PMMully

CA does a reasonable job on the visual aspects of the framing gen, beams, post, and joists. It helps to give a reference point on what the framing should/could look like, all overridden by a PE is over 30" in FL. The only the beams show up in the schedule no matter what I do. It just would have been helpful for the MTO, we are long past that now. I will upgrade to X15 as I have the rights. There was not much compelling to upgrade for me outside of the truss generation, but that all gets done by others anyway, I can not negate the step of bringing the truss engineering image in and overlaying it anyway.

Tried that, when I try to pick a 'deck room", the deck room names are missing from the dialog. I should mention I am still on X14.

@SNestorthat is exactly what I was doing, unchecking that box, selecting floor zero (you taught me that :-) ). This is a series of decks together, different elevations, with stairs. The interesting thing is the framing generation is correct visually (joists on hangers 16" OC), it just does not show in the schedule, only the beams show in the schedule. So maybe CA is getting confused due to the various deck room-types next to each other, on different elevations. I first declared the deck-rooms butted next to each other, then set the elevations, then added stairs between the two elevations. The top deck elevation has a roof aa well, and CA did a good job of that roof generation. As always, my plans are never easy.

Hi all, I am doing a major deck project. CA seems to be doing a fine job of generating the beam schedule, but not the joist schedule (joist would be on hangers off the beams). the correct beam/joist layout is being generated on the floor framing views. Is there a way to make the schedule include this the joists? Nice for an MTO is the reason I am asking. I specifically went into a joist and told it to add to the schedule, but nothing gets into the schedule. I am using floor 0, which is where the framing is showing up.

Not being a truss designer, I learned quite a bit on this thread regarding the detail involved and it all makes sense. But I think this one comment above is the key in communication between the architect, builder, and truss builder. In FL, our main element is just the pitch, everything else is pretty standard so this never really comes up in new construction. Only in a few plans did I have to consult with them on the heel height on a few remodels of existing walls so the roof lined up well.

Very good stuff here. I am lucky I guess in the fact that nobody pays any attention to what CA puts out regarding a truss design due to the wind borne area, other than the overhang, pitch, and the occasional heel change often needed for additions to make things work, which will affect elevations. Any trussing would be purely illustrative as it is all superseded by the truss engineering package. Framers here would not even look at anything CA generated, nor would the inspectors. I can attest to the use of Alpine @Dougakas I see that logo on all of our packages. But, it seems to me that two things have happened. 1) CA gave some power to be like what maybe a truss engineer would want so our roofs can look more real, and 2) the realization that some automation would be in order based on some settings. So user beware, be smarter than what you are working with. Curious, in other areas, would a truss company actually build and deliver trusses based on the CA output? But on another note, big disappointment in X15 for not delivering on two bugs I submitted in X14 over a year ago. These affect every single plan I do here in FL. Makes the truss thing a nice to have, but whatever. :-( I sure am glad I am on the old SSA plan.

I do many designs with lofts, open spaces, etc. I often use the text macro "Ceiling: %room.height.ceiling%", which works great. However, I noticed it does not work when I have a room above specified as Open Below in that space. When I put the macro on the second floor, it has the right value. But it makes no sense from the plan perspective for a client. Is there any way to make this, or another macro, function so it reports the ceiling height of the room above, which is specified as Open Below?

I put in a bug in X14 that did a lot of stuff like you say. They accepted it as a verified bug. I am disappointed to say is is not fixed in X15.

Ok, so its not just me....

Standard "service and support" in the software industry is 20%. I see CA has proclaimed the SSA costs will not rise.at least for this next year. My SSA is 20% of what I paid on a promotion. As long as the SSA pricing stays within industry standards I will be happy. I would not have selected.CA at the subscription model pricing just to do 2D construction documents. I consider the SSA as a version upgrade charge versus support. I put in two cases that were accepted as bugs and there is no fix on the near term roadmap according to supprt. Anything outside of the basics this forum provides the support I need. I recently looked at some manufacturing SW that was $30k, and "S&S" was $6k. No way I could afford that without some production contracts in place, but the 20% rule applied.

So the net net is those of us on SSA will still pay once yearly, the same SSA price with the same SSA benefits?

I have been given some 3D symbols in the STL format that I would like to modify after importing for a 3D printer project. After reviewing the help files I am not seeing something an option to explode or edit a symbol outside of a resize (with or without aspect ratio). Am I missing something in CA to do this? I was able to trace it and recreate the symbol, make my mods, play with the polyline solids, and export as an STL. I was also able to create a part and export via DWG. The accuracy was fine in both cases when it was sent to a CNC or 3D printer/slicer. If anyone using CA for light-duty part prototyping and manufacturing? I saw some posts from 2019 about floor plans being 3D printed which looked pretty cool. I am looking to only make very simple parts, not floorplans, nor complex assemblies like gearsets, etc. Just trying to cut down on a learning curve if I can, otherwise I will look into SolidWorks.

Kind of like a golf swing.... lots of variables.

