SH_Canada

I think that would be a less typo prone way and would be better. which btw I had a typo in the post in the macro and had to go edit the post

so it's interesting. I did a little test. I have the autobuild foundation on, so I can change the basement without looking at it to see the behaviour. I put the label on the floor plan, and put this on layout. I then change a wall on the main floor. The main floor area in the label will change, but not the basement. As is expected. I then went to layout on the main page (where I have the main floor plan, cropped to just the label) The label still shows the basement with the old value. I then click print and select the pages, which includes the basement and main floor. The box then gets updated. So it looks like the action of printing (or probably more likely the review that happens in the print dialog), the values get updated. Thats quite good. I think then 99.9% of the time it would get updated, just put the label on the floor plan view (instead of the CAD detail) and then send this to the first page of layout for the square footage summary. I do need to play around with the presaved reference floors. Today I just use the toolbar button. If the reference displays guaranteed it, that would be the best approach but for this: I dont understand, the macro has three levels built in and checks to see if there is a second level before summarizing, so if you have a second level you automatically get: If I remove, for instance,the second level AFTER I created it. then the global variable for the second floor does not get set to zero, and then still shows the second level. So a bit of a problem. I added a "resetareas" which just sets them back to zero. So if I ever design a house with three floors and then move back to 2, then I will have to do this. But that might be 1% of the time. The other 99% would seem to work. But it I add it back in it is correct. This means for the 99% of the time that the number of floors is known, it will work I tried this: I broke the exterior wall, and the living area label went to 64 sq ft (stairwell probably), my text box mimicked it. I then built it out the living area went back up, and so did my label. Essentially if the LIVING AREA is "correct", the text box will be correct I did the same for the second floor and it went to zero (as I do not yet have a stairwell), but I suppose a question would be, why would you ever have a broken exterior wall? So the next thing is of course parcel coverage, which you have layed out above For us, building coverage excludes decks, patios. There is no requirement here to stipulate patios, decks, covered decks, etc outside of the dimensions on the plan. i.e. there is no calculation of summation of area required. only individual areas and setbacks. As the living area does not include garage, and there is the whole double count the wall problem, then I think the CA footprint function (or draw your own polyline) would need to be done. I need to experiment with it to see how it does main floor cantilevers, as here those are including in parcel coverage

This macro uses the "living Area" label to calculate area. To use this you must have the "living area" label shown (there are quite a few posts on how to show it, and get it back if you delete it) couple things. If you want outside wall square footage, you must ensure all rooms are included in the calculation, including stairwells. do this in the room specification dialog->General->Living Area CA by default excludes "open to below rooms" which are also stairwells. This also assumes you put basements on floor zero, main floor on floor 1, second on floor 2. if you do more stories or do not follow this convention, you will need to alter the macro In this neck of the woods, 99% of house have basements, and square footage is calculated to outside wall (counts stairs twice). However here, basement square footage is usually "living space" Step 1: create a macro titled "floorarea" (Context: Owner Object, Evaluate: Checked) with the following: if owner.function=="Living Area" and owner.floor_number==1 then $firstfloorarea=owner.standard_area.round(0).to_s elsif owner.function=="Living Area" and owner.floor_number==0 then $basementfloorarea=owner.standard_area.round(0).to_s elsif owner.function=="Living Area" and owner.floor_number==2 then $secondfloorarea=owner.standard_area.round(0).to_s else "" end "" Click Edit->Default Settings->Floors and Rooms->Room Label In "text" select from the macro select "floorarea" from user defined list Then create a macro called allarea and put in the following: $totalliving=$firstfloorarea.to_i + $secondfloorarea.to_i + $basementfloorarea.to_i if $secondfloorarea.to_i ==0 printstring="Main Floor Area: " + $firstfloorarea + "\nLower Level Finished Area: " + $basementfloorarea + "\nTotal Area: " + $totalliving.to_s + " sq ft" else printstring="Main Floor Area: " + $firstfloorarea + "\tSecond Level Area: " + $secondfloorarea + "\nLower Level Finished Area: " + $basementfloorarea + "\nTotal Area: " + $totalliving.to_s + " sq ft" end Then put %allarea% into a text box. result is The above assumes you always have a basement. If not adjust the logic, or simply do the formatting in the text box the typical macro limitations apply, where, , if you change the outside walls, you will have to click through on the floor plan levels in order to update the global variables i.e. the macro for each floor does not fire until you view that floor with the "living area" label on it. Probably not a solution for all, but at least there are no polylines, and no need to modify polylines (or do the footprint function) after a wall is changed I did notice one time I deleted the "living area" label and could not get it back using any of the techniques documented. But it only happened once. I actually extended this macro to write the areas to a file in the plan directory, to guarantee the global variable is not picked up or overwritten by another open plan. The allarea macro then reads it back from the file. Probably overkill. But if you ever want to test global variable behaviour, open up two plans and have the above text box on a CAD detail for each. move the wall on one plan, and then go directly to the text box on the other plan. you will notice the other plan's text box will update with the the first plan's area. You can lessen the impacts by putting the text box on the floor plan instead. but if you adjust the basement on one plan and then goto the main floor on the other, and if this text box is there, it will update with the first one's basement value. For the polyline option others do, I believe some people put the polyline for all levels on the same level or CAD detail to avoid this problem

