JiAngelo

For me, the quickest way was to set main pitch to 10/12, draw the main house perimeter, gable ends, ceiling height 12', Draw garage, ceiling height 9' and I assumed gable end, along with the room to the right of the main house, also ceiling height 9'.. Then draw front covered porch and front bump, ceiling heights 8', roof pitch 2/12. I didn't bother changing to metal roof because I want auto roof to remain ON. I did change these two rooms to roof group 1 and made sure the right front bump wall was gable end. On the main house perimeter, I centered the front door and drew two temporary partial walls 10' to either side of this front door. Broke the front wall at the temp walls and the middle wall with the door I changed the roof type to gable. You can then uncheck auto roof, delete the temporary walls and draw the interior to how ever you want. (change the front door wall back to gable so that it becomes one with the other two if you need to slide the windows left/right) You can also now change the main ceiling to 9' (to match the garage) and if you draw a truss it will show the 3' heel height automatically. The only problem with this method is the heel height is across the entire main house. Alternately, if you only wanted the raised heel along the front and same wall height along the back, Start over (auto-roofs on) and make the main house 9' ceiling same as the garage and right extension. Make a blank second floor that is only 2' high. Then draw over the main house walls, about half the depth. Like so, Add those temporary walls, break the front wall at those walls, and make the center door wall a gable. This changes the main gable slightly (red circle) but the rest is identical and the back trusses now line up. I can post the plan, but I'm on X-15 and not sure if that is what you are on as well. I generally try to do as much as I can with auto roof's then go rogue on whatever little is required manually. Under either method, with auto-roof off you can change roof group 1 to metal roofing. I hope this helps.

Unfortunately I'm using x15 and not used to creating video demonstrations. My approach was to first to tell Chief how to build as many of the roof planes properly as I was able. Here are the steps I followed; First turn on automatic build roofs and notice how crazy things get. Instead of asking why, I simply worked with what you had cleaned up conflicts. SCREENED PORCH & DINETTE - Here, both rough ceilings should be either 86 1/2" to match the Dinette, or 85 5/8" to match the Screened Porch. (see room dbx) - However both roof planes also need to be 3-1/2 to come under the right upper window sill. - and the side porch wall needs to be a gable in roof DBX Notice in 3D view this cleans up the roof lines on this side of the house nicely. ENTRY DOOR / STAIRS AREA - Entry is 97-1/2" rough ceiling - Make Utility under stairs also 97-1/2" rough ceiling - Switch to LVL2 - Make Stairwell 23 5/8" rough ceiling. - Make Storage 23 5/8" rough ceiling - Create a room right of Storage by extending existing Storage rear wall and Study side wall. - Break these walls at the exterior intersections of storage and study and then make the new outside wall segments "invisible". - Open this new room's dbx and name it "open below." Set rough ceiling height to 23 5/8" and uncheck flat roof. Notice in 3D view the problem is only over the stairwell. - In plan view, extend Storage closet door wall across stairwell towards shower. Break this wall over stairs and make it invisible. - also select bottom left outer wall of stairwell open it and change roof overhang to 2" (this cleans up overhang intruding on adjacent Bath window) In 3D view all roofs should look correct, except for Bedroom 2 area. - Change BR2 to Roof Group 1 in DBX. - Change bottom exterior bedroom wall to 4/12 pitch. - Change midwall between BR2 & Master Bath to "High Shed/Gable Wall" - Change Master Bath upper exterior wall to 4/12 pitch Notice in 3D view these roofs look correct, but don't intersect and roof group 1 doesn't create the valley. - In plan view, draw a line through the middle of bedroom 2 running left to right. - Locate this line 9' away from bottom exterior wall (which also places it 9' away from the Master Bath's exterior wall.) - This is the midpoint of the roof planes (where the plans should intersect to create a peak) - Drag Master Bath roof plane peak to the CAD line. - Drag BR2 roof plane peak back to the CAD line. - While BR2 roof plane is selected, drag upper right corner further right to meat Master Bath roof plane valley peak. IN 3D VIEW everything should look correct except for a 12" notch near the lower valley intersection. - select BR2 roof plane and drag the notch roof downward to meet the the BR2 Bath roof overhang.facia - drag the notch's left corner right to meet the valley intersection of BR2 plane. Let me know if this is helpful. Solver has me playing around with recording videos but it would take me weeks to get something as coherent and comfortably clear as his are.

