ValleyGuy

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?

Here is one that I just stumbled onto that may be of interest to all of us that try and hide markers and CAD lines by making them small or colour matched - you know, the ones that we put in the elevation story pole. Just put them on a layer that you toggle off and the dimension will stay. So make them big and bold and then make them disappear. No more trying to grab an itty bitty line to adjust it a 1/16".

I forgot a couple of points: I turned the window layer line colour to white - this removed the glazing. (I suspect that you may already have a specific SPV and layer set for this particular drawing.) I believe that I had to adjust the view draw order of the header to make sure that it was on top.

Brett is definitely on the right track for the white windows showing in a floor plan. It isn't that hard to get the window look that you are after while maintaining a dynamic plan should you move a window. Two things that may be of concern: the white rectangle is the header and the header is larger than the actual window size. Secondly, this method has a solid wall width header size that may mess with the material take off, if you use that feature. This should get you close .

I agree 100%, I had to manage a build from of a set of angled plans once and it seemed that every guy reading the plans complained about it. There weren't that many errors, but I believe some of the mistakes were made because guys got confused in the verbal communication describing the plans. One wouldn't think that little change would have such an effect on the job site, but it did. Aside from the first few guys at the start of the build, everybody else has more interest in the direction to the coffee shop than the position of the house. If you haven't completed the plans yet, or need revisions, you also might end up saying a few bad words at your computer while dealing with off angles...

I'm not familiar with HD but this gives me flashbacks to CA X13 that had issues dealing with standard rendering.... even the library item pictures looked poor. CA worked out the issues to have much improved pics in the next update, but until then they suggested turning off shadows and putting the ambient occlusion to 0. This did seem to help. You may also try to view your cabinets with the sun shining on the front surface instead of the tops in your doll house views. As you know, not all whites are created equal. I have had good luck in standard view with "white" being the brightest and least gray. As DB suggested, using the light tool to add in a light sources really makes a difference - gives the lumens without the fixture.

After a couple of months with this new mouse, there are a few things that are not as they first seemed. As stated above, the joystick glitching has been solved. And now, thanks to Rene Rabbitt, the common library items that I thought were not possible to have in the radial dials, are indeed possible. I haven't found anything in my library yet that couldn't be attached to the Space Mouse. This ballooned up the number of items at my finger tips and drastically reduced the number of trips that I need to take to the library. It just gets better and better. I've attached a pic showing how adding library items is done. Another important item that I would like to suggest for anyone getting started with one of these 3D mice, is to come up with some sort of system to stay organized. I have made many changes over the past couple of months and I suspect a little more fine tuning or adding will be sure to follow (hopefully some new fantastic tools in X16 will be added). Having said that, I wasted quite a bit of time in confusion before I came up with a way to keep the tools 'mapped' out to strategize grouping. I found that certain buttons are easier to use because of their physical location and then proceeded to redefine the tools associated with the different buttons. It is much easier now that I have a paper copy to reference while I reprogram the mouse. The paper page also is a great reference pinned to the wall beside my screen if I need to quickly check it. I've included a picture of how I've been tracking my tools per button on paper. You will create your own system and find your own groove I'm sure. If you haven't used one of these Space Mice yet, I highly recommend it. I'm in no way very tech savvy at all, so I'm sure that most everyone that can figure out CA will for sure be able to get a handle on this mouse. I'm not going to downplay the effort that it takes to get tools and items selected, labeled or hot keyed, grouped and organized, and then all programmed in, but it doesn't compare to the amount of effort to get your default settings, templates, layer sets, library, hot keys and everything else that you might spend time setting up and maintaining in CA. It is worth the effort and I will confirm that this 3D mouse does make things flow a lot more easily and production does increase significantly.

I have a Mac and I just group select (box with cursor, or hold shift and individual click items) let go of all buttons, hold command down and click on the item to deselect. Not sure if there is a default somewhere or not, it just works.

This might be a little easier... Take the screen shot (this is standard camera view), it is really important to make sure the picture is square (use the cross hairs against a wall) and turn off all the items that you do not want to see again like walls, terrain, footings, etc. Import the picture directly on your working plan. Use the resize button to make the picture building is the same width as your plan (the whole thing will resize). Use the snap point to point button to place the picture directly over top your plan. Make a separate layer set with the few items you want to see with desired line colours / weights. You may need to adjust the view draw order (button also found on the same tool bar) to see the plan through the picture box, mine worked properly the first time. Send to layout as a picture.

Orthographic floor view - Top View camera position. Turn off walls. Take a screen shot. Import the picture back into a CAD sheet in CA. Make CAD lines for "Doors Swings" and white CAD boxes for the windows - place as needed. This will get you close. 1st pic is vector view, the second is water colour/color ... whichever team you want to choose lol. Note: your floor under the walls will show through when the walls are turned off. This example is from a house on a concrete slab and shows gray. OSB or whatever your sub-floor will show through on a wood floor system in which you may want to adjust the sub floor colour to suit your needs. Maybe someone won't want gray but may prefer grey.....