I hope to see some good input here from the crew ... something appears to be up with the layer set and the core setup. Turn off Walls, Foundation and see what you get. Probably some setup thing in the templates as my plans do not do this, at least in my masonry world. Could be that air gap in that wall, change the wall type, etc. If you turn on the foundation step markers, they look to be right, so there are a few lines I would buy off on as they are where the drops appear to be on the FFE changes. There are a few in left field from what I can tell also. I can not even select them, but if you play around and pull some of the generated foundation walls back, you will find it is overlapping foundation wall outlines are the issue. The pic below shows in particular the front porch entry foundation driven by your hidden wall. If you do a cad detail you will see LOTS of generated stuff (that I do not understand why is even there). I did one plan that had a garage next to a porch like that, I got the same results, just some foundation stuff that did not seem right. It might be the dropped floors of porch and garage (and curb) are interfering with each other and the rendering engine can not resolve it. I tried to set your porch to 3.5 to match the garage to give it a bit of help, but it no positive effect. On my plan, right before publishing, I used some cad masks to clear up anything I did not like before it went to get signed off. Primitive and not model driven, but its fast, and you can lock it, stuff like that. I do not remember seeing this on any plan that did not have two dropped rooms next to each other.

This post is perfect timing. I have not had many issues with standard walls and footers, either exterior or interior, they seem to work just fine so far. But I do see some "memory" in the automatic regen of the foundation that I have to manually delete a foundation after things are changed. @DRAWZILLA by stating "if the footing in wall" is checked in the DBX, are you referring to "bearing wall", "foundation wall", "slab footing"? I see some foundation/bearing wall directives not being honored in the foundation gen. I do have some interesting results with recessed shower floors that are defined as rooms however, this comes in the form of standard wall footers, which are too big and match the core defaults only, and mismatch what would normally be done in the field. I will watch this OP to see if I learn something that I am missing. @joeyaccount your OP with the left right drawings, is that just for illustrative purposes or the structural elements of the slab itself (mat slab stuff)?

Material costs are in such a state of flux where I am, its almost impossible to track it anymore, at least for now. All my suppliers won't use my MTOs anyway, they always want to do it themselves. I just use it for ballparks and double checks. Great posts through

Here is a plan that "somewhat" matches your description. It should get you started, you can change the dimensions, copy/paste your stuff from your plan, etc. Keep in mind this is based off of my 'template". There is so much more to say I do not know where to start or end. This took me about 20-30 minutes to do. I could add your interior floorplan in another 20. @Cadwork22 If you are a 2D person, you are used to "drawing" everything, so there is nothing you can not do, but it takes time and there is no integrity other than your own. CA is amazing in this regard, and believe me there is nothing you can not do, and then some. But you have to spend the time to learn the product. There are some very good trainers on the forum that will help you keep your sanity. There are guys on here that would have done what I did in 10 minutes or less. One word of advice, take the time to learn the product, and try not to be immediately productive as I tried to be initially. CA will fool you in that regard as allows you do do so much very fast, but once past the basics, it can jam you up. Doing this mock up was yet another step in my own journey. Study and experimentation is the key. Monitor_Barn_Style_Games.plan

"Roof creation is based upon strenuous study followed by practice where you fail-fail-succeed. There is no other workable way to obtain your own competence." @DavidJPotter taking it to heart... 100% manual version.... study and experimentation...

Point, counterpoint,... I went back to the plan, deleted the roof, and started from scratch via auto-gen. The trick I learned just today for the settings was setting the exterior two walls on the porch to "High Shed", and then clicking "Expand Downward" right after. It then generated an excellent rendition of a "modern flat roof", which actually has a small pitch via foam boards under EPDM per our new code. It generated just a slight hip, which is exactly how it would be built. Since this was an old flat roof, I had to lose the hip and went manual. But it was a snap and turned out well. These old roofs typically have the shingles overlap the EPDM, so I played around with the planes a bit with some success, or may just use a polyline solid to make that connection look better. Why CA wants two radio buttons, which are normally mutually exclusive to be selected in sequence, to control this is beyond me. But without that sequence the other autogen options were way off outside of starting with hips. @DavidJPotter so in this instance your motto held :-)

Sorry @glennw, I meant "Roof Height, Raise/Lower From Ceiling Height". I had a small project of a very old building, where I was trying to mimic the existing condition as best I could. Only one room had a roof that was raised over the ceiling for some reason, so I could not just use the room ceiling height. I got by it by changing the roof structure for that roof plane. Always looking for any shortcuts to allow the auto-generation to work as best it can.

Sometimes the doorway in the wall works very well, others not. I found that it works very well in smooth/stucco applications. When I had the siding, I cut to a post2beam and removed the start/end and it worked well. Seems like every condition is different and rendering engine can not interpret every situation as we want it.

I understand the point, sometimes you just gotta cut and run, but you need to know the core well in order to do that. In this case, it was a partial roof-gen, which I used just to see how well the automagical stuff will do and testing the boundaries. It's my way of doing what David preached... fail-fail-succeed. I do the same thing with my golf swing One thing I "think" I learned, is the autogen will rarely, if ever, work on these old Florida 50-70's homes that were pre-truss. The ridges and valleys are always completely off. I imagine it was due to what lumber was readily available back then (does anyone balloon frame these days?). When I model the exact specs of this project as-built, I believe I will wind up deleting or modifying every roof plane. To David's point, I might gain a small amount or productivity just by the fact the planes were there in the first place.

I started watching that 1hr+ roof seminar video. Need to get some quality time together to watch that one, chock full of info.

Would that auto-generate the roof plane? Will give it a shot shortly.

That and the false gable video, will check that out as well.