Thanks DB. That helped me figure it out. It works like Rene said, but there are a couple of major problems. FIRST, Subdivision dwg/dxfs are in real world dimensions, based off a state plane coordinate system. You can't "move them to the origin (0,0,0) in Chief because then when exported they won't show up in their real world location. Like our surveyors, we have mobile tablets that tie into our state's satellites which enables us to walk around on site and verify lot lines, curbs, sidewalks, trees, utilities locations, etc.. in real time. We can even overlay this with google maps in aerial view. You can do the same thing with a mobile phone GPS but it is only accurate to about 12-32 feet. Our tablets are accurate to 3/16" - 1/4" (~1cm). We actually spent Friday morning staking out all water/sewer mainlines, curb valves and street light locations in another subdivision. The subdivision isometric that I sent previously is located in our North Ohio State Plane, around X=22089396 7/16", Y=2501979 1/4", where Z=0 when we are not using the elevation data. Otherwise Z=~900 in our area. Here I've attached a zoom of the same isometric with two referenced floorplans in the ISO (circled in red), which brings us to problem #2. SECOND, I gave both models the identical coordinates & rotation but they appeared in two different places (compare 2nd jpg with 1st.) This tells me that I would have to go back through all floorplan drawings and set an identical origin point. (The house on the right was drawn farther from the origin point because I'd first pasted some subdivision PDFS into this plan, then drew the house to the right of those PDFs.) THIRD, If all my floorplans had the same relative front left corner origin point, I would still need an excel table of my subdivisions 45 build pads stating their front left coordinate location and the angle of the front build line with said angle reflecting the direction the house is facing. Here I used 180 for lots south of the road, which means 0 would be the angle for houses on the opposite side of the street. However the road is actually running at S87d19'6"E and build pads on the opposite side of the street then would be N87d19'6"W. (meaning 0 is -2d40'54" and 180 is actually 177d19'6" to be perpendicular to the actual road.) Since we can't import the excel table, cutting & pasting every coordinate and rotation would be required (4 x 45 = 180 operations) in the DBX-Floor-Reference. For me, it is much simpler to rotate, drag, drop multiple models, then copy with offset to adjacent lots, mirroring the units for lots across the street. However, Rene is correct my method is extremely resource intensive. My user library is over 250gb due to all the past models we've created. I've had to increase my OneDrive storage to 5TB (our tablets connect to it) and I'm getting ready to buy a new computer with several M.2 NVMe SSD's. Last two images are the concept drawing we submitted to the City of Westerville and a google maps view of the completed subdivision. All designed in Chief, including remodeling of the two pre-existing single family homes at the entrance.

Ken, You're going to need to be a bit more specific. I ran around on discord for about a half hour. The name fits it's definition. lack of harmony between notes sounding together. I searched high and low for "reference a 3d model" clicked through both links....

Thanks Rene. Took me a while to find "Referencing a 3D model" - I didn't even know Chief could do that. I thought it applied only to floorplans. I'll play around with this over the weekend.

Hello, Are you looking to achieve something like I've attached? Here we created preliminary isometric views of a house sitting on lot 6. We didn't include the road, since the sidewalk abuts the curb. We widened the terrain by 5' to either side, which is the minimum setback distance to the next home. We added a fence at the rear side yards to show where the propertyline actually is. If this is what you are looking for, here's two ways to do this fairly quickly, OPTION #1 Follow SHCanada's CAD instructions in a separate file. Create the terrain then adjust its shape to either fit the lot, extend a bit past the lot to include how much extra you want, or terrain the entire subdivision. Last option will bog down 3D generation especially if you have elevation data present. Export a 3D model of your house, then import this and drop it on your desired lot. Orient the model how you want on the lot in 2D, Just remember the model is generally 15" larger in all four directions due to gutter and overhangs. Generate your 3D view and adjust the Z-axis of the model to intersect with the terrain (I generally use 2' above to give me 8"-12" of exposed foundation.) OPTION #2 Follow SHCanada's CAD instructions in the same file as the house plan. I typically will draw the lot first and isolate the build pad (the blue polygon is my buildable area after I follow all the subdivision setbacks.) Then I draw the plan to fit inside the build pad. If the house is drawn first, I'd draw the CAD over to one side initially, or cut and paste it from another file. Ideally the Plot Plan CAD should be on its own layer. Either way, the Plot Plan CAD needs oriented (rotated) so that it matches how you want the house to sit on the lot. This is easy with a square lot. For cul-de-sac or curve lots, you need to pick an approach - centerline of lot (perpendicular to front) or match parallel one side of the lot are two approaches. Generate your 3D view and you probably don't need to adjust the Z-axis much because Chief did that for you automatically based on its defaults. Option 2 is how I did this for years, until we started designing subdivisions. Option #1 allows me to spin the model and drop it on any lot in the subdivision file to see if it fits (if you have build pads drawn.) Last drawing is our next subdivision. The buildings are all models on different layers. Only the roads, parking, sidewalks, power poles, ponds and landscaping are drawn in the file itself. The image shows a 40 unit housing density in the upper left, but we also have 30 unit & 36 unit layouts on a different layer and can toggle between them. This is a condominium project, so lot lines are fictional and we wanted the freedom to build 1-2-3 family dwellings in any grouping dictated by market conditions. I hope this helps.

