mkennedy2000

I am having trouble modeling this (seemingly) simple and common roof. Any thoughts or help will be greatly appreciated Solotky-N.plan

LamontBros, nice tip, i need to use the project browser more perhaps At the same time, there are several refinements the layout tool might enjoy. My standard has always been that every sheet in a plan set is date stamped the same as every other sheet in that issue, regardless of whether it's been changed. It seems complicated to try and keep an index of which issue date is current for which sheet? OTOH, revision at the Building Department are often assembled at the counter, inserting only the modified sheets, soooo We live in an imperfect world Still would be nice to have a global revision history edit capability. I just made a mistake and had to delete an entry from 20 pages.

Well there's the answer right there, thanks Just knowing it's me\plan\settings specific is a huge help. I'll shoot it over to CA tech support, thanks again.

Well, I have ceiling off, ceiling structure checked or unchecked, either a manual ceiling plane or no ceiling plane, walls set to balloon through or not, openings set to have a header or not. Odd that I can just slide windows up and down in the entire gable wall.

OK, Now I found my first post - windows above the plate - sorry guys, just ignore this I guess?

I need to update my signature block, I'm having this issue (still) in x7 and have tried the various solutions you use for x6, just find they are cumbersome and unreliable. I may send it to CA since u r not having this issue in x7.

Sorry if this is a duplicate, thought I posted yesterday but can find my post.... Anyone got any tips to place traplites or other high windows? I always struggle getting windows to display above the plate line of a room with a vaulted ceiling. I balloon frame walls thru to roof, add ceiling planes at roof pitch, tried removing headers from opening, manually adjusting headers, the list goes on and on....

Whats the best way to draw the upper windows in the gable of a room with a vaulted ceiling? I have the walls framed to balloon through but the windows bump into the plate or ceiling if I try and slide them.

I think it might be useful if CA could read vcards. Then I could just paste client info straight from my CRM. Of course if CA expanded their concept of project info to include a full design team, all that data could be imported the same way. FWIW, it would be nice if I had anoption to have the Layout see the same project info as the plan. I'm sure there are users who would not want this, but it seems easily regulated. Maybe the layout would inherit the info from the 1st plan sent to layout, or maybe it would just ask each time a new plan was sent.

M - Its not really "all the trouble", its just the lack of a need for any of the trouble. I guess it would make sense to need to frame an opening for every door and window symbol as well, glad we don't have to though. And light switches and wall receptacles. What was infuriating is being told that the roof overhang setting in the wall properties is working correctly. I really like being able to autobuild roofs, too bad my chimney room roof cant be auto built using the parametric controls. I'm glad that at least the gable and pitch tools work. Are you familiar with a system where bathtubs are mounted after sheetrock and metal fireplace inserts behind sheetrock? I love chief, I may be one of the longest term user s they have, having started with a beta of v2 on floppy, but the little annoyances are, well, a little annoying At the end of the day, as I said earlier, I'll review some of the links posted and learn some new ideas, but, I use CA in real time with clients, so being able to place things quickly and correctly, without a lot of tweaking, bumping, nudging zooming, snapping is helpful. IMHO, there are enough homes with wood chase chimneys and fireplace inserts that it might warrant a tool like the dormer tool.

and build a room around it and set the room ceiling height and roof pitch and then found that the wall properties roof overhang control doesn't work and then draw a pline solid for the chimney n then manually set the roof plane overhangs every time you rebuild the roof and then set the fascia and....... IDK why the FP places behind the sheetrock? Or why I need to draw an opening? Or why the roof overhangs aren't controlled by the roof overhangs setting in the wall properties dialogue. Its annoyed me for years, both the roof overhangs, which they tell is not a bug, it just doesn't work (LOL?) and the fireplace behind the sheetrock and the chimney (or lack thereof). I'll go back thru the thread and review some of the methods posted, at least I can learn a new way to take too long doing something that should be simpler

I'm so amazed I bothered to call tech support - who can shed no light. I bet if they got enough calls from subscribers they could at least fix some of the basic stuff. Why fireplace cans install behind the sheetrock is beyond me.

To generate really accurate materials lists in CA requires more skill than doing it manually, so I would just get a clipboard and do your takeoff. If you don't understand the structure well enough to do a materials takeoff, you likely wont understand it well enough to model it that accurately. If, by outdoor room, you mean a sunroom or enclosed porch, those are likely to require some structural elements that are not automated in CA. When I design sunrooms I use manufactured shear panels which will require pretty specific footing details. I can juke CA into acknowledging them and to letting me drag the header across in a portal configuration, but it may be more trouble than it's worth for a one off job.

I dont see any attachment?

Are the CA plans\plans folder, layouts\layout folder in the same folder as the graphics\graphics folder? I think you might have problems if you have the CA database local and the graphics on the server.

And while on the topic of cabient schedules - I know I'm not the first to ask to open an time dbx from the schedule - it can take a few clicks to get to an item (appliance garage bleow a staked corner upper) in plan, it's cumebersome boulding from plan to elevation to schedule, yadayadayada Another feature that would be nice would be a dbx option to have the item dbx display the schedule number (and ideally the ability to lock it) as well as or instead of the nomenclature.

