything lines up after that. Or at least, I don't get the 0.867543218 offset from my grid.

Looks like your foundation walls have varying thicknesses. Try centering your footings on the main layer for all foundation walls. (Just because I had a similar problem once and that fixed it)

I personally feel that 3D trees are not worth the tax on cpu resources. All in the name of getting a shadow on a tree! I also think they look less real than the 2d ones. Am I alone here? If it's that important you're better off importing your cherished scene into Photoshop and drawing in a few sloppy shadows. Just my two cents worth...

Ok thanks for the confirmation! I'll quit my wild goose chase then. You're right, I guess it isn't a lot of work since I usually only have 3 or 4 different roof pitches on any given plan. Thanks again!

...and this is dependant on the pitch, which means it must be adjusted for every pitch independently. That's the point of my question. It seems there is no way to always have a cantilever situation unless you adjust the "raise off plate" height accordingly for each change in pitch. Seems crazy to me. Was hoping someone knew another way.

maybe I'm wrong but apparently to get a cantilever truss you must not only "raise of plate" by "x" but "x" must be adjusted for reach specific roof pitch?... That is, for a 7/12 pitch I enter 11-5/8" raise of plate height and that seems to give me the cantilever condition that I like. Which I assumed worked for every pitch. I set this in my roof defaults and happily continued drawing plans for the past several months thinking that would always give a cantilever truss system. Well... Apparently when I change the pitch to 12/12 I actually need 20-5/16 raise off plate height to get the same cantilever condition! Am I missing something? Why can't the program sit the trusses on top of the top plate as a default regardless of pitch? Is there some other check box or entry other than "raise off plate" that would give me cantilever always? Who in the world builds trusses like the default ones in Chief anyway? I mean how is a carpenter supposed to attach a soffit under those default Chief trusses in the field?

Nice work around!

I finally understood what you were asking. I think you are asking how to get the railing to change its inset position from the outer edge of the step or staircase edge. Am I right? I guess whenever you tried pulling the edge of the staircase in so that the railing lines up in the middle of your landing wall it would also move the wall under the staircase causing it to become offset from your landing wall. I'm so proud of myself but unfortunately I don't have an answer. I would love it if you reform halted your question and possibly included a plan with some mark ups better describing your problem. I would love to know how to change that offset distance of the railing to step edge. I've never seen a question go unanswered on this forum providing the question was formulated properly.

Wouldn't you simply enter the value you want in the "raise off plate" section in the roof dialog box? The same as doing cantilever trusses? Or am I not understanding the question?...

This is my favourite video on this topic.... http://video-cdn.chiefarchitect.com/592a18b6fbe4b63f436cd5a841f03cc1.mp4?Expires=1432956845&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJTIA4XHSXCDALTGA&Signature=Hgq1aCApG~1Q~59APJomYqmSJ8CgP1iGZoCYHcPU2rDwdegYyTZpcuapwbCBDMxI-OOM2C4R-STdyJ29FaKcs1EL4FGD8WwPN5U7IR7lZdkwS6LX2LvW5k6Iocb2J1lMiuqOjWVkmDoDN21rpi~xOmOR-JcIqc-V0Thp8xbX~2k_

Softplan has this as Automatic shadows in elevation view. Select line drawing and shadows. http://softplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/JJ-Shadowed-Elevation.jpg However I switched to CA after a few years with SP for many other reasons.

In Archicad they have a wall intersection priority number that is assigned from 1 to 16 to solve such issues. 1 being lowest priority and 16 being the highest. It's always possible to resolve such discrepancies since there is a broader range to assign to the different layers of materials that meet at one point. Rather than Chief's more limited bearing or non bearing material. I switched from 6 years with Softplan. Trust me, the grass is way greener here. It just has a few yellow spots. And if you ever try to build a quick kitchen in Archicad you will run back to Chief. However Archicad terrain is awesome quick and simple. (A friend of mine is a seller)

I use the sam method so I guess I should have the "real" layer sets saved there and then use that file to re-import those layer sets when I'm done fiddling around with the plan. Just before layouts. Thanks for the tip.

I often temporarily turn items off in a layer set and then forget which ones are off. Is there a way to see or track recently hidden items? Or reset a layer set back to the way I had originally set it up? I seem to mess up my neatly organized layer sets over time and/or redraw items that I had temporarily hidden. Anyone?

Hey thanks a million Scott! Awesome video! Actually I really love the way you bowed out the front of the balcony. I will use it in my plan. Simple feature but it looks really sweet. Thanks for that. I hope to be building a few of these this year. I think what I learned in the vid is to only use walls to define the room(balcony) and make the front wall invisible. Then draw a railing from moldings so that it allows for greater control over placement. That was key. Very simple, neat and tidy approach. Thank you thank you!

Gee that was simple. I feel dumb now. https://www.dropbox.com/s/qxkmnt8v6xdy9w3/rooftop%20deck%20fix.jpg?dl=0 Thank you Joe!

Thanks Scott for even considering my humble topic. In answer to your questions; 1. I would like an edge to the deck that would protrude just past my brick wall and then I could cap it off in aluminum. 2. We actually put the railing right on the deck and not on the roof as in my first photo, but when I try to move my railing on either side, onto the deck then my walls explode. Try it. Move a side railing 6 inches towards the inside of the deck. So basically it's a deck that has 3 exterior walls around it and has a roof that just overhangs on all three sides by about 4 inches. Here's a pic from the plan file... https://www.dropbox.com/s/m595ikurl9ib3si/rooftop%20deck%20overview.pdf?dl=0. The pic shows the roof done pretty well. The railing needs to sit on the deck completely and the front edge of the deck should be thicker (the thickness of the floor system). Maybe I need to try Joe's suggestion and build it from a floor and not an attic level.

Not really looking to solve a problem more than I am trying to find the most efficient way to do a rooftop deck without the need to constantly fiddle with wall surfaces and railings disappearing etc... I keep checking your YouTube page Scott in the hopes that you'll one day do a video on this. I've never seen anyone do this nor Chief for that matter. It's not as easy as it looks. For me at least. Part of the problem is getting your deck to come to the edge of the exterior wall that is below, and get a railing to sit on that edge. As well as the railings that rake on top of the roof on both sides of the deck. We build thes in the field by modifying the trusses to create the opening and then run 2x10's that sit on the exterior wall. I tried once by building the trusses first. Had a bad time..,

Terrain retaining wall is the solution I needed then. Thanks a million Bill. I never think of doing something like this. genius. Or was that really not so difficult?

Way too much fiddling around. I feel I'm approaching it wrong so I was hoping someone would have some insight on the proper way to do this sort of thing. That is, should I build a room in the attic and cut a hole in the roof over it? Or Maybe put a slab with a railing and then build the roof? Or Build and entire floor with just the one room with a porch and then build the roof to come down and sit on the walls of the floor below? Looking for wisdom and experience.

Here's a Dropbox link... https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgjf6lbjw3dn29q/master%20ebony%2027%20width.plan?dl=0

Hi all, Can anyone tell me the best method to create the following rooftop balcony? https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/83/22/29/8322298701c087673165e419b0191587.jpg I'm able to plug away with skylights or holes in roof but I always have a long drawn out trial and error session that sort of works in the end. I was hoping for the "right" way to do this. The problems I run into is, missing materials, railings that disappear, etc... Thanks in advance!