JiAngelo

That's a dogear arch in doorways

Hello, I misspoke. I was using that tool to create piggybacks last week. Here's a link to a video of what you need to do using the clip tool. To snap to the compound shape you just need to select both members then trim the desired member to both in one click. The extend tool works similarly. Chief Architect Premier X16 2025-03-25 11-03-08.mp4 The video was too large to upload.

Use the merge and join tools in the lower right bottom to reshape the web connections

Scott, The site tools are better, but still woefully inadequate. There is no wireframe 3D view of topography. Cross sections do not show the topography well enough to snap to and create an existing slope line, for instance. Last project I had to extrapolate that using a series of z=1' boxes that I then aligned in 2D to match the 1' contour separations on a 50' ravine in the rear yard. This determined my failure plane and minimum setback & footer depths from the hillside to comply with code. Chief is not perfect. I just wasted a day updating my walls/doors/windows/floors/ceilings with the correct energy information to export to REScheck. Chief still included my unconditioned non-living area porch ceilings in the insulated trussed areas - but not the garage ceilings, go figure. Basement walls still export as above ground walls - this despite my X8 2016 tech support request to fix this. Luckily I found the original complaint and therein I spelled out how to manually fix the xml within the *.rxl file. You'd think in 8 years a group of programmers would have automated this fix with a below grade wall toggle (or subtract grade from TOF and compare to wall height). Rather than file my complaint again, I simply manually fixed it in the 3 jobs I'm currently working on and the *.rxl's imported fine. With regards to your asbuilt/demo and proposed, I'm not seeing the toggle hang-up. We draw the asbuilt first (V1). We decide which objects to demo second (V2). Then we create our proposed (V3, V4, V5.....) You can reference display V2 in any version, and vice-versa. If you ever update V2, it will update within each proposed version automatically. If you updated V2 to V2.1 then you rename the reference display plan to pull in V2.1 instead of V2. Technically the proposed should only represent the new objects, and your asbuilt/demo (V2) references the rest of the building and demolition objects on separate layer sets. But Chief is a room container program. You can't resize/redefine a kitchen/dinette/greatroom arrangement without the container walls. You would need to invest time excluding existing items from schedules if you only want schedules to address the remodeling work. Probably less time than you'd have us invest to learn Revit. One layout file would then show views of the V0, highlighting V1's what to demo, then outlining how to build proposed V#. The real problem here is you know Revit and the only people currently hiring want you to use Chief. Do you want the job or not? I would discourage you from hiring on as a covert operator on a mission to change everyone into Reviteers. I would embrace Chief and give the employer what they want in a format they themselves can update or change if I'm on vacation, taking a day off, or have moved on to greener pastures. I would use Revit to augment my production for them whenever it makes more sense. Make the work you produce undeniable and they may come to embrace Revit of their own volition.

In Chief you simply toggle it differently. Here's a crude example. First, draw your as-built. Isolate your demo objects to their own layers. We use "D-" to distinguish. Then create your own layer sets "only demo objects on" and "all objects on but demo". Next create your proposed remodel. And reference display your demo plan as a glass house. To eliminate the glass over existing to remain - use Layer set "only demo objects on" for reference plan. Or show the reverse by switching to asbuilt/demo plan and import the proposed as glass house. Or reverse the views.

We can XREF a plan into another plan. What I mean is look up "Reference Display" and scroll down to this.

My bad. I also didn't know that setting existed. When I drew a custom countertop it still left the back of that cabinet hanging outside the wall. It only happens to one of the cabinets. The other truncates properly.

That's a countertop. Manually draw the countertop over the cabinets should eliminate that. You may need to replace the sink.

1. Turn on the reference layer for the floor below and draw the room over the red lines. OR 2. Copy the 4 walls below switch to the upper layer and paste them in place. Either way, then open the new room and select Open Below for the room type. It will now appear as one big shaft. And you can repeat this for multiple floors. Remember the openings you put in those walls belong to the floor they are on. Best if the walls belong to that floor too.