Thanks Chopsaw! Changing it to 1.5" dropped the exterior material 1.5" below the sill plate....TOO MUCH. I changed it to 1/8" and it covers the sillplate without being noticeably below the corner trim boards, which do extend to the bottom of sillplates automatically. Thanks again. John.

Hello, I have a new floorplan that has developed what looks like a missing sill plate between basement & main level. It does not appear adjacent rooms that step down (like front/rear porches & garages.) I tried building all framing and all that did was make the sill plate appear (see third picture.) I should be seeing exterior coverings extending below sill. My first thought was to make the sill plate concrete - this would be a quick fix, but one of the sill plates is across the front elevation which requires stone extending downward. Has anyone else run into this, I tried searching the forum. Thanks, John..

I can't find the 3D bonus catalogue in any of my X8-X14 versions, or on Chief's site.... does anyone know where I can I download the .calibz?

I have this issue when creating PDFs in other programs as well. Settled on having Acrobat compress the files after they are created. Typically a 30MB file will reduce to 3-7MB's If you don't own acrobat, here are two online resources that you can drop your PDF into and it will return you a compressed file for free. https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/compress-pdf.htm https://smallpdf.com/compress-pdf

In Ohio several county auditors provide this data for download. In our home county they have parcel data and gis data in separate files. We can download both and import them to give us the topography and lot lines. I searched Austin Texas and found you can download DWG files of the data at https://austintexas.app.box.com/s/nu5ju1ni2vz0oonm67f014xqdwip526k/folder/42061586880 Here's the main website https://www.austintexas.gov/department/gis-data It includes some arcgis links which we also find useful. Hope this helps.

This is how I typically do this. Draw a molding line in plan view where you want the 1"x10" to be. Open dialog and change it's width to 10" and raise its elevation to say 10' initially. Switch to camera view, select the molding then raise/lower as needed to get it where you want it to be.

Not sure I'm understanding correctly. What do you want to be seen between 12" and 56.25"?

You can right clicked on a room, created a room polyline, place it on its own layer and add a grid fill specifying the grid size (2'x4' for example) then specify a vertical/horizontal offset to center the grid on the room. For multiple rooms I generally just expand the first room polyline to cover everything. You can add blocks or text for lighting and/or hvac layouts on the same layer or choose a different layer, then these layers can be turned on/off to display at will.

@CheifTexan, can you generate a .dxf or a .csv of points only? Your files only have 2D line data, no elevation data, just boundaries. On their website, https://www.moasure.com/pages/moasure-3d - I downloaded their DXF example, but it also is only 2D, no 3D data. I downloaded their CSV, but had to open it in excel, save it as a "space delimited .prn" format, due to a "line 2" error in the "comma delimited .csv" format, then used "Import Terrain Data" in Chief (Space Delimited .prn format) and the points appeared with proper elevation data at each point. It looks like Moasure requires a $9.99 monthly subscription to obtain the 3D data function. My phone is only able to measure Distance and Angle in the app. Entrance_3D_Example.prn Entrance_3D_Example.CSV

Assuming you have automatic roofs turned on, Break the porch wall into 3 walls, with the middle wall the width of the "aesthetic A". The simplest way is to draw perpendicular cad lines across the wall at the proper distances and then break the walls at those cad lines. Open the dbx of the middle wall and change the roof to full gable. Close the dbx and the program should draw the gable matching the pitch of the adjacent planes. This will also mess up your porch columns most likely if they are drawn and spaced automatically. Ignore this. Turn off automatic roofs. reconnect the front porch wall to be one continuous wall - porch columns should correct themselves. After this, you cannot auto update the roof without losing this detail. I usually wait until I'm done with the remainder of a plan to finalize odd details like this. Lastly, if you desire the front gable pitch to be different from the adjacent planes, you can open the gable roof planes and change them to the desired pitch. There's a bit of cleanup work here on both the ridge connection and connecting valleys. It takes a little practice and is much easier to do in 3-D once you get the hang of it. Hope this helps.

Steve, you're killing me. Concrete walls stacked isn't Brittany's problem. Neither front, nor rear, walls of Brittany's model stack, they cantilever past the lower walls approximately 1' front, 2' rear.. The rooms that stack don't exhibit the problem. Just look at her sidewalls along the middle of her building. Enlarge your second floor on either end so that it cantilevers past the wall below, spin it up and....voila, you have a model that actually exhibits Brittany's problem. To fix it, change one of the cantilever walls to something like 6" siding. Let me know when your face looks like this... Have a Happy Memorial Day

You are using concrete walls. These do not have an exterior layer (which automatically extends to the floor below) OPTION #1 - Add an exterior layer to your default walls, OPTION #2 - Open the Wall Specifications DBX, select "Structure" and check "Go Through Floor Below" under Platform Intersections. close the dbx and your views will upgrade. Try option #2 on one wall and you will see the difference immediately.