For the house entry doors: I check the add a sill box and place the door up 1" to show the threshold and cover the flooring. For the garage: I set my room floor slab material to 'No Material' and then manually draw in a concrete slab at the regular thickness (which shows correctly in cross sections). This allows for proper sizing and shapes of the slab, ie: the slab floor can then sit on top of the foundation wall door cutouts, and properly extend to the outside edge of the foundation wall - as it happens in the real world. This allows a lot more control to cover up any slab to wall gaps seen in 3D caused by a pony wall with a thicker lower wall than upper - like the inside foam on an ICF foundation or a floor check with a foam thermal break. You also don't see the foundation wall anymore if you put the door up. If need be, I lower the OH door by 1/16" and it will hide the thin white sill that always seems to be there. The driveway height doesn't have to be so exact as terrain elevations can be a chore as well at times. On a side note, as this isn't as per your example, when both the house and garage are on a slab, code here requires a min 2" lower garage slab elevation to house slab. An easy way to achieve this (without the frustration of trying to get a handle on all the settings on the different levels) is to simply make the 'No Material' 2" thicker than your manually drawn slab and set the top of slab at minus 2" from absolute . IE: Top of house slab is absolute (0"), set garage floor 'No Material' to 6", draw a 4" slab in the garage and set the top to -2" from absolute. And as a bonus, no matter how far down you put the slab, you can still have baseboards at the wood framed wall bottom using the normal room defaults. Door sills are far from perfect, but setting your door heights only has to be preset once, same with the 'No Material' garage floor default, so the only additional step you have to do for each new plan is draw the garage slab.

You may also be interested in checking off the 'Never Save' in the plan view specifications if you don't want it to change again on you once you get it back to the way you had it. 'Prompt to Save' at least asks you after you changed something, and 'Always Save' is the sneaky little invisible guy that kept on messing up all my plan views.

As I am not that experienced with different programs to manipulate photos, one easy way I've used to avoid this repeat colour variation on a straight forward material shape with straight assembly lines is to take a screen shot of only one of the blocks with half the grout line (or full grout on only one end and the bottom). Open up a new CAD detail, import the screenshot then duplicate it to make a pattern (it also will make the pattern start on a full block on the top and bottom and eliminate your colour mismatch vertically). Once you have the pattern made, screen shot it again and file it with your other CA materials so as to not loose it. Then make a new material in your library sizing the sample appropriately (don't forget to calculate the grout thickness as well) just like you already have done with this sample. If your single block is the same colour, then your material sample will will match seamlessly over the whole wall. Most snapshots I take off the web have natural shadows that produce the colour variations you are seeing. Pared down to a single block often minimizes the shadow issues vs the shadows on many feet of the sample size. If the same colour block wall is what you are after, the one block approach works well. If you are wanting randomness, I have also done square/rectangle shapes in a random mosaic of multi colours for a larger floor sample, thus minimizing the repeat pattern commonly found with 60" samples. A 12'x14' (or larger) pattern is fairly quick to make and usually fits most rooms / patios. Again, take individual screenshots of each stone/block and import onto a new CAD detail. Set up a CAD box to your x' X x' and resize your import stone pics to their appropriate size, randomly make your pattern with the multiple size/colour/shape until it fills the 12'x14' you are after. Screenshot and make your new material sized appropriately and Bob's your uncle. Here is a sample where I also manipulated the colour of the same stone picture in CA with the material colour 'Blend with Texture". I think there are four stone pics made into 10 different ones by rotating and blending with a colour. I'm not very computer educated so having decent rendering pics really is achievable on CA with limited computer skills and knowledge. Now, RTRT is well beyond my level my reach as I'm on a Mac, but if you are looking for a regular standard type render, this works well. Give it a try and good luck.

Chopsaw was correct, it can be done with reference display quite easily. 1) make a duplicate plan (in the same folder) with all the beams included *** make sure you have already framed the original plan first (with the beams included) to have your glass house framing properly showing the beam you want to hi-light. 2) in the duplicate plan: move all the beams a set distance to the side (a couple hundred feet ought to do it) 3) delete the rest of the structure in the duplicate plan for all levels 4) move the beam(s) back the couple of hundred feet to their original position(s) 5) in your original plan, put the beam(s) on a separate layer and turn off - leaving a void space in your framing view 6) turn your framing view to glass house and turn on a reference display of the duplicate plan in vector view

I found the problem to the joystick seizing up..... which may occur to anyone using a 3D mouse - PC or Mac. 'Rolling' is not supported in CA. As soon as I disabled this feature, the joystick has worked flawlessly. I'm loving this Space Mouse, I even put the foot key stroke ( ' ) on it, as my number pad doesn't have one, and it is so much easier just entering measurements too.

Very Impressive Numbers: 19.7 thousand views......... yes almost 20 thousand inquisitive peeks at a one line question about something that hasn't been really asked or discussed in the field at all. .... just amazing what really interests CA users lol. I have to admit, I looked just because I noticed the 19.7K views, more so than I thought that I needed the content. It's like click bait! ....I was secretly wondering if there was going to be any advertising pop up with that much traffic.

You are on the right path, I'm sure there are many ways to accomplish what you are after. I use a combination of layer sets as well as using the reference displays from "As-Built", "Addition Only" and "Completed Project" plans. I also utilize the framing materials for each of the different walls so 3D also has a demo / reno reference. CA has pretty good tools to work with and I've had good feedback from the contractors.