keithhe

Perry, Can the other site information also be added to this? Say the elevation data, which in most cases I have. I'd like to have that move, with all other fixed items, like roads, property lines, setbacks, and if applicable, symbols of other items?

Hi Larry, Thanks again. No, I'm quite comfortable with layers and layer sets. Perhaps make too many, as I want to have ability to turn everything on or off if I want. I'm also familiar with the "Edit > Edit Area > Edit Area (all floors) and have had mixed results. Even with everything else locked, I have watched some CAD lines *setbacks" move, which was really confusing, as they were locked. I can fix those, but in rotating the plan, I have found that the walls are really a mess sometimes. A Point to point move, if orientation remains the same, usually works fine, but rotating has been really problematic. Hard to explain but walls will look like "Z" saw blades now that they are at an angle to original orientation. Regardless of if I use Edit Area tools, with transform replicate, or rotation handles. A lot of good information here by many, and I appreciate it, and apologize for any highjack of the thread. I think I will set up a trial plan, and go through what has been provided and see what happens.

Perry, Thank you. I think, and this might be part of the problem in my explanation, that once a plan is set in stone, getting everything to play well together is easy enough. My problem is through the development process where absolutely nothing is set in stone. If you have a last minute change from client in your plan there, which looks great by the way, and that change meant moving the house within the setbacks, could you easily do that? I know that is a preexisting house, but if it was a new plan? How hard would it be to move the house over 8'.or spin it, within setbacks?

Hi Lew, Agreed, I already do this, where needed. I even have docks, neighbor's homes, occasionally just as symbols. But, I do want the project house live, so I can see what the other "symbols" look like, as in a project where view, or terrain, or houses might impact the best location, I want to be able to see what can be seen through windows, for example. I, again by example, I have house way up hill, and neighbors house would wreck the view, I might move it down some (within setbacks) to see impacts.

Kevin, This sounds like how I would like to be doing these.

Larry, Thank you !! That did help a lot, and I'll go back and watch a few more times. What I could not tell, given your example at about the 2 minute mark, was if (example) garage changes, and now you are over the setbacks, another option was there was room on the "east side" still. If you move the house plan to the right, does the live house move accordingly? Or, if enlarging the garage, as you showed, does that change the live house? I keep thinking that I want to move an already set up site plan, around the house plan. That way, if anything changes, I can simply move the site plan, rotate it, whatever to make the footprint stay in the setbacks. I'll need to play with some sample basic plans and see what happens. I have no problem setting up even complex site plans, setbacks, terrain elevation data, etc.... I just want to have a way to work a house plan into the setbacks, and not get screwed if something changes and now I have to spin it, add to it, etc... Not sure which way is better for that, but it is certainly not my way, which is best described as a modified plan footprint method. Not sure if I'm explaining this right, but has been something that has plagued me for a while, and hoping to find a better method. I know that any moving of the house, proper, really screws things up, so the moving of the entire site plan, elevations, everything, makes more sense to me.

Larry and Perry, Agreed, I have not been utilizing the Anno/Layer sets as much as I should, and frankly still have a bit of a learning curve on that front. Prior to Larry's survey, I was researching a better way, so this post was timely. Would love to see a video, of a simple (very simple) plan that would walk through this.

That's it Perry, that part was bugging me, but otherwise, the gaps, I think was a factor of aligning the porch to the shown "outer upper" surface in plan, which was incorrect. The gap then was the subsequent difference between lower pony stone and upper stucco.

Hi Larry, Yes, I did know that, but say you are moving along on a live plan, on site plan, and a change that is made (say a larger garage) means now you are over your setbacks. Or sloped lot, and determination is to move one way or another to better accommodate. I just want a quick way to move a house around without everything getting messed up. I suspect there is, just not the way I'm doing it.

Larry, I'm one of them, and mine sucks, so you really don't want to know, unless you are looking for an aneurysm. I'm very much interested in a follow up to this poll that has people weighing in on the pros and cons of each. I need a way to work house ideas and easily drop them on a predetermined site plan where I can more easily move it around within setbacks. I've come to the conclusion, and I don't do this much, that it would be easier to move the site plan, then the house. Either way, ability to develop multiple house idea plans, drop intact into the site plan, move as needed without everything getting whacked. Or, as I think makes more sense, bring a CAD site plan, with everything that is known and locked, and move it around the house.

Darn it Dermot, where were you yesterday when I was killing myself trying to figure this out. So easy, and the edit button is only available after the object is selected. For reasons I can't explain, I never went back to look at that. Perfect, and works as I had hoped. So MUCH easier now. Thank you.... You should work for Chief, you are good at figuring these things out.

OK, That works as I just did other side. Uncheck roof and ceiling. Go to upper floor and remove auto generated walls. Change all three walls that are connected to porch and deck, and change them to show "lower wall" in plan and align pony wall at outer surface. Change wall between to divider, that now you can see where the outer most surface actually is, and it works.