Couple of thoughts, Table 602.3(6) is an alternate to Table 602.3(5), which is an illustration for Section 602.3.1 Stud size, height and spacing. There is a limited exception (2) that allows 18' 2x6's @16"oc & 20' 2x6's @ 12"oc where the tributary span is less than 6' (which means 12' span between bearing points) Unfortunately my building spans are usually 15'+ for 2x10+ joists) Table 602.3(5) footnote (a) restates this as follows, Increases in unsupported height are permitted where in compliance with Exception 2 of Section 602.3.1 or designed in accordance with accepted engineering practice. We once had an inspector refusing to allow us to "double every third" joist (which equates to 12" on center but allows standard mechanicals to be run between the joists.) After consulting with other inspectors, he allowed this "accepted engineering practice" that was not "per code." Lastly, have an engineer give you a blanket statement regarding the spans you actually use and include it with your plans. We've done this before as well. A one-time cost is then offset by multiple future uses and both you and the inspector are covered in case there is a question regarding the practice down the road. Good luck.

You are essentially building a "split-level". Typically this is a 2 story home where one side is often 4'-8' lower/higher than the other side. A duplex would be another term that could apply, each unit having a different base elevation. TO DRAW THE ENTIRE BUILDING IN ONE FILE, Figure Phase 1 is the primary building so all floor elevations of your subsequent building are based in reference to that one. So when you draw the phase 2 part of the building, before dividing it into rooms, increase the floor elevation by 4' (per your example). I'd box out the second and basement floors and define them and make sure they are proper height in relation to the adjacent floors (open a cross section to verify). I'd also complete the roof and make sure the exterior looks properly and ties in well with the phase 1 roof. The reason is that if you have all the rooms divided up, and you need to make a change (like from 4' above to 3'6" because that works out better), then you will have to open each room on each level and change them individually - and if you miss one, the level below will give you fits. TO DRAW THE BUILDINGS INDIVIDUALLY We've also drawn the buildings separately using a dividing wall, exported them as models, then imported them and placed them side by side with the shift in elevation. This doesn't work as well on splits because the roofs don't plane out very well when there's a +4' difference between the two. We've had situations where one unit has 9'/8' ceilings 1st floor/2nd floor and 2nd unit has 10'/9' ceilings because the terrain sloped 2' between one unit and the next. The roof's planed out together and the front doors/garages were +/- 2 feet on each unit. This way the models looked coherent when placed together. Duplex method is nice if you want to separately account for room schedules, living space, etc.... The entire building in one file gives back total square footage and it is hard to tell which room belongs to which level. Hope this helps.

I've been wanting to automate my title block for years. In addition to Joe's macro I added another that subtracts 1986 from the current year to give me a %years_open% value. Thank you Joe for the answer and RGardner for asking the question!

Make sure your NVDIA drivers are updated to the current ones. This has turned out to be the culprit every time Tech Support troubleshoots this with me. Happens on X9 & X10.

You can draw it fairly easily using slabs, then coloring the slabs. The bolts would take a little longer . To draw the text, I switched to orthagonal view, selected an isometric view, then copied region as a picture and special paste this image onto a CAD Detail window. The isometric places the object at a 30 degree angle. You can then draw lines and place some of the text (see attached) But I'm as curious as Chopsaw as to why? If that's the image you need, cut and paste it into chief and use it. Hope this helps.

Tracer, Your plan file doesn't include any terrain. (the terrain was turned off. I found it) It also shows the retaining wall at the end of the garage (farthest right) while your PDF's show the retaining wall at the left edge of the garage where it abuts the house. Couple of tips. Create a terrain hole for the main walkout area bounded by the retaining walls This is the simplest way to drop the terrain down to the walkout patio floor height. Place the highest elevation point outside the wall (or 1" inside the wall) and the lowest elevation you want on the other side of the wall (or 1" inside the wall so that both points are 6" apart on an 8" wall. This makes chief drop the elevation within the wall itself so that you don't see the terrain rolling downward. doesn't always work as good as a terrain hole, but pretty close. Now that I could see the terrain, you needed to change the shapes of your elevation regions to create the slope following the wall angling downward - so that the terrrain lines are perpendicular to and following the elevation changes in your wall. I just quickly drew some elevation lines -1' every 2' to match your wall slope approximately. I created a hole over the wall and expanded it over the lower region, then used a slab on grade textured to match the terrain to make the grass butt against the lower wall. You need to play around with it a little more to get it to your liking. Hope this helps. John. MAYNARD_TUTTLE_11_21.17-2.plan

(3) 30" Dell monitors. Each 2560x1600. They've outlasted 3 computer rigs. I have fourth monitor, but I need a longer desk...