ValleyGuy

You are quite welcome Lisa, I'm glad that I could help while also sparking a memory of yesteryears. I'm not exactly sure how the MacBook is with the 3D mouse as I have an iMac, but I suspect that it should work the same. I wonder if the MacBook with additional exterior monitors may be an issue as I've heard of a couple of people having tool bar issues - both on MacBooks. Good luck with it, and hopefully Christmas comes early for you.

We do these all the time here, and I struggled with this for quite a while too. This works for me, you might want to tinker with it to get your appropriate thicknesses, heights, etc to fit your needs.

Thanks, it works well. I'm very happy with it, well worth the investment and the effort to get it up and running.

Pretty much 2/3 of the county.... I moved from Edmonton and I think that there are more people in city of Edmonton than this whole province lol

@DefinedDesign @Michael_Gia I think I managed a couple of videos, here are the links. I'm sure there are all kinds of people using 3D mice on CA with all kinds of different techniques and different skill levels. I've only had it a few months now and here are some of the things that I have done with it. Maybe others could add some tips or ideas for you as well. The set up of the mouse video https://youtu.be/iDKokC_19N4 The In-Use Demo video https://youtu.be/R_HcESgGvXM

@DefinedDesign @Michael_Gia @mthd97hey everyone, thanks for your enthusiasm and confidence with my skills to make a video. I never made one yet, but it looks pretty straight forward and easy on YouTube lol. I'll try and make one tomorrow. Today is a milestone birthday for my wife and I have my hands full, ...and all the counter tops, sinks, fridge, the neighbour's fridge... Hats off to all those comfortable in the kitchen. I draw and have built houses, apartments, even an airport hanger... but cooking finger foods and baking snacks for 75 guests .... food is an evil necessity!! Who would have thought that the most dangerous thing in the kitchen was a vegetable? ... I guess peppers leave a residue even after you wash your hands... lesson learned = Don't touch your eyes!

What kind of wonky are you experiencing? The only tool bar issue that I have seen is the floating toolbar stacks tools more vertical than the preferred horizontal once in a while. (I moved the 'selected item' tool bar from the bottom of the screen to be floating part way up the screen)

Thanks, both of those were made from pics off the good old internet and use of CA's help files / videos to make a material and size it. CA is pretty good as I have really no idea how use all the mapping and bumping features whatsoever, and this iMac keeps me out of all the fancy rendering.

These are great, are they stand alone mock-ups only or have you got a system to make them active on the house plan cameras? I've got 3D solids saved in the library along with some materials to paste on for mockups but I haven't figured out how to peel back wall layers on an individual basis when it is an active type situation, other than use a wall material region or use the delete surface tool.

I achieved a similar crude example for a wall using the wall material region tool - cut to the parent layer. Just made a few different regions adding one more material layer for each region. I never tried doing it for the roof before. It would be a great idea for the "suggestions" though.

We do it around here once in a while too. Make a room divider wall directly above the tray ceiling room below and adjust the floor & ceiling measurements. Then build three individual floor joists (and line them up), install a crown mldg to hide the gap. The cross section looks almost like the real thing.

Thanks guys. I have used the import tools before, which is kind of like moving the new defaults (walls, layer sets, SPV's,...) into the old plan / version. I was looking for more direction on some of the other time consuming work items like: items on two different layer set lines (sono tubes are now on 'front' or 'rear'). Fill pattern scale, line wt & transparency changes that need updating (drainage stone fill for the room 'sub-soil' is different) . I think the combination of the copy and paste as well as the style palette pasting will help greatly. I haven't really spent much time with style palettes and after looking at your video, it may handle a large portion of what I am looking for. Like you said, it really is just a matter of updating / changing all the items in the plan as req'd, and right now it is a lot. I suspect that this work will become less involved as the changing of things slows down and the plan items become more consistent. Growing pains, mine just happened to start a little later in life lol.

There are a couple of ways, 1) Select the header from the plan view. With the headers toggled on, select the window, then tab to get to the header (bottom left corner will say what you have selected... window, wall, header...). Open it up and you will see the 'Framing Specification (Header)' as shown in my first post above. 2) choose the wall and open the wall framing, choose the header and open it up.

In the window defaults, under framing. The actual individual window framing header will then need to be placed on the new layer set line, and this will need to be selected individually in plan view once the wall is framed.

I am looking for a system to start using past projects that I can access the information from the working .plan file to efficiently transition to my current version of CA. I have been drawing (using CA Premier) for a long enough time now that I have customers asking if I have certain types of plans (bungalows, two story, duplex, garages,...) that they can look at. Basically, what's in my portfolio that they might be able to use / adapt easily. Whether inspiration or just a place to begin, this part is easily enough satisfied by saved PDF files sorted into 'types' saved on my computer. However, actually using the .plan file information is where I struggle. I have made a lot of changes in the last three years since starting in X12, my template now is light years from the OOB starting place. I like the changes that I have in place with my current X15 template and do not want to reuse the older plan templates. I can open an older version of CA and carry on with the old line weights, colours, layer sets, SPV's ....(unwanted defaults) without missing a beat. Or I can open an older version plan in the current version of CA and have all kinds of issues with deleted / changed things. As even my wall definitions have changed, copy and paste / importing from the old to the new is such a pain. I haven't tried using a CAD pic of an old plan view, then use make walls in a current template yet, would this be a viable option? Has anyone done this? What does everyone else do to reuse old plans while taking advantage of the current template?