when I watch https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/6146/terrain-landscaping.html?playlist=39 https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/75/terrain-site-plan-basics.html?playlist=101 the retaining wall bottom looks like it is at the bottom of the terrain. When I draw a retaining wall, it draws to the bottom of the foundation. All I want is a 1 foot retaining wall to even out the ground for stairs. Instead it builds it 8 feet and then drops the terrain behind it. Even if I go into elevation and resize to one 1 ft, it will not rebuild the terrain behind it to be only 1 ft. I tried with no luck changing the foundation defaults prior to building the terrain foundation wall: no luck changing the terrain skirt size changing the hieght of the wall in elevation view attaching it to the house foundation Seems so simple when I watch the videos. What am I missing? Thanks before: after when I change the wall size in elevation: Mark VR.plan

well I totally missed that function, thanks for letting me know

thanks I just tried doing that including changing the floor/ceiling platform (When my heights were out originally, part of it was because I had the floor at 11-7/8 I joist, but they are 2x10 if i take the foundation wall back to make everything one room again I have: then once i close the wall I get on the left room( the right room(original house) keep the 91 and 94 above properly) below it has a difference of 2-5/8" my defaults are floor 0 floor 1: no idea where I am losing 2-5/8" and the little picture it shows in the defaults look correct:

ok, now for some reason after I saved it and posted it, it magically works. but now I see the same thing once I try and move the interior wall next to the foundation wall: before: then I move the inside wall by one arrow up and bang

I'm doing an addition. and I cannot get the *&^&* foundation to show up properly. I started with the wrong floor heights and had to go back and adjust, which is fine. but it kept showing up wrong, so I ended up moving walls on every single room so it would show up as one room on the main floor and one on the basement floor. so it looks fine, but if I move the wall below to close the one foot gap (to actually truly represent the existing foundation), the new addition room lowers and the stair room lowers. Been fidlying for an hour. extremely frustrating. Thanks what it looks like before I extend the wall (no idea what the 2 little dashed lines on the bottom are: : now when i close the wall: I get this: and this how can the mere act of closing in a wall (And creating a new room) change the elevations of the floor? I even checked to see if the foundation defaults were correct. And they appear to be Any idea why this is happening? chuck fed up.7z

and the other reason it took so long, is I read through about 15 or so logged topics and watched 2 videos on double walls

delete surface, thats a good tip thanks. One of the reasons it took me an hour is because I had trusses in my real plan so I thought maybe that was the problem, and then I thought I was doing the trusses wrong, and then I thought it was the offset, and then the double wall (thought maybe I did it wrong there) .... I think I finally clued in when I clicked on it in the cross section and it told me. But that didnt really help solving the reason why it was there, only that I then knew how to get rid of it. In other words I was assuming I was doing something incorrectly interesting what it built:

me thinks there is a: "take difference between roof and top plate and take pitch, do some magic formula"

for offset of 0, it happens for pitches 11:12 and higher

the problem happens for pitches 6:12 and higher with offset of 48". 5:12 and lower , no issues

just in case there is something different bewtten the two walls, I reversed the pitches. same problem on the left now

if I set the offset above plate to 48", the 8:12 does it but the 5:12 does not:

so if I leave at 8:12 and add a offset for above plate as 12" it shows up

doesnt do it at 8:12. It's almost like there is a "if top of wall to roof difference is greater than x, draw attic wall

below is how the 5:12 section looks (when I changed the one side 12:!2 to 5:12)

no, CA just put it there even if I check "stop at ceiling above" it still has same problem

it also does not matter if I put the inside stud wall on the main layer or the interior layer (which is the attached .plan)

I have a double stud wall building, with two sides at 12:12 and 2 sides at 5:12, hip roof. I get the look below on the 12:12. sides. If I change all four sides to 5:12, I do not get this problem. The only way I can fix it is to delete the attic walls (and it took me a good hour or so just to determine it was an attic wall causing this). I thought it was my 12" heel on the 5:12 side causing this, but I took that down to 0 and still has the same problem. Seems to only be a problem with a double wall, a normal 2x6 wall works fine Does anyone know if I am not setting something up correctly? The chief video I looked at on double walls not not seem to show this scenario. And I do not see anything on the user form specifically for this (lots of other issues with double walls) One other odd thing Is the height at 110-5/8s, but I put that to a normal 9' and no difference (As I would not expect that to matter). Other than that it is a vanilla structure Thanks test doublewall.plan

I have a CA directory then a ___paid directory under that, and then job name directories under the CA directory. Each job directory has the plan and layout. it also has backup directories for that plan and layout. Once my client pays, I move the job directory to the ___paid directory as far as I can tell as long as .layout and .plan are in the same directory, you can move the directory around at will without losing the references

did not notice that. ...seems to depend on which computer I am logged in as. I should see if I can "retire" one of them

He had a guy doing plans, but he left, so he is looking for someone new. My strategy now given there is no automated way to do it, is to show him close (based on what CA does automatically), and then let him decide if he wants to spend more money to have me manually draw those two details. The eave thing is bizarre, and it does not actually go to the top of roof. Not sure what he is trying to convey. maybe I'll ask him

thanks I'll give it a try. I also thought about putting the joist above on a different layer to not show it in the cross section and then draw a line for the triangle piece, and then draw a box for the ripped LVL or LVL on flat. But if it is on flat, i'd like to know the connection details for LVL. LVL doesn't exactly nail into the edges nicely. maybe some support below it cut at the stair angle?? I peruse the internet for more than a few hours and never saw a detail. This was the only one I found, which is close but not quite: