j_in_ky

Completely forgot about that I had placed those blocks. Thank you so much.

Sorry for the lack of info. I figured it was some basic setting that I inadvertently changed. The plan is in metric started with one of the metric templates (Mediterranean, I think) because the house is outside of the US. I also noticed that in 3d views the cabinets appear without doors, drawers or countertop which is also a first for me. If anyone can shed some light on what is going on I would be very appreciative. Thanks House_Costa Rica 2.plan

For some reason, whenever I try to place a new cabinet it is automatically snapping to the exterior side of the exterior walls with the front of the cabinet facing outside. I've never had this happen before. Does anyone have any idea why this would be happening?

Thanks for the responses. I am with you all in that I always put the foundation on 0 because usually I am drawing something that already has a first floor. I do mostly home additions so I don't start by drawing the foundation, I rough in the first floor before I go to other floors and to the foundation to get the existing. It's just in this case, which I haven't come across before that I can remember, the existing is just a garage that is going to end up being the basement/foundation level for all intents and purposes and the height, relative to the slab of the garage, of the next story is undetermined. It's height will be determined by whatever structure we decide is right for the project and other design considerations which may pop up. My worry is by making the existing garage on the 0 level, the height of the first floor, which in Chief is 0 is determined by the ceiling height of the garage. Once I have the garage drawn and modeled I need it to not move because I'll have the terrain modeled and everything will be ready to go. When I start the first floor and I realize that actually (hypothetically) I may want a small entry with two or three steps to get into the first floor, I think that means I'll have to move all of the existing that I already have accordingly. Now I can do that with edit area, etc. but it will be a huge pain if, which often happens, if I try a few different designs and I'm having to constantly make sure and adjust the existing back to how it really is. My thought is by putting the existing garage on the first floor, it's slab becomes zero and I can change whatever I want above it without it affecting what is in situ. I just have never done it before. This particular situation just doesn't come up often. So my worry isn't about codes it's about the nuances of the software. If that makes sense.

So here's the deal...I've got a project where the client has an existing garage and what's to add a second story to it and add a wing to it. But here is the tricky part...the garage is sunken into the terrain because the alley that the garage uses is lower than the rest of the terrain. So just behind the garage, the terrain is a foot or so below the gutter line but then dramatically slopes down to the level of the alley (the slab of the garage roughly). To the side of the garage is a set of stairs to get from the garage up to the backyard and to the right of the stairs is more terrain, with a slab on it, which is the same level as the backyard. I attached two photos so you can see. We are only drawing the garage and the terrain and not the main house because we're not doing anything there. So essentially the existing garage will still be a garage but will also be the foundation/basement for what is going on top. We are just starting the design so don't have a floor depth yet so the question is should the existing garage go on the foundation level or the floor one? I'm worried that if we draw the existing garage on the foundation level, which would make sense because it essentially will be the basement of what is to come, we will run into problems once we build the first floor because as we adjust where exactly 0' 0", from trying different floor systems, trusses, I-joists, joists that have different heights, it will start moving the floor of the existing garage. Which can't move because it's already there! I don't want to have this project just about wrapped up and after talking to the contractor we decide to change the floor system and what should be a simple change becomes a nightmare because I have to go and fix what ever havoc occurs after changing the floor 1 height. So I'm thinking that I'll just draw the garage/foundation on the first floor and go from there but I just have never done that before and am wondering if anyone has come across a situation like this? I mean would I put the terrain on level 2 than? I just haven't come across a situation quite like this before. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks

Ahh now I see how you can display the pony walls individually. And now I see that once I checked the option to split the wall if butted by roof it changed it to a pony wall. So I just broke the wall and changed the displayed wall to the one with the door in it. Thank you!

Ok so I don't which version they introduced the "Lower Wall Type if Split by Butting Roof" but it works great however I've come across an issue with it. While in 3D it works great, my issue has to do with the plan view. For instance what if a portion of the wall that is split has a door in it? Right now it shows me this: Kind of like what happens when you place a window in a pony wall and have the plan showing the portion of the wall that doesn't contain the window. Which reminds me that they really should allow you to decide on a wall by wall basis which wall of the pony wall you want to show in plan instead of a universal toggle. But I'm getting off track here. Is there any way, besides manually drawing cad boxes in plan to get the door to cut the wall in plan view? I kind of doubt it but if anyone has found a good workaround to this I would appreciate the input. Thanks

Thanks for the response. Was hoping there was some secret. Would be nice if Chief gave every object the option to choose the group and place at the front or back of that group. I just inserted the 2D CAD Block from CAD Block management, rather than draw something that roughly resembles it. It fits perfectly over top of the symbol. Thanks again

So, I've got a seemingly simple problem that I cannot find a solution to. I have a simple desk which is a polyline solid for the desktop (because in reality the desk is just a hollow core door with a piece of plywood screwed to the top) and two sawhorses that are architectural blocks. I'm just trying to show a TV (one of the flat screens from the core library) that hangs on the wall a little over the desk. The problem is that I have the desktop psolid set with a white fill and no matter I do the TV is always hidden by the psolid so I can't see it in plan view even though it is above the psolid. I've tried moving the psolid to the back group. I've tried cutting and pasting the TV just in case it has something to do with the draw order. I've clicked on the TV symbol and moved it to front of group but I cannot get it to display on top of the psolid. I want to keep the psolid filled so it obscures the sawhorse legs. I'm using X7, so I can adjust the transparency on the psolid and then I can see the symbol but it is faded and looks like it's sitting on the floor in plan view. So, how can I get this symbol to display above the psolid in plan view? It's not a big deal in the scheme of things, I could always just put a 2D representation in plan, but it just bugs me that I can't get something so seemingly simple to display correctly. Any possible solutions are much appreciated. Thanks in advance