So, a small epiphany - I may try generating cabinet plans (and elevations?) displaying nomenclature, sending to CAD view and THEN generating my schedule. I can insert the CAD as a block behind the active plan or elevation (on a locked layer, displayed in a grey lineweight?) - this way I get both nomenclature and callouts. FWIW, it may actually be a useful tool for keeping track of changes. Since I'll have the CAD saved as a block, I can refresh it with changes be sending to view and reblocking. I can also just send the blocks to layout if I want to.

Mark, thanks for taking time. I looked at the atachments and will consider your process in some depth - it does seem convolute but..... 4 out of 5 vendors I use don't have catalogs in PK but they small catalogs and I can deal with them in CA AND they are willing to build the order from my CA plan and schedule so.... It's just the one vendor that gives me fits. I think with study I may find some good direction in what you've posted, although once I accept I'm in a second software, I may just decide that PK, with the complete library, owner acceptance, pricing, order form, is the way to go. If I achieve an epiphany, I'll try to share it here, in the meantime I really appreciate your time and pointers.

Mark, what really iced 20-20 for me was the fact that I moved the office and misplaced the key - so they deny my existnece and will charge me very nearly the price of a new license - and I just don't use the software enough to justify the cost - and I'm not sure it's any better than PK, which I found to be very fast, easy to use and accurate. As well as having much more personable people answering the phones - my rep took calls on his personal cell, at home, on the weekend, when I was doing my demo! Can you describe your process? I've thought it would be nice to be able to display nomenclature as well as callouts, perhaps both in one display, perhaps one in elevation, the other in plan, perhaps toggle back and forth without losing my schedule or disconnecting my schedule from the plan. Maybe this should be a new thread?

I may have missed this being mentioned, but I find that when I modify a cabinet I lose my component edits. I look at the size of the Schrock catalog alone, and it's apparent to me that I will just reactivate my 20-20 license or buy ProKitchen before I manually build all those cabinets, with all those options. The arch block works OK for adding corbels and so on. I have added a 1" wall and base filler to my library, labeled as 3" so they will appear correctly in the schedule, that saves some time. I'm trying to find a way to default control the placement of callouts in elevation view - I like my upper callouts a few inches above and my base and tall cabinets a few inches below. The corner cabinets seem to be temperamental, sometimes I can control the display, sometimes not. I did my first kitchen in ProKitchen, it took about an hour to enter all the cabinets, based on my CA schematic from the con docs. It would have been quicker, but I was learning the SW as I went. At the end of that time I had a complete kitchen with full schedules (including price), it can run very quick decent quality renders (better than CAs camera views, not as good as a ray trace, but as fast as a camera view)

Scott, no worries, I've been called far worse.......

Scott - it's still Matt (not Mike), you better be careful, you may turn into a curmudgeon, going around calling people random names LOL I leraned some things also, always room for new\different and hopefully better ways to get to a result - CA does have a lot of options.... So AS is a vote for, anyone else?

AS, in that context I'd agree, you're experience agrees with mine. In my current incarnation as a kitchen and bath guy, also doing additions, my needs are a little different. I frequently care more about interior dimensions that framing layouts and I pull different dimensions on floor, cabinet and electrical plans than I do on framing and foundation plans. All that being said, thanks for the succinct answer to my question - definitely food for thought. Maybe I'll use auto interior for laying out the as built, but use auto exterior for con docs? Locating walls one side. Then I have to go and add interior dims at baths, halls, kitchens, other critical clear space areas, At the end of the day, I keep circling back to a feature request - the option to have a default setting to suppress wall widths on the aut exterior dim tool - so far I'll call you a vote against.

Scott, sorry, I always appreciate your suggestions and help, I just didnt see one here What I want is fairly simple - a default suppress wall widths option for Auto exterior dimension I tried various setting, locate main layer and so on, but none really do what I want. I can either spend a bunch of keystrokes manually suppressing every dimensions strings wall width every time or I can spend a bunch of keystrokes manually drawing interior dimension strings. I'll tinker with some settings to see if I can get something I can use automatically. The autto exterior seems to produce the least extraneous stuff and the number of keystrokes required to manually duplicate the auto exterior seems to be greater then the number of kesytrokes to modify it. The auto interior seems to produce an incredible visual clutter, so I just don't use it. I'll explore this further, but.... Right now my sense is that I'm pretty efficient - I auto exterior dim, then manually suppress \(every time, on every string) the wall width display. Which doesn't sound efficinet, and leads me back the the thought that perhaps this is one for the suggestion box? Do you guys just not use auto dims? Or do you only display one side or center o f walls? Or do you leave the wall widths displaying? Or do you turn them off like I do?

Scott, the question is whether I can default to suppress wall widths - I almost never want them, I graphically illustrate wall thicknesses and that's all I need, the wall widths clutter up my dimension string and I generally manually select each and every dimension string and suppress them. Perry, that only selects one side of the interior wall(s). I like to show the interior (clear) room dimension - I do a lot af asbuilts and that's the fastest, most accurate way I know to get from paper to CA. I suppose what I may do is use my current setting to develop my as built plan, then reste to one side for degn developpment, then think about going back again for con cods - or something. I would have been fine with a default to suppress wall widths