KnotSquare

My goodness that is a beautiful ceiling in your drawing Kbird1!

I have been using AutoCAD since 1988, so I am quite comfortable there and on a small project where I am not having a lidar scan done, will run over with a laser tape measure and quickly nab a floor plan in seconds, return home, trace it in Chief and see what I get for a roof. That pasted funky... Autodesk has AutoCAD, super slow for 3D of any consequence and Architecture, made up of flat images that would never make a client say, geez, I with to build that! The use of the two together gives a brilliant result for me and when I can get autobuild roofs to work to the bitter end, I feel I can produce a pretty good materials list. Put in the Lat/Long and a good north arrow and the results are spectacular. Check out this as-built: The client cares little about the trim where the addition is NOT going, but I am concerned about some artifacts and a crack down the middle of the roof where I am going to add onto, the gable where the single hung is in the pictures above. Zooming in, I cannot get these roofs to close: Oddly, no error message appears when I try to correct what appears to be an error to me. Just go around to the back of the house and I seem to have a house that is going fishing: I uploaded the video on my YouTube Channel from this site visit when tried to work out the roofs. 2 warnings, it is long as I do not have time to edit videos and secondly, it is the first time I have placed my ugly mug in a video. I do give up a lot of my methodology. There is plenty of work for all and hoping to build interest from youngsters in my home mining town. I also uploaded the model for anyone wanting to see the guts of this project. Mark Farrar Certified Professional Building Designer Knot Square Design, LLC Longtin C1.plan

First let me say that I am working with this guy: http://montanatimberframes.com/. Short on words, long on talent. No phones allowed in his shop, but what a craftsman. We are building a timber frame home in Butte, Montana and he said he would do the shop drawings by hand. I have this great tool, so I though I would see if I could create a dimensioned cut list for him, right down to the overlap at the peak where the tenons will go through the mortises. Chief seems weak in its truss editing capabilities. I am unable to place a decorative post below the bottom chord, although I can trace it out in CAD lines (shown in red). This will not convert to a polyline solid to even represent what I am after. More frustrating is the ends can only be brought in, not squared off. If I move those red cad lines in from each end to the appropriate location I cannot cut them vertically. Any suggestions aside from creating a completely fake truss with polyline solids alone or primitives. I know how to create that, but honestly, I would be better off to create that in AutoCAD and import it. Thanks for any help. I uploaded the plan at this stage in case anyone was interested in investigating it further. Just getting started with general layout and setting the grid. Wall design is based upon "The Perfect Wall" and we are going for Passive House standards. Fisher Concept 1.plan

Thank you all for terrific input. I have started with a first sheet that worked with some of your suggestions, thank you. I will find out more as I develop further sheets. Mark

That sounds like a solid solution. One extra template per category, but it will keep me with a method a PE I went to school with have developed since going out on my own in 1996. He is exclusively AutoCAD. I don't want to ask him to rewrite his macros to meet Chief's deficiencies. They are getting better. Loving X14 so far.

Ooh, Ooh! Closer yet. Do you know how to control the first number? I am getting A1.1 instead of A1.0 - Coversheet, then A1.1 - Architectural Notes, A1.2 - who knows. Then I will create a set of A2.# for plans and elevations. Another template for Structural Sheets e.g. S1.0 and on as above. Then another for MEP and another for schedules, etc. depending on if it is a home or a business. So far my record is a building at 130 North Main St, Butte, MT 59701. It is the old Hennessy Building, original plans printed in 1895. 6 stories at 16,000 sf per floor plus a basement and 7 levels of underground parking. If there is one thing we know how to do in Butte, it is dig holes. Thanks for the terrific help. I will continue to get to where the digit after the decimal point can start with zero. You have been great and Karma shall solve your digital issues. Mark Farrar Knot Square Design, LLC

I tried this: A%page%.%#% and got this: (see attachment) Close, but no cigar. Getting there.

This is my first time using layouts. I still produce my working drawings in AutoCAD, importing more and more from CA. You lost me a bit. I inserted the macro: A%page%. Where would I insert the ".#"? Am I using the wrong macro for this? Too simple? Appreciate your input. If you prefer, please call at 406.497.3666. Mark

Inevitably I need to squeeze in a page. Having decimal point followed by a single digit is a great solution. Framing pages for instance can be S3.0, S3.1, S3.4 and when I need another page for my unknown number of wall framing details I can easily add s3.5 without much work to the Sheet Index. Is this possible? S1.0 is the GSN and S2.- are for foundations. Love to find an answer. Thanks ahead, Mark

Mick, I was actually point you to the one that I found that has no issues that I have found so far. Check out that link. Mark

With the wonderful help from Dell Technical support, they had me upload and install an old driver. For X13 and the RTX GeForce 3080Ti, you can go to https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/187304/en-us for the proper driver.

