dshall

Here is a tip that I probably do not use enough but is very powerful. Example: The other day someone asked how to show the same window on TWO LEVELS of the floor plan. You need two windows. Put the first window in using FINISH FLOOR HEIGHT, make sure you like location, now open the window DBX and change to ABSOLUTE HEIGHT, you can now copy that window , paste on the other LEVEL, now if you look at a 3D view, you should see only one window (good), and if you look at the floor plans, you should see a window on each level (good). You can use this for many situations, think about wanting to show a light in a stairwell on two levels..... This is a very powerful feature. OOPS, this is not available for electrical symbols. It should be.

I think another solution is put the stairs (if they are in fact exterior stairs), on their own layer called STAIRS EXTERIOR, they should show on first floor and to have them show on the second floor, use the ref sets.

Did you do this? What did you get? Would you mind posting a plan of what you got once you fixed it?

Okay guys, I have attached to screen shots, the ugly one is griffin's, the better screen shot is mine.... what is the difference? the delta between elevation points is the same.... but griffin's elev points are x + 800', mine are simply x + 0'. So here is the question....... what would you do to Griffen's plan to get a topo as good as mine........ remember, I think the delta between elevation points for both plan is similar. THE ELEVATION OF THE POINTS ARE WITHIN 5' OF EACH OTHER. Griffin's elevation are from 850' to 855', mine are from 0' to 5'......... why do we get terrains the are so different? dshd terrain 3.plan

I suppose what confuses me is why the center of the terrain is lower than his defined points? IOW, why isn't it higher? IOW, what defined the height of the low point in middle of terrain.

Great Post

I have been doing terrains a long time. I can almost always get a terrain I like....... via my methods. The fact that I could not fix/understand the issue with your terrain tells me I should take a class in terrain building.

I must apologize, I thought I understood terrains. I think Glenn's advice is good.... use terrain lines...... I will go so far as to say that it is a bug or it does not behave as I would expect. This is probably the best advice Glenn gave you... "Or, you could change the Terrrain Surface Smoothing to Linear - this will smooth out the peaks and troughs.."

I looked at the file and I took a screen shot of what I changed. I'm not sure what else I can say. When I made the change the terrain was essentially flat.

You have one terrain and 3 elevation points.,..... correct? the elevation points are set at 855' plus/minus correct? If you select the terrain and set the SUBFLOOR HEIGHT ABOVE TERRAIN TO 855' , you get essentially a flat lot, correct? so start setting the SUBFLOOR HEIGHT ABOVE TERRAIN TO 855' to what you want...... confusing? yes, but somehow we will muddle our way through it. The point is all you need to do is to set SUBFLOOR HEIGHT ABOVE TERRAIN correctly and you should be good Did that help?

I just experienced Joey's issue again. I hit UPDATE ALL ELEVATIONS and everything was good. I do not remember that updating elevations fixed the issue, but it did this last time, and if that is the case, I'm god to go, no complaints.

Yes, I get that too, "the shadows from previous model" ... sometimes... I do not know why... I have reported it..... maybe they are still working on it....... very frustrating......

It is a slippery slope..... okay, so we show the new stucco walls as dotted, but what about infill walls? Do we now need to put in a pattern where windows have been removed and there is a stucco infill...... I think Perry and I are probably thinking alike, we would rather this stuff be auto or not get into all of this extra cad stuff. It seems like the more we can do, the more is expected of the plans...... it just goes on and on......... doing this extra stuff takes time, so it costs more....... what did the builders and framers do before we could do this fancy stuff? Somehow they were able to build the project. I am not saying this extra stuff is bad, but I am asking is it worth the extra time and expense and does anybody appreciate the extra time that goes into the plans.

Lemonaide out of lemons...... nice...... I get your point..... I suppose my lemonade would be sweeter if the line was dashed......... but good argument.

I think I acknowledged I can get what I want via the layout. And as clever as you are, I know there are other methods to get what I want via one of your methods. . but why can't I be in a plan file and click a button and get what I want? Is there a secret reason why CA makes it difficult? 5 years...... in 5 years I don't care what CA wants to do. I'm done.

Yep, my issue also

Will somebody please shoot me in the head. Working on a more complicated project ....... the walk out basement scenario.... blah blah blah........ why can't I select a button and the anno/layer/ref sets are there? Why do I have to &%&^$&^^% muddle my way through this crap every time. why why why...... just plain stupid..... no wait.... I am stupid, there are probably other stupid people out there, please CA, try to figure this out....... try to figure out how we can do a one click and get the correct anno/layer/ref set for a particular view that we already have in layout. Seriously, am I the only person that gets frustrated with this nonsense? I have been drawing plans for over 40 years, and never never never when I was drawing a foundation plan would I want to see dimensions or notes from the framing plan..... (most of the time) Do you guys get this? One click should activate a predetermined anno/layer/ref set combo. We are draftsman, we are not the brightest guys on the planet, Have you guys seen Perry spell? Have you guys seen any of my vids? We are not the brightest guys in the U.S., we are not the smartest guys in California. In fact we are not the brightest guys in Southern California. Please help us out..... and let this be a warning to you..... if this does not get fixed soon, I will show up at the next UGM in August and there will be heck to pay........ and after the heck has been payed, I will be playing The CDL resort course with my Buddy Bruce. Maybe this time I will be able to get my tee shot on the green for the Island Hole. Such an easy hole but somehow I miss that stupid green every time. Hey, if any of you CA guys want to join us for a round of golf, let me know, I would love to play a round with you guys. We plan on being in your neck of the woods from Thursday to Thursday, we will be playing courses in CDL and Spokane. Just venting.

The two walls need different materials. You need a stucco NEW material and a stucco EXISTING material. Each material should have a unique pattern.

I would like to think that CA listens very closely to what you have to say. I find it interesting that you are using CA more and more for production purposes yet you recognize that there are other apps that eventually may be as easy to use as CA in the near future and you may abandon CA and move to another program. Please CA, listen to JPC, if you can satisfy JPC, I would venture to guess that your product will appeal to the users who need both production as well as the design/presentation.

I put in two widows, one at first floor and one at second floor, one of the windows will not be checked to be included in window legend. I do not think the ref set method works well.

I am not sure if CA is listening to what we are saying. I get it, there is no bug, but for some of us, we do not think the anno/layer/ref sets work as well as they could/should. To sum it up, I would like to be able to select an anno set that triggers the layer set and the ref set to display, and whether I toggle up through the levels or down through the floor levels, the display remains the same (unlike the behavior I demonstrated in the vid). I understand I can open a view from layout and the anno/layer/ref sets are correct. But I would rather work without the layout file open....... why?........ because having the layout open tends to slow down my computer. What frustrates me is I do not hear CA say, "we get the request, it makes sense, we will work on it". I do not think I am requesting anything special or unwarranted. This is the way 99% of us work.

Mon Cherie, not sure if this issue, I am not sure this is my issue, but it is an issue for me,

Post your plan, you will have 38 folks prove your wrong, it will work with SEPARATE TRIEM AND MATERIALS...... CHECKED

If I am not mistaken.... back in the day you did not have the option to have different materials on each side of door. I would guess the only reason we have the ability to do it now is because the doors have 2 pieces. An exterior piece and an interior piece. IOW, back in the day I think the door was one solid so there was no way you could have different materials on each side. I remember when I built custom doors, my doors where made of two pieces, an exterior piece and an exterior piece, hence I could define two different materials. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Interesting, I am noticing this behavior too. I am chalking it up to user error.... for now. I will keep an eye out for this behavior and let you know.