JiAngelo

The "Short Panel - Square Grille" stretches to fit the door size. You want the 8' wide look times 2. Unfortunatley Chief doesn't have a Horizontal Panel multiplier like it does for Vertical Panels on the Options DBX. To work around this, Make your door 8' wide to one side. Copy & paste to the side a second 8x9 with no gap between them. (red 2) Then mull the unit together to act as one 16090MU. (red 3) This will give you the look you want. But there is no control over the handles with this symbol. To work around this, Before mulling them together reverse the symbol (bottom of the General DBX) The handles are now inside the garage, which generally doesn't matter since we don't often show interior elevations of the garage. Clopay needs to revamp their Chief library. I hope this helps.

Your windows are on the attic level in the gable wall. This is why they show a negative distance. They are being measured from the attic level. IF you select the left trapezoid and mirror copy it using the window itself and not the doors below, it will appear in the right location. And you can mull all three together. And it shows the same negative distance as the others. I tried mirroring it using the door and it appeared inside the door itself, so it mirrored properly but was attached to the first floor. . .Hope this helps.

Follow @ValleyGuy's instructions. Leave Room Type alone and use it as Chief intended.

Metallica, Enter Sandman. https://youtu.be/jY8DLFy31Bg?si=Vx_0qNsPOeO_d23m

Chief needs a "build group" setting similar to "roof group" setting. Multiplex units could share the same roof group, but rooms belong to different build groups and each gets it's own living area just like detached buildings do in the same plan file. Schedules could be limited by build group or include a column in the schedule like I did with unit no.

Keep the room types their defaults. Open a room dbx. Create new custom schedule categories Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, etc... Create new custom object field "Unit No." Bulk select the rooms inside of Unit 1, open the Room Specification DBX, Schedule and select Custom> "Unit 1". Leave the existing room categories alone. Go to Object Information and enter Field Value 1 for Unit No. Bulk select the rooms inside of Unit 2 and per the instructions above, Custom>"Unit 2" and OI Field Value 2 for Unit No. Keep doing this for each Unit. Now create a room Schedule. For columns/rows add "Unit No." to include. Then on General deselect all room categories. Select only Custom categories > Unit 1, Unit 2, Or Unit 3 OR you can select all of them if you want to see the entire building in one table. (If those are all the custom categories you have, then you can simply select custom to select all.) In the example below I was working on a house, selected 4 rooms on the right side for Unit 1, and 7 rooms on the left for Unit 2. I also used 01 and 02 in case you have over 9 units in a building. You could also use 001, 101, 201, if you had rooms on different floors. This way it doesn't matter if you have 3 kitchens, 3 baths, 9 bedrooms in a building, each gets assigned to its Unit No. I haven't messed with my room defaults and I don't even have to delete what I've done within this plan - my schedules don't group information in that manner. The categories helps you sort/filter a Schedule. But you can't include category on the schedule so that is why you need the Unit No. to identify within each schedule what is being shown to you (a single unit, groups of units, or all units.) Hope this helps.

Based on your blue grid background size and the dimensions shown, did you import "inches" when it should have been "feet" ?

Can you isolate the symbol to its own layer and lock it or hide it? does that help in any way? I actually do the reverse of what you outlined. I insert the building plan 3D model in the terrain plan file. I recently learned you can reference one 3D view of a plan file within another. open your help dialog and type in "the reference display." It will tell you how to reference both floorplans and 3D models from another file. It's pretty slick and I'm slowing adapting to using it instead.

I think you have this "loss of accuracy" reversed. converting from inches to millimeters is accurate as follows 1" and 1/2" require 1 decimal place accuracy (25.4mm & 12.7mm specifically.) 1/4" requires 2 decimal accuracy, (6.35mm) 1/8" requires 3 decimal accuracy (3.175mm) 1/16" requires 4 decimal accuracy. (1.5875mm) Chief won't let you specify 1/32" accuracy. This image has the red boxes drawn in inches. Converting from millimeters to inches is where accuracy becomes a problem. This image has the red boxes drawn to 0 decimal place millimeters. . Notice the loss of accuracy compared to the first image. 25mm doesn't equal 1" -- 25.4mm does. 13mm doesn't equal 1/2" -- 12.7mm does. 7mm doesn't equal 1/4" -- 6.35mm does. 3mm doesn't equal 1/8" -- 3.175mm does. 2mm doesn't equal 1/16" -- 1.5875 does..

Can you place the schedule in a separate cad detail box, then send to layout and rotate the view of that detail box??

It is similar to the other threads instructions. Break the front porch wall into 3 walls. Make the middle wall a gable end wall. Size the middle wall for how wide you want the gable to be.

R602.10.8.2 states bracing is required only for rafters greater than 9.25" above the braced wall panel. Also required for trusses greater than 15.25" above the braced wall panel.

How does your roof venting work if the soffit intake is blocked off?

I had to first delete my ex. library to download a newer library.

