HumbleChief

Great great toy for those fascinated with technology but like Chief's Room Planner no real world application that I can see for a busy, serious home designer. What use is a 3D scan? And then $30 per scanned room to turn it into CAD? Seriously? Where's the market? Who needs this? What problem does it address? The 10 (5 for most) minutes it takes to measure a room? Would any Chief user find this truly useful - in any way? Other than the cool which only costs money for the entertainment? Someday this stuff will be amazing and actually useful, today not so sure.

Perry, I just used this technique on a remodel we have in the building department now. We ran a double sill plate around the existing ceiling joists (using the floor above's structure) and set the new second floor joists on top of that - worked a treat.

Looks like Michael answered your question with a nice video. I'd like to add one thing to this discussion and that is I think the features that Chief has for framing are brilliant and very flexible, really impressed with what can be done in Chief. Without this forum it would more difficult to figure out, but with it - brilliant. Thanks for everyone's input, I for one really appreciate it.

Quick FYI, Michael's plan seemed to work OK with changing joist direction for me.

Was able to duplicate Glenn's step by step method even with Auto Framing on. One thing I can't explain is why that second joist direction arrow effects the ceiling joists below and not the floor framing above. After more experimentation still don't know why the second joist direction arrow effects the ceiling joists below and not the floor framing above. Could be a bearing line function? Since there are no bearing lines between rooms perhaps the floor joists build accordingly and won't be changed until a bearing line is added? In that case the only thing left to build is the ceiling joists below? Dunno but if that's true it's a valuable bit of information. Pretty sure this last part is true. Interesting...I tried a few options and the function seemed to work until the end of the video then it didn't and got what looks like the condition you were dealing with. CORRECTION: At the end of the video I did not have ceiling joists turned on so pretty sure it was working consistently. Either way a great study in Chief and I learned a lot. Thanks for all the help.

Always helpful Glenn, Scott thanks very much.

NICE work Shane

Ceiling plane is quick efficient and flexible. Thanks again.

Great tips - thank you.

Yes! Never really knew that nor does the he!! box (structural dbx) give even the slightest clue that's true; nor does any Chief instructions or help suggest that dbx has no effect on a first floor room's ceiling structure (why the $%^# is it even there on a 2 story build? Once you know it you know it but finding out takes a lot of trial error and work. STILL hate that crap structure dbx and the more I learn the worse it gets. Unless of course "you know how Chief works..." which is a crap excuse to keep that thing in a program as mature as Chief. [/rant]

Thanks but tried everything I could throw at it - got nuthin'.

Yes you are right, no one has suggested this method. I was responding to the question as to how that framing detail came about. ..and you cannot add framing to the ceiling structure...or at least I couldn't and get it to show up anywhere. You can see how I got there, again, if you can make it through the posted video. Not that I recommend the method.

I'll change my post - thanks. Still dumb and counter intuitive.

I created a floor above that room and defined that floor to have an added framing layer, then lowered the ceiling. Video shows it if you can make it through.

And just to repeat, if you want to change the ceiling structure of a first floor room you cannot do so by changing the ceiling structure of that room. Really? Yes really. You need to change the ceiling 'finish', add a ceiling plane, or add structure to the floor above. Just to be clearer the ceiling structure dbx of a first floor room has no bearing or effect on that room's ceiling structure. Sigh...

Here's the exterior wall condition I get when defining the floor above to have an added layer of framing.

Does that frame William?

Interesting Perry - that's what I did and it framed OK. Thanks!!

Wow you guys are great - thanks so much. Still feel stupid but I'll get over it. Is there anyone else who thought that maybe the ceiling 'structure' dbx might have had an effect on the ceiling structure?

I know this is pretty old and all the pros know the answers but I ran into something I thought was simple but wasn't - for me. Question - how do YOU drop the ceiling in a single room. Thanks

Thanks for keeping this topic alive Richard as I still have so much to learn about how Chief works especially re: the structure dbx. Didn't really know that changing the ceiling height of a lower floor room would drive parts of the upper floor down. Long, boring, video with some of the confusion I still have with the structure dbx.

I've read in a couple places that the changes to Kaby Lake are minimal for desktop computers and will mainly benefit video playback and lap top battery life. That's no reason not to get one but they are not designed to be the next large step in desk top computer power. http://www.pcgamer.com/intels-kaby-lake-everything-you-need-to-know/

That's actually very valuable information - thanks for taking the time to post. My machine can get bogged down and sometimes I think a faster graphics card will help but it's a $1200 (card and monitors approx.) gamble I'm not willing to take at this time.

Current Specs? Future build?

It's a function of the plan not the Layout.