Gene, it took me a minute to figure it out. Draw your first truss and then draw a general framing member down the length of the ridge line. Next open a section view of the truss. Pick a distance down from your peak for your Piggyback Truss bottom chord height + 1-1/2" for laterals = Hip Truss top chord height. I chose 2'-10.5" and 3'. Next resize your general framing member to 3.5 x 1.5 and raise it to fit between the chords and copy them to either side like so, Next select the truss and break it at the 3' line and drag the peak down to the opposite 3' line. The truss should auto rebuild itself into a Hip Truss. Next go to plan view and draw a second truss farther away and still in the cross section camera view. Then return to section view and select the new truss you see drawn above the hip truss. Grab the bottom cord and raise it to the 2' 10.5" line. Next drag the tails up to the 3' line (so that the piggyback tails rest on the hip truss top chord. You may need to scroll and zoom to get the moved points in the right location. The upper truss should have rebuilt itself as well. Check this in dollhouse view with trusses turned on and next we have to fix the tails. Select a truss and open the cad detail page for trusses. Zoom to the piggyback truss. Below it draw a general framing member about a foot longer in either direction under the bottom chord. Move this member to 1-1/2" below the bottom chord. Then use the red circled "Join and Lap Ends" tool twice. First time click on one top chord, then 2nd time click on other top chord. (you may need to adjust the member depending on how they snap together) Then raise the tails to match the top of your member (1-1/2" below the bottom chord.) and delete the member. In plan view move the trusses so that one is on top of the other. Select both trusses and move them to one end of your building. While both are selected, multi copy them 24" oc.and make the necessary copy for the end truss as well. Then look at your seamless 3D views. Note, I actually moved my piggys to a copy of the truss Layer, so that I could turn them on/off separately from the hip trusses. Also, if you select the end hip truss and change it to an end truss it updates automatically. Last note, I tried this first in truss detail view and the hip created fine, but the piggys kept jumping around - it seemed like in detail view the bottom chord always began at the TOW. In cross section view it gave you more refined control to create the piggys. Hope this helps.

Nice Gene. We've had a couple clients install those a little higher to fill/rinse mop buckets.

That's a great idea. I'm wondering if we subtract the original from proposed would it give us all the fill volume required. And if we subtracted the proposed from the original would we determine the volume of cut required.

When I import a dwg or dxf file into CA I have to specify the points layer as elevation data. There has to be an underlying polygon that will either becomes a terrain perimeter automatically or I specify that layer is a terrain. Without the terrain the points never appear, just the adjacent data. When that happens I will create a terrain perimeter that encompasses all the data, then copy-paste this terrain to a new blank file. Now import the dwg/dxf and points will appear. Post the plan if this doesn't work.

Like @KevinWaldronsaid above, the CA cabinet libraries, including the manufacturer's provided libraries are not drawn with enough detail to be sent to a CNC machine. CA Manufacturer's Libraries, like Aristokraft or Kraftmaid, don't even have enough information within them for a 1:1 connections with 2020 Kitchen design software, which is owned by the same company that owns Mozaik, Cyncly.com. If you've ever used 2020, watch this demo and notice how similar they are in designing a layout. Notice it is using a Mozaik door library, and look at all the options that library comes with, including blum hinges, handles, drawer glides, and even choosing drawer/tray construction to be box or dovetailed - the level of detail is insane compared to Chief's libraries having only Doors/Drawer fronts, finishes and wood species. Look at the exploded parts view at 2 minutes. At the 3:30 mark it starts taking the parts of a cabinet and optimizing the cuts and placement on 4x8 sheets of prefinished plywood (or particle board) By 3:50 you know you need 21 sheets of plywood and at 4:00 they are showing you how you can manuever cabinet placement individually and then edit shapes on the fly to create predefined cutouts in a cabinet's sidewall. You should be able to export DXF's of your plans and elevations (for odd shaped cabinets like under stairs), recreate these in Mozaik using its stock library or one customized to how your friend intends to build his cabinets, This is the method we currently use for 2020 software pricing after configuring a CA kitchen in greater detail to match a manufacturer's available cabinetry options within each line. For instance, some cabinet lines don't offer fluted columns or hood detailing that Kraftmaid has and we must work around this. I hope this helps.

Dxf import/export is possible.

@Renerabbittyou were 100% correct. It is a daunting task with regards to converting an entire plan file. I was focused on the question of accuracy - which does work when converting inches to millimeters with 4th decimal accuracy, but not the other way. I knew this from having to work through several European cut sheets for tubs, bases & cabinetry. This mainly entailed converting dimensioning within specific rooms to set fixtures and determine centerlines accurately. - No comparison to converting an entire plan file. To be fair, we'd hiked some caves that day. And a bit of drinking ensued. Sorry I doubted you. O-H, I-O !

The 3D data is in the DWG file. You can see it using TrueView's Named Views or 3DORBIT command. The data is locked inside of a cad block on C-TOPO. To test this, If you import only C-TOPO you get nothing. If you import only CONT-MINOR and CONT-MAJOR you get nothing. Importing all 3 gives you the contours inside a CAD block with no elevation data. There appears to be blocks on other layers as well, and there is no boundary polygon to import as a terrain perimeter. Have your surveyor resend the DWG unblocking the CONT-xx layer contours. See Also, https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00719/importing-terrain-elevation-data-from-a-dwg-or-dxf-file.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00719/importing-terrain-elevation-data-from-a-dwg-or-dxf-file.html Both state Chief only imports Model Space items and cad blocks all Paper Space items.