I keep thinking of stuff and come back to look. I'm not sure why, but you have a ceiling showing over porch, and maybe you plan something there, not sure. That has an auto-generated wall over the upper porch beam, which was not aligned with the porch beam. I selected room, unchecked roof and ceiling over this room, deleted outer wall toward deck and used a room divider. The other thing I saw was that in plan view, you have display of upper pony showing, and I changed to show lower, as that is further toward the deck. This get rid of the gaps. What I can't figure out, and maybe someone might have a better idea is what is that white rail on outside of the concrete of the porch is? I can't seem to make that go away. On unmodified plan, you will see where this turns the corner, which also may account for some of the problem. With what I did, it extends into deck area. No idea......

OK, I don't have a solution, but perhaps a hint as to what is going on. I see that the deck is the thing misaligned, not so much the porch. I looked under, and see where ledger board cuts wall where problem is happening. See photo attached. CA is also complaining about wall alignment issues between floors, but don't think in this area. Is this one of those occasions where you need to manually frame ledger across, as this would be the norm? Not sure, but pretty sure it is way harder to connect the deck joists to a ledger inside the house, in real life. Pretty easy in CA though. I'll let the smarter folks see if this might be part of the problem, or not.

Kind of similar, but I've been replying to/or new post (can't recall which), and needed to click the "Advanced" button to add an attachment, and doing so wipes out all you have written. This problem is pretty new to me, I do not have Win 10, and it happened often enough for me to copy all my text, if hitting advanced so if it happened again, I would not have to type it again.

Lew no question people can benefit, but I'm not at all sure that many of us know what the "limitations" are between the two. I know I have no idea. I can see where HD folks could get frustrated listening to what CA can do, that they can not do. Don't know, and any are welcome to post here, obviously, just think it might be more productive for them on HD.

Kevin, Although there are a few users here that might be using Home Designer, almost all are using Chief Architect Premier. They are similar in some regards, but different in many more. You might do better on the Home Designer forum "Home Talk" here >> https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/

Oh, just caught a different point you made here. Block a group, height I need, then add to library, and distribute those. Might work, as I think the default for most items is zero. Not sure, but will play with this some, but only have 4 minutes now that football is getting ready to start. I do have priorities.....

Here is a random pile, individually placed, and blocked for sections, to fill in spaces, but proved way more time and effort than it was worth. I was hoping to find a way to essentially set up a line, copy it, place different rocks at different intervals/heights, and get same results, but much faster.

Thanks Curt, I'm always experimenting with things to gain a better understanding of what I can do, and particularly easier, or faster. In this case, given shore line, randomly placing rip-rap, piece by piece ( I have 8 different pieces from 3D Warehouse), would be a tedious process. I tried over a smaller area, and it was frustratingly difficult, but eventually looked pretty good, but with many objects in places where they were not seen. Thankfully, the distribution path DBX allows for not just the spacing, along the line, but an option to "randomly" set the orientation (essentially rotating each piece) so that they look different. By copying each line, once made, I should be able to do this for each rock, and set the heights to look like a more random stack. Problem was setting the height. I found that I could unblock the objects, then move down, but that as you know is a one time process, as once you lose the highlight, it would be particularly hard to reselect, if you needed them to move again. I guess unless I create a block and unique layer for each segment of the line. Not sure, but seems a handy way to do something, this random, and curvy, easier. Attached is just a short test segment. Each is actually the identical rock, that chief randomly oriented. That part is good. I unblocked and was able to move them down, but as they are each turned, some were at different heights. I was able to pull those down, but x many of these rocks, that could prove difficult too.

Trick? Not sure I think a floor plan could really be an elevation, as I think you are implying, but this might work for what I think you are looking for? Try this >> http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00631/using-the-cross-section-slider.html

When Scott says search for his video's he really means on Google, as they are mostly (correct me if I'm wrong Scott), on You Tube. They are informative, and entertaining and have helped me with more things than I could count. Here is part one of the MRLS on You Tube, you should see the subsequent parts there too. I need to look at these again, as I still don't do this right.

Wow, I read this twice and still pretty sure this may not be in English. No idea what this means.

I'm trying to figure out a way to add rip-rap along a lake front. The idea of using the distributed object tools occurred to me, but I can not control the vertical height of the line and thus the objects? Nothing in the dbx to control height and the transform/replicate will only change in X and Y, but not Z axis. I suspect I'm missing something as I've always been able to change height of objects, but in this case it is technically a line or path. I saw this thread, and Scott's video within it, but does not speak to this issue.http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?57017-Michael-s-distribute-along-a-line-videos-by-dsh&p=418106#post418106 See attached cross section. The line draws there, at ground height (cliff edge), but no way to lower the line. Thanks, Keith

Coralie, You will hear this a lot here, but please post your plan. It is simply guess work for people to try to resolve without being able to see what you have drawn and why you have a problem. Many will just skip the thread and you will be less likely to receive help from those most qualified to answer.