Dermot

"I created a Pony Wall with a 6" tall lower wall and an appropriate width (5-1/4") "Nothing" wall above..." I can see no reason to use a pony wall, which Chief uses to build two separate wall types, and then try to force the program to make one of them go away. There are several ways to adjust the wall so that it doesn't go up to the ceiling or down to the floor. You can simply adjust the height in an elevation view, adding break points where needed, or place openings into the wall (using pass-thrus or doorways). For modeling a shower curb, I would simply use the half-wall tool (aka a solid rail) as Steve shows in his video. Regarding Steve's video, I would probably never use a polyline solid for a wall cap since solid rails already have an automatic wall cap. The wall cap can have a separate material and overhangs if you like and it will always stay with the wall unlike a polyline solid. I would also not create a new wall type with just a single layer for a tile wall. I would encourage you to model the wall similar to how you would build it in the real world by using a framing layer in the center and tile layers on the outside with something like a cement backboard to mount the tile to. This will be much more realistic and allow you to generate more accurate dimensions, framing, and material lists.

All 17 pages will come in as separate pdf boxes but each box also contains all 17 pages of data. After deleting pages 2-17, open up the pdf box for page 1 that you have left. Note that under "Page" that it still says 1 / 17 and that you can change it to any page you want. This means that the pdf box still has all of the data for all 17 pages stored in it.

I modified my post to suggest that you should "prefer" using them with vector based graphics. If someone has a DWG file available, you should get that instead of a pdf. If they are making you a pdf, you should see if they can make it without images. If you don't have a choice, then you have to use what you have. There is a general misconception that pdfs are the best format for sending information to other people and this is not always true. Another thing to consider is when you have a multi-page pdf. You can only display a single page at a time but we still have to load and process the whole pdf. You would be much better off if you could get the pdf with only the information you want in a single page.

As pointed out, if you need to report a problem to us, you need to do it through tech support, not through the forums. As far as pdf's are concerned, we use a third party library for these. We have zero control over how this third party library works. If they can't or won't implement a multi-core solution or some other technology to speed up their library we can't solve the problem for them. We certainly do not have the resources to write our own pdf library. The best we can do is see if we can find a better library but that could have a different set of problems (including licensing issues). My recommendation is that you don't use pdf's for importing images. Embedding an image in a pdf, rather than using the image directly in Chief, is more likely to cause you performance problems. If you are using pdf's, you should prefer using them with vector based graphics and text. These will be much more compact, much better at scaling, and should not suffer the same performance issues.

Yes, this is true but you can also turn this off. Just uncheck "Use Default Formatting" on the label panel.

You might be able to make an angled front cabinet, remove the face on the front and then put a face on the back.

You can also rename saved plan views by right-clicking on them in the project browser.

Turning on the cabinet module lines will show all of the pieces of the cabinet. For frameless cabinets, it will also show you that we are faking them by building them with a 3/4" thick face frame. This means that you may have a bunch of lines on the cabinet faces and sides that you might not really want. To solve your problem, all you need to do is make every other cabinet a different material. Just make a copy of the plan material that you are using. You don't actually need to make any changes to how the material looks. This solution takes advantage of the fact the program will only merge surfaces when they are using the exact same material.

Normally, a message will come up letting you know that a cabinet door is intended to be placed into a cabinet. The message will then ask you if you would like to place it into the plan as a fixture. If you are not seeing this message, it may be because you saw it once, checked "remember my choice" and then clicked no. You may want to reset your message boxes in preferences to get this message back.

I have posted this information before but it sounds like Andrea is having the same problem that the other poster was having. I did not look at your plan but from your description it sounds like you are sending views to layout that are linked to Saved Plan Views. If you change anything with the saved plan view, then this will affect your layout view. Here are some ways to solve your problems: - You can stop using saved plan views by switching your Saved Plan View Control that appears in the default toolbar to "None". You can also do this in your default template so that new plans won't start in a saved plan view. - You can unlink a layout box from a saved plan view by opening the Layout Box Specification dialog and setting the Linked Saved Plan View combo box to "None". - You can learn how to use Saved Plan Views. If you use a different saved plan view for each layout view, you won't have to worry about accidently messing them up. More information about Saved Plan Views can be found in the reference manual or in this video: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/2421/saved-plan-views.html?playlist=100

Yes and yes. Many new users resort to editing wall heights because they don't know how to use the other tools properly. For example, they don't know how to adjust room heights to get the results they want, That said, there are many other situations where editing the wall heights is exactly what you need to do. For example, when creating a stepped foundation. Just my 2 cents worth. I''ll let the more experienced users handle the other construction details.

