mtldesigns

And that's what I did, but I was thinking if I kept the same layer, everything should be fine. Lesson Learned. I wonder why nothing shows but the OOTB stairs and landing though? This is what I am going to do, so if something changes, it will be updated. Sorry for the delay in responding, the wife had different plan for me today besides work, until now at least.

Maybe I am not seeing something correctly here, being its been a 12 hour work day and its getting late. For my original customer approval, I put a Chief stairs in the model (indoor and outdoor stairs), did the room below on the second floor to show on the plan set. Went through the approval process, and one of the comments the clients wants is a custom stair case on the exterior. I decided, since this was custom and there are still some limitations on Chief stairs to just 3D model my own. I guess I never paid attention to this before, but I am no longer am seeing these stairs from the second floor (room below) even though I am still using the same layer names. So I thought, I messed up and I put a Chief stairs in the next to the custom one, and from the second floor, that stair shows, but not the custom. Interior, I thought I'd test, and sure enough the same thing. Is there a setting that allows this to happen and a setting to where we can add custom modeling parts?

I know, I really wish I could, but not enough hours in the day to load that up and play around with working two full time jobs (this being one of them). One of these days, this will be it, then I really will be bugging you all, meet you all in Idaho.. getting into the betas. BTW, I looked at your site the other day, great work Eric! Love what you did with the church.

The very first thing I'd check is if the layer is on, in that layer set.

I asked this, because I read the dimensioning has improved and really looking forward to seeing that. Like can we dimension circles and radius' ? Can we put text above and below a dimension line, not just in front and behind the text? LEADER LINES/ARROWS THAT DON'T MOVE WHEN OBJECT or TEXT IS MOVED OR ADJUSTED.. this is huge to me. I move more arrows than I do walls and doors. Chief does keep getting better, and continuously improves with every new update.

I think your right on this John, esp. on the trades side. Where I worked before (day job) was Newport News Shipbuilding, working on the Ford Class. That big bada$$ ship was design in a 3D model, down to the screws on the light covers.. the trades use a little of the 2D stuff, but now they are equipped with a notepad and they are in the model, taking their measurements from that model. I left before this was fully implemented, and this ships are being built. So must be working ok. We are slowly getting our shop to load the model (read only) here at GD (day job) and provide just enough docs more for engineering sign off. Ditto here... leaders just clutter IMO.

That's what I would try Rob.. I'm not sure if that is why your ceiling joist are wacked, but if I don't need a room definition, then I usually do a slab then do the roof on top. I model my own post and beams anyways, so it isn't to much of a bother. Railing walls are some time finicky..

Exactly what I did Jim, that's what I was say in my OP "The only way I can figure this out in Chief is to stack the same view and just shrink each one and stack..." Kind of a pain but was pretty easy. I know AutoCAD Plant 3D has this option, and the dims stay true... just was throwing it out there. Thanks, glad to see others are working on a Saturday night too.

I've been doing design for almost 40 years (geez, didn't realize I was that old), back in the drafting board days, and even with AutoCAD and Chief cad, when height of a object won't fit on a paper, we do cuts with cut lines (40 yrs and don't know what these are called, I just did them..). Can we do this in Chief on a section view? Duval County Florida is requiring a full section of every wall at 3/4" scale. Well, you try to get a 3 story house at that scale in the vertical with dims. So I was thinking and wondering if we had this possibility? The only way I can figure this out in Chief is to stack the same view and just shrink each one and stack...

I wanted to respond to this post, I was having the same issues as the OP and figured to let others know how I resolved the off set shadow affect. I didn't have the scaling issues as others had mentioned, but Roberts suggestion worked. I always turn my clipping lines off, for some reason.. thought it was a nuisance in those elevation views. But when I uploaded these elevation views to a layout the shadows were night and day (pun intended I think) from what was in the actual section view. I also have a large lot, so when I did load these views I had to bring the sides in, all had a play in the issue. Turning on the clipping lines brought these views to a more realistic shadow affect and now I am moving forward again. Learn something everyday. @rlackore

I really should have used the word "improvements" on stairs and railing walls instead of "issues". It def is better than it used to be. I guess I nvr had the linking issues others have since it's just me.. even though I go from desktop to laptop, being all on a cloud and only one license to move back and forth, it's always seems to work fine. "KNOCK ON WOOD"

thx, good to know

I'm with Perry here. I have a .plan and .layout file, all under a project folder on One Drive, files dragged and dropped to a Google Drive and Dropbox for a backup at certain stages of the project. Easy peasy.. So is this PM addition, an option where we don't have to use it? I hadn't seen much of X17 besides the vids and comments, not a beta user here. And I understand some peeps might like the PM stuff, but I'm looking for more bread and butter in these upgrades not just a different bread box to store it. That's what I am excited to see.. Did we fix stair issues, pony and railing walls issues, dimensioning options, basically most of the suggested items this past year. Honestly, I don't recall anyone suggesting a project management system, or I just missed it. My $0.05 because two pennies are more than a dime.

