Joe_Carrick

Add a Floor! Use the Floor as a Roof. Then the Stairway will work - pluse you can have railing walls to enclose the "Room on that Floor". You just have to specify "No Roof above this Room"

Create a Panel Railing off to the side of the stair. Then move it onto the stair and check "Follow Stairs" in the dbx.

There are some good sets of "people" images on the web - some of which are free.

Also, any CAD work that you add to the Elevation View will automatically be updated in the Layout. That includes TEXT. I do almost everything in the Elevation View - not in the Layout.

I'm having some interesting experiences with the remodel/repair of our home after the kitchen fire last December. 1. Plans submitted for restoration/repair to the County of San Diego - over the counter approval (1 hour) 2. Exempt from the following code requirements which would have been required if there hadn't been a fire and we were just remodeling: a. Title 24 compliance - all 14 Sliding Glass Doors are Single Pane Aluminum Frame b. Fire Sprinkler System (house is 5150 sq.ft.) c. Guardrails don't have to be brought up to current code - Horizontal rails are 7" o.c. and rails are only 36" tall 3. However, the inspector is requiring code upgrades for "Fire Blocking and Draft Stops" which were not required when the house was built in 1990. 4. The Inspector said that an existing bath that had mechanical exhaust also had to have heat added - but I've not been able to find such a requirement in the code. 5. Drywall attached to an interior plywood shear panel needs to be attached with 1-5/8" screws into the studs, not just with 1-1/4" screws. IOW, we have Selective Code Enforcement for a reconstruction which has a total cost of more than $450,000. Some things are "Grand-Fathered" and some are not.

Is the adjacent Layout Box perhaps covering the Wall Line? BTW, I actually add a very heavy perimeter line to my Wall Elevations before I send to Layout. I don't really trust the "Wall Line" to always be what I want it to be.

Remember too that Layouts are measured in Paper Size. The Grids may be as much as 1/8" and you might need to move the Logo only 1/128". IAE, you could probably get very close with the Pt-to-Pt Move Tool.

You know what's missing? Some people and a few cars in the parking spaces. Something to "Liven Up" the Mortuary.

Or he could just have a 2nd Floor (1/16" tall) and have the Room in that area have no ceiling and no roof. Dead Flat Roof - No Slope at all. Seems to me that was the only way to have a flat roof back in V10 or even more recently.

Try turning off the Grid Snap.

Geir, It appears you are in Norway - Oslo to be precise - so maybe they have your plans on file. OTOH, perhaps you can talk a 15 year old Chief user to have some Lutafisk. LOL Seriously, if you don't need it done in Chief - why not go to a local Architect and them do it for you? I'm sure they wouldn't charge more than the job is worth.

Lew, Yes - any user can unlock or lock layers as they wish. But if one of my consultants did that they won't be my consultant for long. The bottom line is that when I incorporate their work into my Plan, I only copy their layers. Any changes that they make to layers that they aren't supposed to will simply be discarded.

This is always going to be a problem unless Chief is made to be a Network Application with File Check-out and Locking capabilities. For purposes of collaboration with different engineering & building disciplines I simply give them a copy with all layers locked except the layers that they will be working on. From time to time, I copy their Layers into my current Plan and give them a new copy to work on. You have to be careful to copy just the correct layers, but it does provide a way of having multiple users working on the "same" project. During this process, you will have several different Plans, but they will all basically be the same - and in the end they are all merged into a single Plan. You should never give 2 users access to the same Plan - unless you enjoy seeing one of them overwrite the other user's work.

FWIW, I've previously and repeatedly asked CA to make much more available to Ruby and also to make it so Interior & Exterior Elevations as well as Sections would allow Ruby macros for annotating Walls, Roofs, etc. IOW, a Reference Macro placed on a Wall should be able to extract data (wall layer thicknesses and materials) so that notation could be almost automatic. Just Dreaming and Hoping

Barton, One advantage to using a macro for a simple Text String is that it's going to use the current Text Defaults so the text will be the right size. A CAD Block will not be scale dependent, so you might have to resize if you use it on a different scale drawing Example: A CAD Block created for a 1/4" Scale Elevation would be twice as large if placed on a 1/2" Scale Interior Elevation. This is of course the same problem that you can get when taking Details from the Library. They may be larger or smaller than you want. The other advantage as Perry indicates is that it"s "LIVE" and will update if you change what's in the macro itself.

Barry, The Annoset is a set of Defaults. When you select an Annoset, the Defaults for the Plan are actually changed. It's actually possible to completely ignore using Annosets and define everything in the Plan defaults and in the Layersets. Annosets simply makes it easier to change several Defaults in a single step. The main reason for having Annosets is to adjust the sizes depending on the scale of the drawing. This is due to the fact that Chief defines annotation in Model sizes as opposed to print sizes. Assume that you use just one scale for Plan Views (1/4" = 1'-0") and your standard font is 1/8" Chief Blueprint then you could use a single Annoset for all Plan Views and control everything else within the Layer Set. iw: Use custom Text Styles for individual Layers such as Room Labels, etc.

