GeneDavis

Select a CAD line or polyline, open it, and change its color to whatever you want. Whole bunch of lines, all on same layer. Each a different color.

Like from a camera drone making a slow lazy circle over the house, its roof off? Sorry if this has been asked before but I searched.

Start building a file called CAD Details. That is all the file will contain. You only need the CAD details when producing con docs, so your file is only open when needing to send a detail to layout. The progress photo raises a q with me. Was this started years ago as maybe a one bed tiny house with the intent of later adding on to make it a 4000-footer with all the other spaces? Because why would there be construction progress with you still working on the plans?

And save the framing for dead last. Model everything to perfection, solve all issues with surfacing, intersects, etc., get all roof, soffit, fascia, all the rest to model right so you are ready for the 3D, do lighting, then populate each room one at a time for your inside renders, do the shots and save, then delete the furnishings. This way you only have one room at a time with the hi poly furniture. It's like staging a house for photos. The furnishings are there for the photo shoot, and then go back in the truck. When finished with interior renders, go outside and do your terrain and features and plants, then do your outside renderings and save shots. Then delete all the landscape stuff like plants and trees. Only when all this is done, do you get into framing, which includes all the items like steel, hangers, etc. You'll need all this done for your structural plans and section views. If you want furniture elements in the 2D plan views used in the con docs, use 2D CAD so the spaces are all understood by those viewing plans, or just leave that all out like most of us do. I won't repeat what others have said about SPVs and CAD details and default sets and live views, all of which make your Chief life easier and faster. Your model is tres cool, but there are some waterslides in the roofscape where I would consider cricketing at bottoms to avoid Ian-type surges (I'm in SW FL) against those walls.

Should work the way we trim on site. I'll detail out a suggestion and post in that part of the forum.

What is the layer or setting to do this?

I should have been more clear. This is not a mulled window, in Chief parlance. They are windows spaced for two framing studs between, so separate openings for the windows. In my plan, not the little sample I posted, but the plan I need to finish, the windows have wood frames thus my spec setting for the casing overlap (I wish we could specify reveal instead because it is how I think when designing or building trim), and that between-window casing is wider than the surround casing.

Here is a plan that exhibits the behavior. I think a suggestion for program change is in order. I attached an image from a plan in which I drew 3D solids to correct the view. The error is in both the inside and outside casing arrangements. mull casing bust.plan

I've windows 3" apart, 3/4" frames, 3.5" exterior casing specified, 5/8" frame overlap. Perimeter casing looks good but not the "mull" casing, which does not overlap. Why?

Why can't you use Chief for cabinets? Are you going straight to CNC and cutting lists and hardware buying using Cabinet Vision? Are you aware of all Chief's cabinet capabilities?

Here is a pretty good guide as to what the parts are called. What has not been addressed here is the dentil molding seen in the OP's opening post #1, and how to do it in Chief. Alan linked to a great book above. If we are in this biz, we ought to learn the names of things.

I need make a 3D solid that represents a curved (the curve in plan view) framing member. A curved rim joist. I cannot figure out a way to get the arcs smooth and not segmented. Or rather, I cannot see a way to make the segments smaller. I drew two concentric circles to get the 1.875 inch thickness I need, and the circles had nice smooth arcs when trimmed with CAD and still were smooth when I closed things to make the polyline needed, but when converting to a solid, BOOM, segmented so it does note even look curved the segments are so large. Where in the dialog can I set segmentation so it lasts through the process of conversion to a solid?

Maybe think of it as two walls sandwiched. The outer one has no-trim passthroughs, the holes being the outers, the inner wall has no-trim-on-outside windows, and each of the steeply sloped "sills" is a 3D solid. That, to model it in 3D. Showing plan views with the 2x8 framing layer requires another model, identical to the first but with one wall, and one framing layer at 7.25 thickness. The ROs are the size of the "outers." You can use CAD details to show how the openings are framed, sheathed, and finished. I'd only want that look, if I were the client, with the top and side surfaces of those outer openings tilted, maybe only 10 degrees, but sloped. Hope your client has deep pockets.

Duh! Thanks, @robdyck

@robdyckThanks, Robert. That helped greatly but I still have a problem. Your solution was to do the entire curved screen wall in six equal segments, but silly me, I want the first segment of the wall, its plan-left one where a screen door goes, to be less wide than it is in your solution. I want a screen door not so wide. So I placed a screen wall there at my preferred length. See image 1 and 2 below. I then went to CAD and did some test-fitting of circles to get what looked like a reasonable arc for a FIVE-segment screen panel set of walls, and my included angle while not the clean number as yours, is still a number, and I show it and its 1/5 division, the one I used to replicate using trans-rotate. I drew the first segment and rotate-replicated 4 more to get the wall I show. But I cannot get room definition because something is not closing and I cannot figure where. Plan file attached. If you solve it, I'd sure appreciate a fixed plan file back. Close 5 seg.zip

