Alaskan_Son

Hmmm... That's a tuffy. I think the dormers are flush with the walls below too. They might stick out a little past the chimneys, but I think it's only the exterior cladding and molding.

You bet! Glad I could help :-)

It's not available for all objects but seems to be available for most. Only becomes available once you select the first object.

I use the Match Properties tool for exactly what you are talking about all the time. It has a lot of uses, but I primarily use it as a selection tool.

You bet. Glad I could help.

Agreed. Over 200 hours doesn't sound too unreasonable for the project you've described... Especially if you start needing interior furnishings and decorations, renderings, etc. Custom projects can be incredibly time consuming from a design standpoint and if you're like me and like your 3D model to be comprehensive and accurate...it can take that much longer.

You're welcome, however I could not disagree with you more regarding the second part of your statement. I wonder if it's possible you are having some sort of video card issues. Camera function has been greatly improved in my opinion.

It can definitely vary a lot. I could see some extremely simple house plans being completed within a day but I've also had some cabinetry plans take a good week. I've never had something take 200 hours, but we also don't do very many large-scale projects and don't often need to deal with full construction documents. In my mind 200 hours is pushing the limits ( at least for the type of work we do), but doesn't sound too ridiculous. It would have to be a pretty big and complicated house though. And Joe is right, it's really all in the design time. It's not so much in the actual plan production.

Of course it's possible. Methods that come to mind… 1. Just do the math and size your rooms accordingly. 2. Create a polyline, polyline solid, floor material region, or whatever. Either make it the same size as your tile or the same size as your tile including the joint width, and then use the multiple copy tool with numbers set appropriately for both the primary and secondary offsets to create a grid work of tile in your building area. Use that grid work to lay out your walls. It might be a good idea to put that very first tile on a special layer before copying it so that you could easily group select the tiles or turn that layer on or off.

No. In my professional opinion its not even remotely worth trying to do that.

I agree with Perry, keep the notes in the plan. Problem is that you're trying to move a 3D symbol (your plant/note) to a CAD detail. With regard to the second part of your question, there are a number of solutions, but the 3 easiest methods that come to mind... 1. If you create your notes on a per floor basis, create an extra floor of your plan and place all your plants on that floor. Just use reference floor settings to show the plants on the lower floor(s) or overlap views sent to layout. 2. Use a different schedule. The plant schedule isn't the only one you can use. You can use a furniture schedule, a fixture schedule, an electrical schedule, cabinet schedule, and now even a framing schedule, all of which have multiple options for objects to display. I for example never use exterior furniture, and if I do I definitely don't need a schedule for it, so I can create a furniture schedule, set it to display only exterior furniture, and use that for my notes. 3. If you create your notes on a per plan basis AND you are using every single schedule possible AND displaying every object type possible. Its still possible but trickier. You essentially have to create an extra floor or series of floors and use layer sets and reference sets. Its not quite as difficult as it sounds, but definitely a last resort. If it got to this, it might be faster and easier to just create your notes using text and callouts...unless you have a ton of notes in which case the extra floors method might actually be faster.

Cool. Good luck. There are a some other possible options. The one I listed above is just the easiest I could think of.

Also, in X8, by default the camera itself moves when you use the mouse wheel (as opposed to zooming in like it did prior). If you just want to zoom in, use the new Perspective Crop Mode found under 3D>Camera View Options (or just hit P to toggle it on).

Try opening your camera and under Scene Clipping, make sure "Clip Surfaces Within..." is set to a relatively small number. I think its set to 24" OOB.

I haven't experienced this particular issue.

Nicinus, There is only one single situation where the 2 names could be combined without causing MAJOR issues...when creating a brand new CAD block that contains no other blocks of its own. Otherwise, there are all the problems Joe and I listed above. You can easily just give your CAD block and library item the same name though.

I'm pretty sure he's referring just to a simple CAD block added to the library. Even for those though I wouldn't recommend the 2 names being converged as a CAD block can be a combination of CAD blocks (each with a different name).

I think they should probably remain separate. There are a lot of situations where a CAD block represents more than one library item, and where a CAD block may be stored in more than one library location (under more than one name for ease of access).

To answer your first question, CAD blocks have 2 names. The name you give the library item (the name in the library browser) and the name you give the actual CAD block (the name in the CAD Block Specification dbx). The latter is the one which also displays in CAD Block Management.

Weird...Just tried doing it through the ACTIVE Layer Display Options dbx and here's what I found... You can't delete the layers unless first changing your layer set or closing the display. I think the list just needs to reset. If you do that you can delete the layers just fine. If you just changed layer sets instead of closing and re-opening the display you'll have to de-select the layer before re-selecting and deleting it.

Worked for me. How are you deleting your layers? I was doing it through the Layer Display Options dbx.

As it turns out, this is not exactly true either. With Connect CAD Segments DEactivated (unchecked), you can can do the following... 1. Select a disconnected line segment FIRST and then Control or Shift select a polyline segment (even part of a connected polyline) and just the one segment is group selected. OR 2. Control or Shift select a connected polyline and while still holding Control or Shift, click on one or more of the line segments. Each line segment you click on (after the initial polyline selection) will be disconnected from the polyline and will be added or subtracted from your group selection as well. This could really pretty easily serve as a functional replacement for our previous Edit Object Parts tool with a little getting used to.

You know...I've never even opened up the CAD to walls dbx before. Just did for the first time. Looks like it was designed to work with imported DWG drawings. Interesting. Still imagine it would be faster and more accurate to just redraw but who knows. I'd be interested to hear how you guys use it.

I'm curious...do you guys actually use the CAD to walls feature very often? And if so, under what circumstances? I've never once used it or found a reason to use it.

You kinda went back and forth between layers and layersets in your post. Are they layers or layersets that you cannot delete? And can you possibly attach the plan so one of us can check to see if we have the same problem?