Chopsaw

Mine seems to work fine just as is. Gives the same bounding box as your third image of the Sizing DBX.

You can lock layers that you create or stock layers in ALDO ( Active Layer Display Options ) Or even unlock layers that are locked by default for special manual operations. Yes there are other locking options hidden throughout the program.

Ok but that moves the text as well as the fill. It does not work properly over or under another filled object. Did I find another inconsistency for the suggestion forum ?

You could but they would need to be symbols rather than terrain features. Best to do it the way Glenn does. Sidewalks work great as 3D plot lines. I sometimes even put in survey stakes.

Do we not have a way of getting transparent text for angle dimensions and keep it live ? I was thought I had done it before.

Alan, Turn on your Origin Marker in the Symbol DBX. The 48 and 56" values should be negative. Then manually regenerate the 2D block to fix the door issue. This should also give you a proper bounding box. Also not sure you need a stretch Zone for this. You could just have a -24 or -48 stretch plane in the Y direction.

Ok great, that would be nice if it was automatic but hitting tab a second time seems to work fine. Thanks.

Go as far as you can with presets and then turn off Auto Rebuild and continue and there should not be any surprises. You could work with two roof plane layers and lock the ones that you have finalized if you are worried about selecting or dragging one by mistake.

Ok I see that it is working for X and Y inputs. However It looks like you should be using the Polar setting for inputting random angles. Otherwise you would need to set the X and Y coordinates of the new end point and not just the length at an established angle. Does your setup highlight the Y value when you start to draw a line horizontally?

I think I remember getting into a mess like that with a project and ended up being able to make it work by recreating the symbol. Not sure if the one in the library is corrupted or if you can only stretch one direction at a time.

Yes I have noticed that but not sent it in. If you are not using the "Polar" option as is shown in Mick's post chief often does not highlight the correct plane for direct entry. X seems to be the default and Y does not register. Is that what you are seeing ? I think you may be correct that is used to work in previous versions. If you can confirm that I would be glad to send it in.

An Illustration would help here but it seems that subtraction would not be necessary as you could just draw that in elevation view with a polyline solid. Something like this I am assuming.

It seems you do have some structural issues to deal with as Robert and Joey have indicated. There does however seem to be a slight alignment issue in x10 with the door jamb and door where the default settings will show a little strip framing outside the door jamb. If you adjust the door thickness it does not seem to have any effect on the door but rather the jamb is what changes. But as Joey says that is all wrong anyway, it just makes it look a little better from the outside.

Can you convert to solids in Interiors ?

What version are you running ? I think I posted for X10 above.

It really depends on what you need to accomplish. If you need to offset it from the hand rail just a bit you can use the Newels/Posts Offset setting with a negative or positive value. If you need to move the whole railing then it is usually best to add a layer to the railing wall definition with an invisible Opening (no material) Material. Other methods can be used depending on the situation. Sometimes just a screen shot of where you are at and a clipped image or as built photo of what it needs to be does wonders for those trying to help.

Stephan, Sounds like a great solution but I am curious as to what type of computer system you are running that would allow you to be able to do that with Chief. I am not so sure my system would handle it unless I was extremely careful with the included items in the plan and materials used. Assuming Alan's system performance would be quite similar to mine.

Take a look in your Chief Digital Locker and see if you can download from there and reinstall. Sorry to hear about the crash but this may be an opportunity for you to upgrade to a more current version. Hopefully you did not loose all your plan files.

Flagpole w/ Flag is in The Chief Architect Bonus Catalog - Landscaping Accents.

Sorry I take that back. It is no longer organized. It appears as they have moved them all to the X origin but neglected to adjust the Z origin. I will have to look up my report and refile it.

Graham, These are 2D Molding Profiles. I think you are referring to 3D molding Profiles. Open an elevation view and mark your 0,0 point and place each and every CA molding profile at that point with your cursor and you will recreate the work sheet that CA used to build the library. It is organized but not at the origin like it should have been.

It is dependent on the point of origin when they are created so there are a few CA profiles that land near the cursor and some are way off. Lesson learned when creating custom profiles of your own.... Keep the point of origin at 0,0 and there will be no problem with placement but every CA profile was laid out on a single sheet. Easy fix but still waiting.....

That should work but has some issues in that it does not necessarily place the profile where you cursor is. Chief has been made aware of the issue but it is always helpful to add your voice to the list to get it fixed. Fortunately a gutter is a relatively large profile but you will need to search for it. This is not totally random but is dependent on the profile as to where it lands. You could place several similar profiles and they might land in a group making them easier to find as there is a little bit of organization to it.

Most of what you will find in the CA libraries is optimized to use in CA. However other sources such as the 3D Warehouse can have some very high poly symbols that are really not necessary in most situations. The other possibility is you may have just one corrupted symbol that is causing the problem.

Likely a combination of the high poly 3D symbols and possibly not having the latest greatest video card but that would be just a guess without knowing a bit more about the symbols and their surface counts and what else you have in you plan file as well as your computer specifications. Sometimes just a reboot will clear up an issue like that but is very easy to put too much detail into a plan file if you don't have the latest gaming type system.