Learn something new every day. That took me a minute Rene. I've always had a problem with backsplashes around windows and cooktops that soffits or slabs were cumbersome to address. I like how you can add underlying elements like thinset and backerboard to aid in material list calculations. And I can see using this to quickly to mask some of chief's 3D quirks or situations where adding skirt or molding lines are a bit cumbersome. A minor drawback is that the dbx for slabs, soffits & 3D solids allow one to set a uniform height from floor and the width/height of those objects, If you had door number plaques beside or on each door in a commercial office space, you could select all and change their size and location uniformly. It seems each material region would have to be changed manually via an elevation or 3D view. I also noticed in 3D view selecting multiples gives the highest height from floor value for all as a group, and overall width, but that isn't available when selecting just one. Still a great feature to add to the arsenal. Thanks.

For a straight decal - use create an image billboard. BUILD>IMAGE>Create Billboard Image. Unfortunately the sunlight is picking up the transparent billboard in the glass. See it's shadow on the floor. Right image is a cropping of the left's text only. The left image has a (2) transparent cropped billboards pasted in the upper area. All images are about a 1/4" forward of the wall you apply them to or else they fight with the wall's material. I grabbed rabbit's images above to show how quickly they can be added to chief. If you save the images to your library, You can apply it to a slab or 3D object, or furniture. Below is an image of a poolhouse I recently designed. the sail painting is from the library on a 1" thick slab, The right is actually the "waveform painting" from the library. i changed the border to black, then changed the waveform image to a chalkboard sign image in Chief's library as well. For me the slabs are a bit easier to manipulate than the billboards. I sometimes use soffits too, for shower seats and 1" thick soffits painted as wall tiles, Hope this helps.

Divide your front porch into 3 rooms, middle room is ~7'- 8' wide, no roof. Assuming 9' ceilings default, make your foyer 12' ceilings and you will be fairly close to your chief elevation. Use a moulding line to connect the front facia & gutters of porch 1 & 3. The roof returns to the front door don't appear to have gutters - might be wrong here. To match your photo, the foyer is really ~11-12' wide inside. 2' wider in either direction from the entry door. That will give you the proper massing. Goodluck.

Larry, I didn't articulate it properly. Take the original drawing you sent us and again select all. MOVING LEFT/RIGHT (1/16" increments) Move left 1 time and your left/right measurement's 1/2" error disappears in the upper right living room. It reappears at 8, 16, 24, etc... if you keep moving left. In Action History select Open Plan to revert back to original drawing. Move right 1 time and your left/right measurement's 1/2" error disappears in the upper right living room. It reappears at 9, 17, 25, etc.. if you keep moving right. In Action History select Open Plan to revert back to original drawing. MOVING UP/DOWN (1/16" increments) Move up 7 times and your up/down measurement's 1/2" error disappears in upper left bedroom. It reappears at 15, 23, 31, etc... if you keep moving up. In Action History select Open Plan to revert back to original drawing. Move down 1 time and your up/down measurement's 1/2' error disappears in the upper left bedroom. It reappears at 9, 17, 25, etc.. if you keep moving down. In Action History select Open Plan to revert back to original drawing. Now turn on Auto Exterior Dimensions. Repeat the above steps, returning to Action Step "Auto Exterior Dimensions" instead of "Open Plan" each time. Notice different measurements jump around, several at different increments from those outlined above. Return to Action History = "Auto Exterior Dimensions" and it is obvious the wall with 3 windows has a 1/16" problem. (move it down 1/16") Then select the following, The upper left bedroom closet wall - it has a 1/16" problem. (move it down 1/16") That closet's vertical wall adjacent to dead space - it has a 2/16" problem (move it left 2/16") The wall behind 1/2 bath? (door in room below closet rear wall) - it has a 2/16" problem (move it down 2/16") Now repeat the LEFT/RIGHT, UP/DOWN movements and you should see no errors at any of the aforementioned increments. Basically, a 1/16" grid only matches up with 1/2" rounding at a +/- 8, +/- 16, +/- 24, etc... progression from wherever on the 1/16" grid you draw.. And multiple walls on 1/16" at 1/2" rounding can exacerbate and create multiple errors over distances. It even hides those errors that cumulatively fall on the progression by accident or design. And speaking of design, Your redwood walls are a 4" stud layer with 3/4" int./ext. layers. Your existing interior walls are 3-1/2" stud layer with 3/4" int./ext. layers. You need to reverse the red wall and line up with the interior side to match the other two. Changing siding to 1" and keeping drywall at 1/2" would help keep you on the 1/2" alignment. If only your dimension defaults were set to 1/16" then every time you see anything but whole and 1/2" incremental measurements you'd see the error immediately and could correct it then, or wait until the end and correct it as I have shown. I hope this helps.

Absent the plan, my best guess is the floor below is offset and Chief is extending a truss support down to that level's top of wall. It might be simpler to open the truss cad detail (not the dbx), delete that vertical piece. Lock the truss envelope and uncheck special snapping to prevent it from auto adjusting back to having the vertical member.