And here is a copy of the plan. In the plan you can see two instances of the symbol I imported from my Sketchup model, one positioned in the space to define where I want the posts for the screened wall panels and screened door openings. A screencap is attached here to show all the off angle (and one no-connect) warning messages. Ranch camp 2 bedroom.zip

I need to finish this silly plan for a porch addition, and am stumbling. The porch walls arrangement is a combination of wall and post-to-beam railings, the railings are screened panels, and the problem is that what's desired for the view side screened wall is a segmented curve with only about 6.5 degree angle change in the chords as the wall sweeps around. If any single segment is "on angle" it isn't because I wanted it that way. Most are off. And there is always some joint, where I want a wall to end at a 4x4 post, that I cannot get to close, thus there is no room definition. Glenn Woodward agreed to a zoom meeting maybe ten days ago, a fun back to the future experience for me with Glenn more than a half day ahead of me, and with the 40 minute free Zoom limit, we exhausted ourselves through three consecutive sessions and almost got it, but not quite the way I wanted. See the images attached for some views of this in its imperfect state. By that I mean that the walls all close and I could get images to the client for review, but the curve is not the curve I want, and the post spacings are not as equal as I want. I can build it in Sketchup because SU lets you draw exactly what you want. A view of the SU model is attached here. I use SU for proofing it all and for perfecting the trusses and all the roof build stickwork. Sorry, Chief, but for something like this, you can only do it with a whole lot of manual work by me. SU is simply easier. My SU model has the posts positioned exactly as I want, and those positions are different than in the imperfect model you see I did in Chief. I tried to edit the model and am failing. I took the SU model and stripped out everything but the posts and a polyline I did for location the framed walls, imported it as a symbol, and those posts can be seen in my Chief plan. I have tried everything I know to force the railing segments to a.) join cleanly, and b.) place posts where I want. I am close but now I cannot force a wall join where needed so this thing closes up. How do you work to force these off-angle railings to join like what you want?

I think its lovely. Doing an as-built for an addition?

The plan I'm doing is an addition to a 2011 build. The architect's plans for the as-built use absolute elevations with the main floor at 993 feet ASL.

Thanks to everyone who put up with my confused state. It is clear to me now how it works. Quite simply, there is "house zero" which is commonly main floor subfloor top, and it relates up or down to terrain by that setting you either let go auto or assign, the setting being the house zero elevation above (or below) the terrain, whether your are building up in Crested Butte CO at 10,750 feet or in Plaquemine Parish LA at 3 feet. And the point in the house footprint that is that offset relative to terrain is its center, however Chief finds it. In a simple rectangle it's easy to see how it works. I've not yet had to get very specific about terrain in Chief house models because my builder clients know how to make things all work, but this latest little challenge involves notching an addition into a hillside and having two walls of the addition function as retaining walls for the natural bank it's notched into. And those wall heights are determined by the existing terrain. Pics from my self-instructional (with all your advice) are attached. I used elevation numbers for the terrain that are sort of in line with what I have on this 7-acre lakefront lot, and specified flat pad for house, so you can see how Chief warped the terrain up to the downhill side so as to achieve the flat house pad. In the cross section if you look close you can see how the ski slope line of the terrain intersects the middle of the house at subfloor, or "house zero." It is the skilled user's job to set that manually when properly siting a building. I've not yet had the job to properly site a new design on a big lot with not-flat terrain and views and multiple choices for siting, but am now prepared to do it if needed.

I've played with this little one room schoolhouse and to no avail. I need the subfloor at absolute elevation (per the surveyor) of 96 feet and change, and the terrain 1'3" below that. Nothing I do with terrain, changes the house floor from zero. What's the secret?

You only showed me a blank dialog box with your redline highlight around the building pad section which has a data input box for user to set subfloor above terrain, and two checkboxes, one called "automatic" the other called "flatten pad"

See the image attached. The test 4-wall house with auto roof had its floor at zero. I edited the floor elevation in plan view to 96'-3 7/16" to match the survey data. That moved the floor with its 4 walls up to where you see it, but the roof did not move. I selected the roof planes in this 3D view and moved them up the same distance the house got moved. Then I built terrain, which comes in at zero as shown. Now I gotta move the terrain. Right?

I did an asbuilt plan and did the room addition both with zero as the subfloor elevation. Now come the surveyor with about 100 points of terrain data on a .dwg which I have imported, and the subfloor is not zero but is 96.32'. And all the points are in decimal feet to two places, all hundred and something of them. I've a choice. I can either do the math and convert all the terrain data points to plus or minus the few feet from the zero subfloor I have, or I can make the floor 96.32 and type in point by point, given the numbers on the .dwg plan. But how can you elevate every element of a 3D Chief model? Edit area does not work. Simple box selection using a simple test plan moved the roof up 96.32 feet but left the floor at zero, so I have a mini-tower.

If I want my wall plates to report in 16 footers on the material list, I have to open each wall detail where the wall is over 16 long, and edit so there are pieces. Does not take long. Compose a suggestion and put it in the Suggestions subgroup here, that gives us the same feature for plates that we have for rims.