Mick, When I purchased this new machine I nearly begged Dell to let me stay on Windows 11. Nope. So I am testing a new card, a new version of Chief and one of the guinea pigs of Windows 11. Joy, happy joy, joy. This is an XPS 8950, next to me is an XPS 8940 I bought less than a year ago, but would not receive the new 3080Ti, so out came my wallet. When Chief gets back to me on Monday, I will record my session and post it to my YouTube Channel. I am not the best video maker, and just started it earlier this month, but it is coming along nicely and my clients really enjoy seeing their projects being built. That is the main reason I started it so that they get to see what goes into a set of plans. I use Chief in conjunction with AutoCAD LT, AutoCAD, ReCap and other software. I have been using AutoCAD since 1988 when it came on a single 3-1/2" floppy. I have only been using Chief since 2009, and very sparsely until this last year. It is an interesting combination. Your welcome to check it out if you like: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3O1pwu_6bp6Rb8360aLCIg I will also post here when I have answers to what is happening to me. It was fixed at one time and had not occurred again until yesterday when Dell Tech Support updated my NVidia driver. Mark Farrar Certified Professional Building Designer Knot Square Design, LLC www.knotsquare.us

I have a new computer that should be the cat's meow for running Chief. It is falling short and I have fixed it once, but do not recall how. I believe it was a call to Chief Tech Support and may need to do that again. If anyone knows why this happens and how it can be corrected, please see my system setup, a new RTX GeForce 3080Ti with 12GB of onboard video RAM. I feel it should handle it and it did once corrected, at least for a while. NVidia had a recent update, so maybe some settings specific to Chief were reset to defaults. Unsure. If I figure it out I will reply to this myself so anyone else experiencing these difficulties can get past it with ease.

Thank you. I try to do everything, at least until the very end with Autobuild roofs. I actually use the Materials List and count on it framing correctly, walls and all. This will require a manual build of the independent roof over the Sitting Room, but I hope that all else can be built with Autobuild. MFr (yah, my mother caused that)

I think I got it fixed, but I still do not understand the cause.

The left hand railing of the entry stair is causing a break in the wall on the 2nd Level. I can move it over and this changes, showing this to be the case. I tried moving the room divider to the bottom of the stairs thinking that would define the rail height out there, but it just creates other problems. Peck Columns for Library.plan

Excellent Michael. Great catch! I prefer solutions that allow me to keep Autobuild functional until the very end. Thank you for your help, Mark

I see that there are headers in there now. Did you place them in there manually, turn on a layer I had missed... I do not know what you did. Mark

Once you open this, take a Perspective Framing Overview shot. On the high shed side, notice the headers disappeared when the exterior 1x4 wall was added that holds the mineral wool exterior insulation in place and provides attachment for the siding. Chief Tech Support has had this for about a week and no answers. I love the solutions I get out of Chief Talk. Mark Concept 1.plan

I have a similar situation as I work on high efficiency homes that need a drainage plane. I have had Chief Support looking at this for a week now, but will create another topic in here so show this strange error. I will label it Perfect Wall as the design is conceived around the Perfect Wall System.

Eric, That is great millwork and is a better representation of what is really there with the edges much more like the real thing. I suppose that is a polyline solid, and applied to each window. Mark

So I created the profile, saved it and placed it as the sill in the window dialogue. Since this is a 14" thick brick wall through and through, in the Wall Type Definition, I created a 10-1/2" thick brick wall as the entire Main Layer. Outside of that is a 3-1/2" brick wall to allow me to recess the windows as they are in the building. As can be seen in the attached picture, the Exterior Layers brick wall cuts through the new sill. I included a new model that has this wall type. Mark As-Built East Bldg.plan

I have quickly built the profile I needed as a 2D object, but cannot find instructions on how to save it to my Sills and Caps Library. It seems to me that if I do this right, it will have some intelligence and attach itself to the window in the proper location.

Chopsaw, Thank you for the reply. If I were to create the profile such that it is 2" deep front to rear and 9" tall in the Z direction, you still do not believe that it will work accurately if I use that new profile in place of the one selected out of the library? If you have time, would you please let me know a little about why you see it not being accurate. Again, appreciate your time. Mark

I have the privilege of being awarded a 1900s Train Station Conversion in the historic town of Butte, MT. I have had the entire building and site scanned with Lidar technology and can get some extreme accuracy in measurements, inside and out. Issue: I would like to stack two windows, mull them together and use that unit in most of the locations where windows are installed. In all cases there is an exterior concrete sill as there is on many old brick buildings. It is about 9" tall and comes away from the wall 2" and extends beyond the framing of the window by 4" either side. The window is set into the brick wall (13" thick of brick over brick through and through) so there is no window casing. I am unable to get the Exterior sill to extend down 9" so that I do not have to add a polyline solid to each window. This seems like is should be possible, but I can find no setting for depth (height in the Z direction) of the sill. Suggestions to keep this simple. I do a lot of historical preservation work up here in Montana, so this will not be the last time I come across this issue as I convert old buildings across the state into 3D models. The model is in its infancy, but I have included it anyway. As an aside, in the Project Browser in Cross Sections there is a saved section named Change to 3-12 Pitch as well as a Snipping of the Lidar image of the building showing where this transition occurs. In plan view, on the north side of the building you can see where this roof is to jog out. I switch between AutoCAD and Chief to get great results, so what are blue lines are an import from AutoCAD. In the Active Layer Display Options, those layer names that are all in CAPS are from AutoCAD. There is also a layer set named AUTOCAD ONLY that isolates the AutoCAD layers. I have a feeling I am going to have difficulty creating this little roof outcropping, so any tips would certainly be welcome. Mark Farrar Certified Professional Building Designer Knot Square Design, LLC As-Built East Bldg.plan