Larry, change your General Plan Defaults snap unit to 1/2" before drawing should keep you on your grid rounding. To test this I drew a random rectangular polyline which measured 2'9" x 3' in your original plan file. I added dimensions with a 1/16 precision to show you what was actually drawn was quite different from what your original dimension defaults showed. Here I also discovered that Chief doesn't round up at 2'8 3/4", it rounds down to 2'8 1/2" And Bob, what you suggested is only better at hiding it. Changing accuracy to 1/0 reverts to 1/1 and then only displays whole numbers. It rounds 2'8 1/2" to 2'8" and 2' 8 17/32" to 2'9 Here's a comparison of all three precision methods. With less precision the errors can compound over farther distances. Notice 1/2" precision has a rounding error occurring between 5/8" and 3/4" And 1/1" precision has a rounding error alternately occurring between each of the 2' 8-5/8" measurements. One measures 2'9" the other 2'8" I'm pretty sure all of this traces back to the 1/16" grid this plan file was drawn on.

Larry, Thanks for posting the plan. I was wrong about your walls. Your interior wall has the stud wall painted white. Only the number 1 wall was off, but you fixed it in the uploaded plan. In your video, when you are fixing that wall, at the 1:20 mark you point to DIM 12' 5-1/2", click on it, and it reads 12' 5 7/16", to which you then state "that's close enough." Well, it isn't unless you decided to allow precision to be off or round itself in the defaults somewhere. While visiting your default dimensions "ANNO FLOOR PLAN" I saw it was set to Grid rounding - and I think that explains what you are demonstrating in your second video. It is like your walls weren't drawn on the grid initially. Click on Primary Format and you will see it is set for accuracy 1/2. I changed this to 1/16 and here's what your dimensions immediately turned into. To fix this, just change these two walls. The exterior wall with 3 windows, make that dimension 10' 1/2" The closet wall, change that dimension to 2' 6-1/2" You can check all your other dimensions but they should be correct now.

The walls are closer to 4' off the ground based on the switch distance to floor and angled wall distance to floor. If the roof is 12/12, and the ceiling plane is 8' draw another wall 4' inside the bedroom, and make this wall invisible and 12/12 pitch for roof. open the new smaller room and set default ceiling height to 4' and uncheck flat ceiling. If you did it right, the 4' walls roof plane will extend up and past the 8' walls roof plane. Your interior picture gives the contextual clues. The dotted lines are the invisible 8' wall location. It looks like your witches hat is then 10' ceilings. Its why you see half the roof triangle eave (below 8'), and not the other half (above 8') (see green arrows below.). It might be easier to draw the witches hat as an 8' tall room, the on the 3rd floor draw it again open below, 1' tall walls (2' including the floor = 10' overall) Set all witches hat walls to 12/12 pitch and maybe roof group 2 if it is fighting with the original roof. Unfortunately I'm not using Home Designer.

I think you need to check your wall locations. Circle 1 wall without drywall matches up with exterior finish material (NOT interior drywall) Circle 2 wall without drywall matches up with interior drywall (NOT exterior finish material) Second, you are missing some necessary measurements to make a proper comparison. Extend and find out the distance from 11' 8-1/2" to interior drywall of left wall (to compare with 14' 8-1/2" measurement. Do this with other locations, like the 6' 8" and 9' 6-1/2" measurements. I think you will find you are mixing/measuring interior layer (drywall) to main layer (stud) in several areas.

With any stair or ramp, in their DBX Choose Railing, then Style "OPEN", Include Top/Bottom & raise/Lower bottom = 2' Choose Newel/Balusters, then Type=ROUND, 2" width. Choose Rails, then replace both top rail & bottom rail with "Tubing Round" 2" Choose Materials, then replace newels & rails w/ BLACK (or another material of your choice.) This will give you the railing style you are looking for. For the handicap rails ends, it is a bit more fun. In 2D draw a moulding line extending from one end of a staircase. I changed my line weights to 1 to make things easier to see. Change Molding to "Tubular Metal" 2". Note, because I was lining up with the ramp snap point, I had to offset my molding -3/8" to get the tube to line up with the stair/ramp tubing. Open a cross section camera looking at the rail section. Raise the rail from the floor on which it has been drawn to match your rail height. Then highlight the molding and extend it around in a loop return. In 2D view mirror your railing so that it is 3/8" offset to match your initial. Switch to 3D view and paint it black to match rails. Select both moldings and mirror to other side of ramp/stair. Then in 2D view raise/lower moldings to match height of that side of the railings. Voila! If you zoom in close, the bottom rail has a better welded look than the top rail which is riding slightly above the rail. I couldn't figure out how to automatically fix that short of connecting the rail end pieces and making my own horizontal rail, using only the stair posts, no railings..

Doug, I can view the dwg in Trueview 3Dspace and see the LICCONTOUR2 lines have elevation data. But I can't figure out how to import this into Chief with the data. When I tell Chief LICCONTOUR2 is elevation data the import has nothing on that layer. Can you tell me the steps you followed? I've always had to have my surveyor send the file back with the cad block exploded, then when I import and specify that layer as elevation data it shows up in Chief. Thanks. .