Cut and paste between mixed unit plans wasn't the topic of discussion. Rene, if you open and convert the imperial plan to metric (4 decimal mm accuracy) then cut and paste from that plan to your other metric plan. Does this work? Then convert your previous plan back to Imperial, or simply close it without saving. I'm on vacation this week, so I can't test this.

When not under a wall, or if irregularly shaped, use a pier or concrete pad. I normally have it 12" high at -4" (below the concrete slab, which nets 16" overall.)

DB, I guess the last sentence of the caution symbol message was my answer. "There are Joist Direction Lines with different build specifications within this platform, unable to determine which line should be used. Either delete the extra lines or open the lines for specification and ensure each field in the Floor Joists Panel are the same for each line." I'd already boxed out that area with bearing lines to try and isolate it like I would a cantilever. However, I read the help file a little more extensively last night and I think my problem is the 7' x.19' area I need 16oc is over a 15' x 21' kitchen - meaning it's not entirely contained within a single room below it. And the remainder of the kitchen is further divided with trusses over part of it. And 2nd deck 19.2" oc over the rest of it. I decided to keep the 19.2"oc spacing uniform and added another joist (on a copy of Joist layer named "Framing, Floor Joists DBLRS") beside every other joist. Doubling every other one gives me the strength I need to using the TJI-210's spanning 19'. This leaves space for tub drain, toilet flange, and HVAC. Here's the images w/ trusses turned on. I change the material for my beams and for those doubler joists so that I can see them better. The colored truss is a carrier for the floor beam (carrying both 2nd floor deck and 1st/2nd floor truss loads.) All accomplished with automatic framing still turned on. Thus far the only framing I need to manually clean up is the stair hole on the other side of the house. Below the back header circled in blue needs raised to min. 7' above the stair nosings.

I have a plan I'm working on that is using TJI-210's at 19.2" (aka 19 3/16" or 1'-7 3/16") on center. But I have an area on the back side of a middle bearing wall where I need the TJI's to be 16" on center. When I tell my joist direction line in this area to be 16" on center, a caution triangle appears over all bearing lines front/rear of the middle wall to the left (not to the right???) The joists in that area remain become 19 1/4" (no longer 19 3/16") with the bearing line saying 16" oc. AND the joists in front of the middle beam are now 17-15/16" with bearing saying 19 3/16" oc. The red circle is the area I need to be 16" oc. The blue circles are the highlighting the mistakes. ON A SIDE NOTE, I have a middle beam over a doorway that is in line with the joists. When it is 4-1/4" wide it shows correctly with the joists flush to either side. But the wall it is over is 4" wide. And when the beam is 4" the back joists automatically create a tiny overlap that is separate from the joist itself. .This isn't a big deal, but it is maddening. I can work around both problems after turning off automatic framing, but would like know if automatically addressing it is possible. . . Any advice would be appreciated.

All my files are on onedrive and active projects are synced local. No problems thus far. Every new computer I connect onedrive, give it time for active folders to sync, and I'm up and running. Only downside I've experienced is 1) explorer won't search folders not stored locally. Using a browser I can search, find an old file location and then sync that folder. 2) We hit the 2T limit and had to add dummy users to get their 25 Terabyte storage plan.

Place some invisible walls to separate the lower ceiling areas from the raised ceiling area. Raise the ceiling, then use 2" tall soffit (or slabs) to define the perimeter and then paint them your desired colors.

I had to look crenellations up. I would probably build a slab (or use solids) to merlon height across the area to be topped. Then copy in place a second slab and either A) decrease the second slab the thickness of your merlons then subtract this from your first slab, or expand the second slab the thickness of your merlons and subtract the first slab if you plan to use corbels to hold support the merlons. Next create your crenellation slab with its top even with merlon height & thickness, then make it your desired crenellation depth. Copy and paste these crenelations around the outer wall in the merlon slab. Then subtract those crenelations from the merlon slab. Create, place, and subtract any loophole details in the same manner. for the second merlon above, in elevation view, draw cad lines to create the arc V shape and connect the top to create a polyline. Convert to slab and.make.it the merlon wall thickness. In plan view place all of these where you want them and the silubtract all of the from the merlon wall. You may have to subtract these one at a time. Let me know if this helps. I've used a similar method to create layered exterior corner/window/door details in brick or EIFS

Excellent video. You could also lock the framing layers if you wanted to see them, but not select them, in plan view. And placing the dirt slab as Mark showed works whether terrain is there or not.