First, try Perry's suggestion of changing your Hardware Edge Smoothing to High. There is a bug with some video card drivers that can cause this problem. Turning the edge smoothing to high should also make your views look better and probably won't affect performance in a noticeable way. If that doesn't work, I would try Michael's suggestion of updating your video card drivers. If neither of those solutions works for you, you can always manually turn off or on individual labels in a specific camera view (using Michael's, Steven's, or Maureen's suggestions). If all else fails, then I would contact technical support during our normal business hours.

Apparently, it's not as restricted as I thought. Thanks for pointing that out Mick. If you have any walls and it still does not generate any cameras, you might want to post your plan to see if others can duplicate the problem. Or, if all else fails, you can always contact tech support for more help.

It won't generate any cameras if you don't have at least one room. This probably means that you have not drawn out a basic floorplan yet or that your walls are not connected correctly. It should probably give some kind of message when it doesn't create any cameras to avoid this kind of confusion.

There is a "Send to Back" tool. When you select almost any object, you should find a tool called "View Draw Order Edit Tools" on the edit toolbar. If you select this tool, the program will then change the edit toolbar to a set of tools that allow you more control the draw order. Send to Back, Send Backward, Select Drawing Group, Bring Forward, and Bring to Front should all be available. If you look at the status bar, there is a description of what each tool does. There is additional information in the help system that you can get to by hitting F1 when you hover the mouse over any of the tools.

Your drawing does not have enough info to make an accurate model. You will need some horizontal dimensions or angles otherwise people will get very different results. As far as how to do this in Chief, there are a lot of different ways. You might want to play around with the Input Line and Input Point tool. These tools will allow you to input a line very accurately by specifying coordinates or lengths and angles. Also, you can select any line in a polyline and open the specification dialog to get more accurate controls. You should see the Selected Line or Selected Arc panel which should allow you to specify start points, end points, lengths, and/or angles. It also has the ability to lock some parts and only change others. Most of this information is covered in our training videos and reference manual.

Select the Text Line with Arrow tool. Use the marquee select method to select all your leaders. Use the Open Object tool. Modify the properties as needed.

You could just create a hole in the polyline but in my opinion, you are doing it the hard way. Stop thinking in terms of how you used to draw this in CAD and try to think about what you are trying to model. If you change the model, it will look correct in all views, and even more important, it will stay correct if you need to move or resize one of those windows later. Try changing the wall surface material instead or applying a 2D fill style. Or even better, use a different wall type that already has the shingles built in. Or, if you really want a special area then I would use a wall material region instead.

You can modify the Drawing Group from within the dialog box. You can't change the order within the drawing group though. The tools on the edit toolbar are more powerful.

There is an easier way. Select the terrain perimeter. Use the "Make Terrain Hole(s) Around Building(s)" tool. Modify the shape as needed.

"I can create the first, but when I create the second, it joins up with the first and makes a single stair section." Don't panic. It probably only looks like a single stair section but you do actually have two separate stair "sub-sections". Stair sub-sections are like different line segments in a polyline. If you select either one, you should see the extra edit handles along the center line indicating that you have multiple sub-sections. Also, you should see that the sub-sections are labeled 1-1 and 1-2 and you should see both sub-sections when you open the stair dialog.

The most likely cause is a video card or driver issue. You should check out this tech support article: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00106/troubleshooting-3d-camera-view-display-problems.html If you can't resolve the problems on your own, then please contact technical support during our normal business hours.

First of all, your picture is too small to see much detail. Second, without a plan, people are not going to know what's going on and would only be able to make guesses. If you are still using X9, there were a number of improvements made in X10 so that this happens a lot less often. If you are using X10, I would encourage you to submit this problem to tech support so that we can look into making additional improvements.

Just to clarify... Regarding #1, roof slope indicators are just labels so you control the text size the same way you control almost all other labels. You need to modify the text style used by the layer that controls the label. For the slope indicators, that is the "Roofs, Labels" layer. Regarding #2, you can turn off all roof labels by turning off the layer called "Roofs, Label". You can turn off the label for any given roof plane by opening the dialog and checking "Suppress Label" on the label panel.

Assuming that your walls are connected to form an enclosed space, see if this help article helps: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00285/restoring-the-living-area-label.html