Alaskan_Son

I hate to be the contrarian.... ( I really don't),........  but the problem with this is if any of the floors and ceilings of the copied  plan are NOT DEFAULT heights,  it ain't gunna work...... Michael......  note the capitalization......  I am am still thinking of that sand thingy.........

I was reading another thread and realized that my sequence listed above actually should work with one minor tweak....

1.  Do a "Save As" of your plan (giving it a new name of course).

2.  Lock the camera layer(s) (and make sure the rest are all unlocked)

3.  Marquis select everything and hit delete.

4.  Clean up anything else that may have failed to delete.

5.  Open your alternate plan (the one without cameras), make sure everything is unlocked, and using "Edit Area (All Floors)" marquis select all, and cut

6.  Go back to your plan with only cameras and "paste hold position"

7.  Save As the new plan with cameras using the desired name

That seems to work for me.  What do you think Scott?

I'm pretty sure its been asked for before, but this should be posted in the suggestion section. 

Not knowing what we're undoing can be a huge nuisance.  Sometimes its something you can only see by opening a dbx. and sometimes it seems...simply opening a dbx records as an undo so you can never really tell how many undos it takes to get back to point A.  Its really easy to undo too far and end up undoing something you didn't want to undo without noticing it.

I would give this suggestion an enthusiastic thumbs up.  I would probably put this among top 3 in my wish list now that I think about it.

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.

No no no.  I would vote FOR the option.  Just wouldn't advocate using it in most circumstances.

For exterior dimensions I only dimension to one side of the wall or the other. 

FWIW, I've probably framed 60 homes from various plan producers when I was a framing subcontractor and in that time I don't actually recall having ever seen a set of plans with exterior dimensions displayed as you are describing.  Interior dimensions yes, but exterior dimensions no.  I personally think its not the greatest idea.  I believe exterior dimensions should always be displayed in a very clear string that can easily be added up (i.e. no missing wall thicknesses to account for).

With all due respect, I was also expressing a matter of fact. I just don't want other HD users to get the wrong idea. Your statements are a little misleading. There ARE differences between the 2 products with regard to stair construction.

As I said, we have been through this before (and I might add you also acknowledged the differences in the specific thread I'm alluding to).  An excerpt:

"...Custom Stairs must be done methodically and carefully with lots of checking to make sure they are behaving properly, it requires patience and a plodding manner to do...

BTW, this video would only apply to Home Designer Pro or Chief Architect Premier X5 only, it does NOT apply to any other Home Designer titles like you have which have no such custom landing abilities.

DJP"

I just don't think its a good idea to head down this road. There's really no benefit of letting HD users think the programs are going to be the same. A couple posts in we may end up talking about breaking a landing and voila...a communication breakdown and a potential confusing mess. Not good for anyone.

There's a good reason for having 2 separate forums. That's all I'm saying.

sarahemeline,

 

 

The stair tool draws stairs from the level (floor) you draw them on to the next level or floor above. The stair tool works the same in Home Designer Architectural on a PC or Mac precesely the same, it is identical in function and action in Chief Premier (no difference at all what so ever).

Just try again with that first datum in mind and you will get them to work.

 

DJP

 

I'm sorry David,  I believe you are mistaken...according to Chief's own product selection guide/features list there is a notable amount of functionality missing from the HD product line with regard to stairs (except maybe in PRO).

The basics might be the same but many details and options are not.  We've been through this before on another thread.  We spent I don't know how many posts trying to solve a problem that required using a feature the OP couldn't access ( I believe that particular instance had to do with landings).

You would probably get better answers on the HomeTalk forum.  This forum is aimed more specifically at Chief Architect users.  There are many tools and capabilities in "CA" that are disabled or unavailable in the "HD" product line.

Sounds like a bug to me.

Also would be helpful to know which program and version you're using.

Prints fine for me but both look identical. 

Try attaching the plan and layout and you may get a better answer.

On a side note, I have had PDF's in the past that need time to "draw" (within the PDF reader) before printing.  Just a guess without a plan and layout, but there's a possibility the PDF hadn't finished "drawing" before your client hit print...especially if he/she has an older and slower computer and/or an older and slower PDF reader.

I'm also the type of person who has to know the "right" way to do these things mathematically. Unless the house dimensions AND lot dimensions are VERY NEAR PERFECT its not actually possible to mathematically place the house any better than "close". You really need at least one absolute point and you have none of those. At best you can assume the measurements from the house corners were taken at 90 degrees from the lot lines but even that is questionable

I would personally draw circles from the 3 corners of the house and rotate the lot till all 3 points touched. Then maybe copy and offset the lot lines to make sure it was really close that way. If there was any discrepancy after checking with the offsets I would break the difference and call it good.

Nope,  that won't do it Michael.....  note the capital letter.

Yeah, I realize that right after I posted it. For some reason I can't delete it though so I added an edit.

Cabinet module lines I believe. Easiest way to find stuff like that is to select one of the cabinets, click the object layer properties tool, and check all the layers associated with that item.

Edit: While I was typing that up Scott gave you a better answer.

Thanks for your help. I had seen the videos, but missed one important and unintuitive aspect of drawing the ceilings on the outside layer of the wall. I was drawing them where the ceiling would go, on the inside. After setting this up the Cheif way it started to work.

