rgardner

Ummm. Have you tried using Cad details and the 2d drawing tools within chief? They are a lot more capable than most realize. Also, you have things such as live views that you can setup and use auto detailing, drop a group of annotations on top and adjust things for live views. Use a warehouse plan with all of your typical cad details on them and send to layout (maybe even have the majority of the common ones already sent on your layout template.) Pretty quick.

I use chief for ALL drafting but to simply view dwg I use https://viewer.autodesk.com/ the free viewer.

Greg- As I mentioned in my email there are a few experienced users in your area in Ontario. I believe @Doug_N works in that area and @robdyckI think isn't too far away???

Email sent

I don't see an issue with putting the garage on level 2. Chief is designed to build rooms. A crawlspace is a room on the 0 level in your case, what you are calling a basement is actually a semi-subterranean floor with a retaining wall and not a true basement, if your garage is above that for part of it then on the level 1 you would just adjust that room below the garage that will be "unexcavated" to change where the "floor (top of footings) and ceiling (slab for garage above) would be located. No one ever said that hillside projects were easy to design/draft.

Welcome to the forum. It will be difficult to help you with the information provided. Best in this case would be to provide the plan file (remember to close chief down before uploading it as it locks the file. Too many variables of what it could be. 1.) Watermark 2.) Symbol placed with a label turned on. 3.) Errant text 4.) 2 or 3 on a locked layer. 5,6,7,8,9......... It is greatly appreciated also if you include some information about what you are using in your signature as well. Basic software version, hardware specs or min. PC, Mac, and OS but hardware helps with some troubleshooting as well.

Not a work around that is how it is designed to work with this scenario. BTW your 82" stair clearance is supposed to be from teh front of the next tread up and you don't fall within IRC code anyways. You don't share your location so it might qualify there but seeing as the majority of are at least 76" most 80"or more I don't think it will work.

Probably framed with a ledger on the wall and rafters running parallel to the roof slope stepping into a radius.

Since you don’t have your signature filled out can’t tell what version you are using but this bug was fixed in x13 for the majority. It had to do with having your ALDO, LB, & PB undocked on a second monitor with a different resolution from the main monitor. If you left those docked it generally stopped happening. They fixed it with the 2nd pre beta release so as long as you have the latest release of x13 this shouldn’t be happening anymore but if it is dock the side windows and call tech support.

Had another second so modeled the other method as well with a 1" wide open no material wall material region and a solid showing the gap and chamfer. Multiple copy and laid out where ever is wanted. Have to adjust the solid around openings but another possibility and method other than the great one that @JoeCarrickis showing.

Over simplified version of what I was talking about. If you need to show the chamfer it will be harder to do as you would have to do it with solids but a solid wall with material regions set to opening no material: To show the chamfer you can make a wider material region that cuts the surface and then place a solid in each location that chamfers and fills in the void to the right shape. Would take a bit more but not as hard as placing individual panels for modeling it.

Any reason you couldn’t make the concrete wall 2 layers with the combined of main layer and exterior layer the actual wall thickness. Then use the wall material region method with say “opening no material” as the finish set to cut existing wall finish sized to your groove to cut that exterior layer showing the notch?

I think you may still be able to do it but you need a different profile instead of a block one maybe?? I dunno didn't have time to dive into that. it does still cut plumb or straight though.

Not a glitch. It is set to use that profile as a rafter tail. Look what happens after the rafter tail is removed:

Your default settings for Roof Beams: What you are using in the plan is rafters and Ceiling beams. What happens when I change it to roof beams and set it to an I-beam in defaults: This pic shows roof rafters set to i-beams and a new one drawn in. BTW your roof settings are not ideal. and by default your layer sets have roof beams turned off.

Hard to tell from this pdf (btw it is much more appreciated if you can take a screen grab instead of uploading a pdf so anyone who wants to try to help does not have to download the pdf to their computer.) Really looks like two things are happening. 1.) You appear to be sending a live view instead of a plot line view to your layout. Plot lines are clearer and do not have a background so can be overlayed nicely. 2.) There appears to be a layout box ontop of the other layout box that also looks like a live view as it has a white background. Try selecting the middle of the box and if it does not select the picture box that is covering everything else then hit shift until it does. 3.) If you are actually wanting that image try sending it as a picture to see if that helps. Otherwise plan and layout file is your best bet for getting assistance here.

Can you please post a pic of what you are looking for with the "niche" or "show in the interior walls".

Good to know. Thanks. Again not debating Mac vs. PC just trying to offer a glimpse at my workflow so I can get the most out of all this valuable information before dropping some more coin on new monitors.

I do drop some pdfs in but in particular one account that is more technically challenged provides measures and uploads a pdf that is not very clean when imported into chief and blown up. I know it has to do with the dpi. With the nature of that account's work I have to consult the pdf on a very regular basis and it is just easier to zoom in and out of that on the secondary display and not leave my location on chief for it. I am not referring to a pdf of a floor plan for example. Those obviously I import and draw over it.

Good stuff everyone! Thank you all for taking the time to comment. One thing that I forgot to mention that I don't believe works with PCs is that with mac there is a built in ability to have several screens setup on the same monitor and with a swipe on their trackpad or mouse or with a hotkey you can quickly flip that same monitor from one screen to the other. So If I need to research something for example I can leave chief where it is hit my hotkey I have on my mouse and flip over a few screens to where I have my browser up and running and do my research. That works well for most things but the only hesitation I have about going to a single screen is when I am doing an as-built plan where I need to constantly consult a pdf or pictures to get the accuracy on the as-built model. That I usually place on my second screen so I can see both at the same time. The downside to that currently is that I have to dock my ALDO, LB, & PB or move things around in order to have all of it on my second monitor. Any issues with that type of thing on your single screens?

I know this is an age old and heavily discussed topic on here. I have already searched and searched and read all the reviews, unfortunately most of the information is a few years old and technology has come a long way in that time. So I am asking for some advice and opinions. Everyone's system works best for them. The short. I am planning on either going to one large screen or twin med-large screens with my new Mac Studio (please hold back the apple comments as this is what I choose for me and my business.) This new computer is very capable and can run up to 6 6k screens so the gpu portion of things is not a factor. As my signature says I currently use a Samsung 32" curved 1080p main monitor and a LG 25" ultra-wide installed in portrait mode for all my other programs. I primarily use chief for all of my work, I do not do any gaming, very seldomly watch videos other than youtube instructional videos. I use it for video conferencing but nothing strenuous. I currently have decent eyes but you know how that goes down over coming years. I have never worked with 4k other than my laptop which is a 16" screen so not as much of a comparison. Do you who use 4k monitors like it, would you do it again. Anyone try it and find it too small for everything else? I really like the curved so am considering finding some 4k curved 32" and going with twin 32" monitors. Leaning towards BenQ as I have heard alot of good about them. But i have also been looking at maybe a single 43" 4k. or even the ultra-wide 49" curved screens that are out there. So please share your recommendations.

Do you have railing walls turned on in the 3d view layer set?

Are you using a foundation wall instead of an interior wall? An interior wall can still have a footing and not be a foundation wall.

That is an old issue with x12 that was cleared up in x13. Are you using the latest patch? The old issue was with having two monitors of different resolutions and sizes with the Aldo PB and LB undocked.

We will need a plan file to help you get this sorted. Also the question: is unclear at least to me what you are trying to achieve. Do you have a pic of what you want it to model as? Also in the future try using a vector view instead of standard and please don't make a pdf as anyone who wants to try to help has to download that to their computer to look at it. If you use the windows screen clipping tool you can upload or just drag the resulting pic into the forum and we can view it directly in your post.