Alaskan_Son

I think you found a new bug Chopsaw and I believe you should report it to tech support right away. They recently fixed some problems with p-solids that didn't behave properly once rotated. It looks like there's a problem with rotated solids now. Until its fixed... Instead of rotating your solid, either rotate the polyline solid before converting or build your solid at an angle. Once the solid is rotated it won't work. This is NOT normal behavior though. PLEASE submit it.

This thread might be worth a quick look... https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/8921-what-is-a-solid/?fromsearch=1 I'll take a look at your plan when I get back to the office. Re: sun in Wasilla, it's still bright enough to get around all night but sun is dropping below horizon at about 11:20.

Video sound was just fine and although the screen I'm currently using is too small to see a few things, it seemed pretty easy to follow what you're doing. Good job. Can you post that sample plan?

I do basically the same thing Alan does except that I would typically measure the exterior as well for use as a control/proof/double checking mechanism. In other words, I like to go back-and-forth making sure all numbers agree with each other. Sometimes they don't and I either… A. Discover I made a mistake with one of the numbers or presumed assembly thicknesses. B. Find a hidden chase or other construction abnormality. And like Joe, I would typically start with the exterior walls (or basic permiter shape if it's only one area of the house) and go from there.

Please re-read my post above. It's actually very simple and it does exactly what you are looking for in about three seconds time. Yes, there is more than one way to skin a cat sometimes but I believe the method that I mentioned is the correct way and that it would do you a lot of good to understand it. It is the key to controlling pitches with auto roofs.

That's a very good idea Mr. 86. A pony wall is another very good potential method for creating wainscoting. It would solve the corner transition issue caused by material regions and would invite a number of other potential benefits as well. Good tip.

The Export Picture dbx in Premier has the same option under Image Properties.

I don't understand what the problem here is. Simply select the 2 side walls of the garage (those walls are the ones that control the pitch), click on the roof tab, and delete the "(D)" from the pitch field. That D is essentially the same thing as checking "Use Default". In fact, if you ever want to change a number back to the default all you have to do is enter a D in the field and it will automatically display the default number. Anyway, once you remove the D or add a number different than the default, the pitch for the roof plane starting on that wall will then be controlled by the new setting.

In my experience this is a nice sounding idea that a lot of well intentioned people think will save time/money or make things easier but it never works and isn't even remotely worth the effort. No doubt people the world over will keep trying it but it's really an excersize in futility IMO.

I can't answer for Glenn, but for me personally, when an issue comes up I usually research it and play around with it till I fully understand it. I personally played around with that setting quite a bit in the past trying to harness the power of reference sets for some unique purposes. Having said that, I can tell you this...XOR drawing in Chief doesn't seem to be particularly tied all that well to the traditional definition of the term and idea of "exclusive or". We've run into other situations in the past where using or not using XOR drawing was the solution to the problem. I think those cases in the past were roof labels and maybe some callout labels. Neither of which seemed to have any logical reason to be affected by XOR drawing. In short though, I think Chief's definition is vague because the way it behaves is a bit unpredictable. I don't think it actually works like it's supposed to and I don't think it ever has. I think that ideally it's supposed to only recognize overlapping lines (or polylines, boxes, fills, text, etc.) but for some reason layers also come into play even when there are no conflicting lines. It probably hasn't been reported much because most of us rarely if ever touch that checkbox until an otherwise unsolvable riddle arises.

We had the ability to turn off shadows on an item by item basis in another program I used for a while, and honestly I think it might be a feature worth considering in Chief.

To clarify/expand on what Perrry said… You can very easily control that via layer sets and layer settings... which many people control and operate using annotation sets. There are a plethora of different approaches and by no means does this cover all of the variations, but in brief you can either: A. Put different text and dimensions onto different layers. This way you have one group of dimensions and text for any given detail and/or scale and another group for the next detail and/or scale. B. Set your text and/or dimensions text style to be controlled by layer. This way you can change the text style in any given layer set (in Layer Display Options) to a different scale and therefore use the same text and/or dimensions for various details and/or scales. Switching to the appropriate layer set would change the text styles to the appropriate scale. C. Use a combination of the above.

I believe that unless you draw the roof baseline by snapping it to your walls all manually drawn roof planes will default to whatever plate height you have set in your Floor defaults. That's just the way it works.

I'm having a hard time finding the proper words to describe it. Just try to model the exact condition illustrated in the image Jimmy posted, or open the plan I attached and try to recreate the same situation I drew up using the same dimensions and I think you should see what I mean. Note that the small section of footing is offset (further outside the building) in both directions. The footing in your example is not offset...it is only made wider in both directions.

Thanks Mickey, I could already get the same results you show without any problem. I was just trying to help the OP model the condition illustrated in his second image. Now whether or not the footing SHOULD be that small is another subject.

The reference display is designed for use in PLAN VIEW and so it's not available in 3D.

That's a good method most of the time but Jimmy stated that he's already using break wall. Problem is that method doesn't really work when your trying to offset your footing in both directions from the corner like in the example though. And Shane, just FYI in case you didn't realize it, you don't even need to use that foundation offset number. You can simply select the wall and use the little edit handles on the edge of the footing to resize just the footing.

Not a video, but here's one way to extend the chain itself... 1. Drop the fixture into the plan, take a 3D overview, delete surfaces to remove the top piece, and convert to symbol. 2. Delete surfaces again, this time to remove everything except the top piece and some of the chain, and convert that to a 2nd symbol. 3. Drop the 2 new symbols into a plan, position them correctly, and then convert that to a symbol.

This is a tricky one. The challenge is creating a footing that's offset in both directions from the corner of the main foundation walls. You can make it work okay in plan view using an additional short section of wall and manipulating the footing, but it looks bad in 3D. Unfortunately, the best I can come up with for this situation is simply using a slab with a solid fill (background color) and invisible line style along with a polyline for the little footing perimeter. Example is attached. Footing.plan

Might be a better way, and its not a condition I've ever had to draw up, but what comes to mind is to set the foundation offset for your main walls to the width of your insulation then go down to the foundation level, select the Exterior Room, Make Room Molding Polyline, and then make the molding the height and width of your insulation.

Sorry, hopefully you hadn't gotten your hopes up too high.

Aww man! That's too bad. Maybe I should remove my "tip" from the Tips & Techniques section. And maybe you're right about the resolution thing, I don't know, and I also never realized that custom line types get added to the list. Thanks. I do know this...I almost never use custom line types and I definitely don't have them in my template plans so the trick works for me anyway. Sorry it doesn't work for you. Its an awesome little timesaver for me.

There are a number of methods and various ways these could be combined, but the steps I would recommend you consider... -Group selecting walls and possibly removing some walls from selection. You can easily group select by switching to a wall tool and shift selecting. -Checking or unchecking Retain Wall Framing (Structure tab). -Using the Build Framing tool for only selected walls.

Those toggles would be specific to your system and not the plan so they won't show when we open your plan. I'm just guessing here, but did you perhaps toggle your angle snaps off? Edit>Snap Settings>Angle Snaps...

...or to actually fix the problem, straighten out this roof edge...