You might need to adjust the Symbol's "Y" origin, depending on the wall thickness. I set it to 19" but for a 6" Stud Wall it should be about 20-21". You can play with it as needed.

The attached "Doorway" Symbol can be used where you want a Roll-Up Garage Door. It won't show the "Overhead Rectangle" that a Garage Door normally shows, but you can add a CAD Rectangle for that if you need to show the Roll in Plan View. IAE, it displays correctly in 3D, and will be in the Door Schedule if "Doorways" are included in the Schedule. Roll-Up Garage Door.calibz

My guess would be that you are creating a PDF with way more resolution than you need. Try setting the resolution down to about 60-90 dpi. It should then import into Chief at a much more reasonable physical size. You might need to play with it a bit to get the best resolution but in the case of PDFs you really don't need anything more than 120 for use in Chief - smaller is better.

Here are some examples of macros for Stairs: Stair_Risers_Imperial_Short # This Displays the number & Height of Risers nR = num_treads+1 cText = nR.to_s # Convert Decimal Values to Fractions inches = riser_height.round case when inches > riser_height inches = inches-1 end frac =( (riser_height-inches)*16).round.quo(16) case when frac == 1 result = "#{inches + 1}" when frac == 0 result = "#{inches}" else result = "#{inches} #{frac}" end # 'Risers = '+cText+' @ '+riser_height.round(2).to_s+'"' # 'Risers = '+cText+' @ '+result+'"' cText+" Risers @ "+result+'"' Stair_Treads_Imperial_Short # Displays Number & Size of Treads # Convert Decimal Values to Fractions inches =tread_depth.round case when inches > tread_depth inches = inches-1 end frac =( (tread_depth-inches)*16).round.quo(16) case when frac == 1 result = "#{inches + 1}" when frac == 0 result = "#{inches}" else result = "#{inches} #{frac}" end #Display Results # 'Treads = '+num_treads.to_s+' @ '+result+'"' num_treads.to_s+' Treads @ '+result+'"' Stair_Width_Imperial # Convert Decimal Values to Fractions inches =width.floor frac =( (width-inches)*16).round.quo(16) case when frac == 1 result = "#{inches + 1}" when frac == 0 result = "#{inches}" else result = "#{inches} #{frac}" end #Display Results 'Stair Width = '+result+'"' The 3 lines in the text box shown in the pic below are created by the above macros.

There are many things that you can annotate using Ruby macros and attributes that Ruby has access to. Generally, this only works in Plan View and you have to have the correct relationship between the text macro and the object. The first thing to understand is how to get at the attributes for any object. 1. Select the Object and open the Ruby Console 2. Enter "owner.names" which will list the attributes associated with that object. 3. Assuming that one of the "names" is height, type "owner.height" and the height of the object will be displayed. The next thing to understand is that a Text Object that references that object (usually by having an arrow pointing to the object) can retrieve the data. If that Text Object has a macro embedded in it the data will be displayed instead of the macro name. In the case of Chief's "Labels" such as a Door, Window or Room Label the macro can be directly embedded in the Default Label and it will then automatically display the data in each Label. Owner and Referenced context must be properly defined for each macro. Macros specified in Labels or in Text Objects need to be in the form %macro_name%. In most cases numerical values will not be in the format you want and you will need to have the macro perform calculations and formatting to get the text you want displayed. There is a lot to learn to use macros to the ultimate possibility and - as Gerry pointed out - Chief has not given us access to enough of the model data so that everything could be automated.

Barry, Annosets can be used for just scale related items (Rich Text, Text, Callouts, Markers, & Dimensions) by specifying "Use Active" for Current CAD Layer and Current Layer Set. IOW, one Annoset for each dwg scale that you use. If you use it this way you will have to change the Layer Set and Current CAD Layer separately. The other option is to have an Annoset for each scale for Architectural, Structural, Electical, Plumbing, HVAC, etc. and have the Annosets select the Current CAD Layer and the Current Layerset. IMO, the Annosets should be used just for the sandard text size (1/8" in my case) and possibly for different fonts. Special Text Styles (Size and Font) for specific uses I relegate to the Layer Set individual Layer definitions. I do prefer to have one click to set everything and currently that can only be done in the Annoset.

Put one in the Library

It's rare in construction that anything is built closer than 1/8". But for certain details you might need the smaller fractions. My recommendation would be to create the model accurately and have the Dimension Defaults set to the accuracy needed for the scale and the drawing type as needed/appropriate.

You probably also need to check the Dwg Scale and make sure it's also 1/2"