I've always liked using construction lines coming from the commercial side of design and now in architectural. Just makes the drawing look professional, IMO. I was glad when Chief made this easier to use a couple versions ago too. However, there are some Plan Views (Electrical, roof plans, etc..) I have to turn this layer off because the lines are way off the building outline. Since the locations of the rows and column callouts are based on the floor plan dimension locations.. when I have this layer on in an electrical plan, it just looks dumb. Is there a way, besides manually creating a new set of these to show on the the plans I turn the layers off. It appears on the Construction Line Specifications dbx it's one and one.. not option to shorten these lines without affection every sheet. -OR- do you all not show on the misc. plans sets? I hope I made sense.. I'm hungry and typing quickly before being called to dinner...

Cool. I haven't done the switch to 17 yet, but this will be utilized. I am old school drafting board guy where we always had a very thin light line with the separation distance set. In cad or Chief, I do this with a layer called "dimension line", that is red line and is equally spaced in my views, with that layer turned off in my FPVD planned views.

Interesting.. have you tried doing a complete wall, then removing the blank sections with a window pass through? Just throwing something out here. I would think this would keep your framing above, but I'm not guaranteeing that.

here are some training vids.. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos

You will design your homes as it is. Don't worry about the footing until you get a foot print of your home. The garage will be on the same level as your home (floor 1), but in the dbx of that garage room, you'll put in a negative floor height. I attached one I am working on now, this garage floor is -12" from the main finished floor level. If I read your question correctly, is it 30" that the home will above grade? If so, your garage floor will be -30". Once you get your plan straighten out, you then "build your foundation" using the pull down... This is how you get your crawl space. Pick the "walls with footing" then about half way down set your min. height of that stem wall. A crawl space is considered a stem wall. This will put all of your foundation on level 0. Hope this helps and gets you going. BTW there are plenty of tutorials out there to assist further. Start with baby steps, before you know it, you'll be running a marathon.

@Straight_Line At times like this, so you don't get frustrated, I'd throw a solid in that gap, put it to the thickness of your tile, and the same layer. Sometimes doors and invisible walls do this, and sometimes they don't.

I saw in there presentation video from last week, that the DW is now a standalone, does not need a cabinet (which is how its supposed to be). I believe she also said the countertop auto fills in. Dang, Jim beat me to your question

Ha.. I'm still using AutoCAD during the day, and then come home and switch gears to Chief. I take a 20 minute power nap so brain can re-adjust. In RE: to wall types and libraries. There are so many types that I have created over the years. ICF, wooden frames (2x, 4x, 6x, 8x...), steel framed, CMU, the list goes on an on. So instead of having a long library, I have a model that has a 12' long wall of each one I have created along the way (and I can keep the same naming method). I just copy and paste the wall I need once I start a new plan. Another benefit is this file in on my OneDrive folder, so I can use easily on my laptop too. The image is an over view

Do it the way Shane states. It's been this way for a very long time, and it is a PITR.

So this has to be up against the wall to work? Where I've noticed where it doesn't work is like steps to a porch post, or floating stairs (what I am working on now, that is not supported by a wall)

I've been meaning to ask this for a minute.. As the subject states, in the stair dbx, we have the option to "extend" top end or bottom end. What's the trick, because this has never worked for me? I always, have to model a solid for that void. Or is this something different than I think it is.. which is to extend the railing in either direction.

@capitaldesigns Hey Mike, Doing something like this myself as we speak. What you do, as Renee mentions, is create a room with the room divider tool. I always make this "wall" a layer that doesn't print in this case. Once you have the room sized, go to the room dbx and pick the "open below" option. You'll then see your stairs. Don't forget to turn that room label off and uncheck if there is a roof or ceiling above it.