Alaskan_Son

Very creative Jintu!!

I would personally probably just use either a wall covering or a wall material region for the wainscoting and a moulding polyline for the other 3 items. I obviously haven't seen your plan, but I imagine its only the wainscoting that needs notching.

Not too shabby Rich!

I think the way you ended up building those walls (solids/symbol) was the best way. Just for the heck of it I tried to use the wall tools to reach the same result. Here's the best I could do. Its not bad, but what you did was better. Cinder block.plan

I agree. We use SU but never very often, I've become proficient enough with Chief's tools that I usually find it faster to model in Chief, however if you are already proficient with SU and a relative new comer to Chief, as Joe said, just model it in SU and import it as a symbol or just do the whole project in SU. Don't get me wrong. As the guys above pointed out, its totally doable...just not very automatic and not very efficient if you're new to the program. That being said, it would probably be an EXCELLENT exercise in learning Chief's various primitive modeling tools if you actually take the time to model it in Chief.

Which one? If its the wainscoting thing you can also consider using a wall covering.

I can get + and - to work in one of 2 ways... 1. X" +/- Y 2. X" +/- Y" Division only seems to work because it is essentially calculating a fraction for you and NOT dividing a dimensions for you, so it will also only work in one of 2 ways... 1. X/Y As usual, Chief will by default add the " for you once the fraction calculates. 2. X/Y" The inch mark is really in connection with the X/Y number (a fraction) and not the Y number (a divisor).

To add a bit to what Dermot said... If you create for example a 48" tall moulding and specify it as being 0" to bottom, it will automatically cut for the door but not for the windows (i.e. it only cuts items that fall within the 0" plane. If you use the same moulding and specify it as being 48" to top, it will cut for both the doors and the windows (i.e. it cuts for everything that falls within the 48" plane). The thing you cannot do as far as I can tell is get mouldings to "notch" for windows. It seems to be all or nothing. To get the notches for wainscoting, very tall trim details, or very low windows, you might need to use another method like wall material region or create a custom moulding profile to fill in the blanks.

Just tried it and it worked for me. 1. Create a 3D view of the house 2. Create symbol Then do one of the 2 following things... A. Draw a couple reference lines or place a point at one corner of your model and then delete the entire model (except the plants). Then replace that model with your newly created house symbol. OR B. Draw a couple reference lines or place a point at one corner of your model and select that along with all your plants tand cut and paste all that into a blank plan. Then place your previously created house symbol and align it with your lines or point. If you created the symbol before placing your plants, the above step would be even easier...Simply place your symbol and then place your plants around it. Once your SYMBOL (not the actual model itself) is created and your plants are properly positioned around it... 3. Group select your symbol and the plants and "Make Architectural Block" 4. "Add To Library" There might be other ways and maybe some more efficient steps, but the above worked for me and was super fast.

No matter...my point was that you are using the plan file itself to create your pages...that is just unusual is all.

You can also complete simple + and - calculations right in the DBX. For example, if you have a 96" top height and a 42" upper cabinet, you can enter 96"-42" and either hit tab or enter and it will automatically calculate for you (54").

You betcha! I thought it was a pretty sweet discovery myself.

I think many new users may overlook the second edit tool bar that pops up with certain tools...

Its not about "room at the table" Lew. Its about the best interest of our clients and the general public.

Its not the third from the bottom. Its like the 20th from the bottom...

I may be misunderstanding what you're asking, but I think there's a good chance you're barking up the wrong tree here. Chief is an awesome program, but as with any "CAD" software its just a tool. The end user needs to be be a proficient draftsman, designer, or architect to reach a good end product. Many long time CA users (many of us licensed contractors, designers, architects, and engineers) have a hard enough time as it is mastering the program (ANY program for that matter) and still maintaining a successful business that turns out a high quality end product. To put it bluntly, I don't think its a very good idea and don't think it will be in the best interest of of very many people to have lumber yards offering design services. I see all sorts of problems stemming from the idea.

You are probably using 2D plant images and not 3d symbols for those plants and as such, the plants are not 3D items that can be included with the newly created symbol. I'm just spitballing here, but what about group selecting the plants and house symbol, block them, and then add that block to the library as a single symbol?

This is a super ultra mega maximum annoying Chief issue and really needs to be fixed. It's near the top of my list of most irritating things... Right up there with stubbing my toe, bumping my head, and telemarketers.

3D images??? In Chief speak that is a contradiction in terms. Images are by very definition 2D.

You are welcome sir.

I had originally misunderstood you. I was under the impression you were using the word western as in "America is a western nation and China is an eastern nation". It seems now though as if you were using the word western as in "Western films...cowboys and shootouts and the OK corral and so on." I would say the examples you have posted are a mixture of lodge, rustic, southwestern, and texan furniture among other things. Maybe do a search of... -Lodge furniture manufacturer -Rustic furniture manufacturer -Texan furniture manufacturer -Southwestern furniture manufacturer Or some combination of those terms. At least that might be a good starting point.

Build>Image>Create Image

Good tip Jonathan.

Definitely a bug, but for what it's worth, you do have 2 different lintel sizes in play. One is 5-1/2" and the other is 5-1/4".

This would of course work, but the OP already stated concerns regarding what would happen if they tweaked the grade later. Problem with using the edit layout tool, as I'm sure you know is that ANY tweaks to the plan and any updated views would need to be edited all over again. With a CAD mask there is a very good chance any changes to the plan will have no effect on the mask at all. And even if they do, it's a lot easier to drag the edge of a mask than it is to delete a dozen or more extra lines.