 

The video I saw never stressed that as an important point not to miss. That was a frustrating way to learn a slightly quirky aspect of Chief. I am not sure why it needs to be setup that way. It would seem that the by having only the inside bottom height would be simple enough to control a ceiling in the DBX and to draw the ceiling on the inside of the building rather than the outside.

Just to reiterate. Your ceiling height was set wrong regardless of whether you built it to the interior side of the wall or the exterior (as mentioned in posts above). I bring attention to this because while I agree that drawing the ceiling to the exterior is the more accurate way to do it so that framing builds correctly for the majority of situations, drawing to the interior also works just fine (and would be the proper way to do it for some framing situations). It worked just fine for your plan once I entered the CORRECT numbers.

set up all your cameras BEFORE making alternate plans and then make SAVE AS copies of those plans with cameras and all before making your changes

 

Michael:

 

too many times the client asks for an alternative afterwards

or the designer thinks of a few more things to try

 

Lew

I understand the problems.  Just stressing the ideal time to do things if you want to "copy" cameras.

On the same note, anyone who saves all their cameras wouldn't have a problem doing what I said if people wanted to see changes late in the game.  The problems would arise mostly when making changes in the middle of the process...not at the end. 

Unless you post the plan, I guess we will never know what was really wrong.

Amen.

I think the key here is...if possible, set up all your cameras BEFORE making alternate plans and then make SAVE AS copies of those plans with cameras and all before making your changes.

I hate to be the contrarian.... ( I really don't),........  but the problem with this is if any of the floors and ceilings of the copied  plan are NOT DEFAULT heights,  it ain't gunna work...... Michael......  note the capitalization......  I am am still thinking of that sand thingy.........

Now that I think about it a little more, I think it might be easier to change ceiling heights (where necessary) than it would be to replace all the cameras...maybe.

I hate to be the contrarian.... ( I really don't),........  but the problem with this is if any of the floors and ceilings of the copied  plan are NOT DEFAULT heights,  it ain't gunna work...... Michael......  note the capitalization......  I am am still thinking of that sand thingy.........

Oh well...I tried.

You still owe me some sand or a chili dog though.  This wasn't part of our bet.

Or you could take another camera shot.....

True, but if you want them to be positioned EXACTLY the same and/or have tons of them set up, that can be extremely time consuming.  You should be one to talk anyway....Mister SAVE AS   :-)

You know, I think I might start calling you D. SAM Hall...what in D. SAM Hall is going on here!!?  Yep...I like it.

Oops...I made a mistake in my first post.  I said to lock ALL the layers except the camera layer(s).  What I should have said was UNLOCK ALL layers except the camera layer(s), or lock ONLY the camera layer(s).  I edited my first post to correct it.

No.  As Kevin said, you may not copy cameras.  You CAN however try this...

1.  Do a "Save As" of your plan (giving it a new name of course).

2.  Lock the camera layer(s) (and make sure the rest are all unlocked)

3.  Marquis select everything and hit delete.

4.  Clean up anything else that may have failed to delete.

5.  Open your alternate plan (the one without cameras), select all, and cut

6.  Go back to your plan with only cameras and "paste hold position"

7.  Save As the new plan with cameras using the desired name

Todd,

Its hard to tell whether we are getting through to you or not. It would be really nice if you would give us some feedback.  It can really be frustrating to take a bunch of time helping people and never hear whether we fixed your problem or not, and if so, which solution it was...and maybe even a small thank you.  The point of this forum is for us to help each other.  Even if you don't have a lot to offer at this point in the way of advice, you could at least offer us some feedback as I mentioned above so we (and others) could all learn from it. 

With regard to your questions.  Hopefully we answered number 2 above. As for number one...I would personally probably not use a railing wall as you did, but would manually use the edit handles and drag the wall down in plan view to make it shorter.  There may be a better way, but that's my advice.    

Thats bizarre.  Never seen that before.  How do you fix it?  And could you attach the plan?  I'm just curious to see whats going on. 

It's not my "method". It's Chief recommendation how to draw custom ceilings. If you don't do it the recommended way, you can't be all that surprised when it gets confusing. However, as long as you understand the #'s in the dbx, you can do it either way you want.

Primarily, the difference between having the ceiling plane & baseline over the wall or not is mainly how the ceiling will frame. Done Chief's way, ceiling joists will frame over the wall top; which is almost always what I want.

The difference between the outside bottom & inside bottom hgts is the total rise across the wall main layer (5.5") for the spec'd pitch. No matter where you draw the cl'g, Chief assumes it's over a wall top & gives you those numbers accordingly. So, if you don't draw it like that, the outside bot hgt would be what you use.

when I edited your cl'gs over the Game Room (& the room def) to the recommended setup, I got exactly what you're looking for.

This is my understanding of how it works.

I sent you an email/message thru Chieftalk. I tried your 'todd@hawkshallow.com' email & had it returned- "domain name not found". I'll be glad to review this w/ you in a GTM or Skype session.

Thank you for that explanation Jim.  That makes perfect sense.  I rarely use plans for displaying framing so I see why I haven't had an issue yet., and I can see now why "my" method (while fine for most situations) is really the wrong way. Good to know.