GeneDavis

I like some pale color fill in details.

Nice job. For details I like solid arrowheads, and all my arrowheads are slightly smaller than my text size. That goes for plan views and elevations, too. Examples: All my 1/4 scale anno and dimension text is 4.5 inches tall, and all my arrows are 4. Details at 1" scale get 1.25 inch characters and 1 inch arrows. You might want the look of curved arrows instead of doing the angle break. To curve the line, start the arrow by dragging in the direction and then hold ALT and watch what happens. The ALT key held down enables you to curve an arrow already placed, so if I am doing curved leaders, I draw the arrows all first in the direction I want from the anno text, then go in and arrow by arrow use the ALT key and drag the arrowhead to the object or surface I want.

Ok so I drew a rectangular plan for a building with non-modular L x W. See the attached screencap. I first drew it by locating 0,0 with a temp point, and the point is shown at up left. I framed the top long wall and measured and the 2' layout was based on the zero. I then moved the building to the R away from 0,0, framed the wall again, and it behaved as expected. Then I set a framing marker at up L on the plan and reframed the wall, and of course got the expected result. But the roof, WTF? Wanting a symmetrical rafter layout, I placed a second framing ref marker at ridge center. Shown in the pic. Then framed, and Chief paid no attention to the marker. I removed the marker an the rafter layout was the same after reframing. And that rafter layout has no relationship to the zero on the building corner the wall used. So how does one autoframe roofs and control layout using a framing ref marker?

This guy uses ACAD but has some interesting stuff on his YouTube channel that applies to any software, as regards what we call layout for print. He makes a good case for varying line weights and using red for all anno. See this vid here. Note also his walls seem to be drawn as main layer only filled solid, which when you think about it makes good sense. Plan views guide the framers plus inform all users viewing them how spaces relate, flow progresses, and with anno, gives specs for all the elements like fixtures. It is in the details where features like wall makeup, framing, wall layer makeup and specs, insulation, trim, exterior finishes and weatherproofing all go. Thus those walls maybe are best shown as he does in his example. Of course, his method means you should be printing in color. Not really a big expense when you look at overall project cost.

What's the parent object of a roof plane? What is the parent object of a wall? Is it the building?

If you've not set the framing ref point and you have Chief frame, does it frame from 0,0?

Layers can do that for you. Or delete the as-built framing.

All the framers use a phone app or a dedicated handheld calculator for getting cut info for rafters and anything needing bevel and or miter cuts. The output is often in 16ths. I don't think they are in-their-head rounding up or down to nearest quarter or half to mark and cut. I framed and never did that. It's too easy to make a mistake. If you are cutting all day, you know where every sixteenth is on the tape, and you really only need the four patterns in your head to look and mark quickly. And everybody in the crew knows what a sixteenth is relative to the kerf of the saw they are using to cut. For floor plans I try never to use finer than 1/2 but will go 1/4 if necessary. For concrete work, 1/2. But my defaults are set to 1/16". If I want to communicate truss envelope detail I use the convention of foot-inch-sixteenth, example 12-6-2 for 12'-6 1/8".

I'd enjoy doing big-footage houses where there are zero fractions in the structural parts of the plans: foundations, floor frames, wall framing, window placement, etc. How are you dealing with wall heights when the yards are selling precut studs for nominal 8 and 9 ceiling heights, you know, those pesky wall heights like 97-1/8"? And then there is the centerline stuff when the spread is a odd inch like say 47, and you gotta go with 23 and a dreaded half. So what's up when odd numbers like 1 and 3 and more are your post makeups for framing, which is 1-1/2"? Do you round up the dimension of the 3-stud pack from 4-1/2" to 5"? And remodels mean as-builts, so you are rounding everything measured on site to the nearest whole inch?

The pictures show the issue but you don't give us the roof parameters for the two connecting planes, one OK one not. You've got to do that for us or upload the plan for inspection.

I did builds like that in the field, jigsawing and bandsawing curved rafters, sheeting them with wacky wood bending ply, and subbing the metal to the steel seam or copper guys. Using 2D CAD to make drawings at first, from which came paper and pencil layouts for patterns, I moved up to getting full size patterns printed on a continuous feed plotter. Paste it onto 2x12s with spray adhesive, and cut. Today I'd get the cutting done at a CNC shop.

When you calculate the area of wall cavity in a wall run with windows and a door, the factor for insulation area relating to the total wall area is around 0.8, and this, after taking away the openings. The studs, plates, and headers add up. R23 Roxul wool batts, the ones I mentioned, cost over $3 a square foot. When you order, you want it right, and if we get Chief producing material counts, we should expect accuracy, and user control via spec input that yields usable results. Reporting in square feet is preferred. Every package of rolls or batts displays its quantity in s.f. The data is all there in Chief. Plates, studs, spacing, and headers. What's missing, until framing actually is built, is the timber content for the wall junctions, the corners and tees, and the posts at load points, all of which further reduce insulation cavity area. With framing built, though, the data is there for those adjustments to the count.

So the batt insulation is somehow hard-coded and one cannot change it?

Thanks. I was really looking at it as an exercise in Chief, after seeing the post from the guy who seems to want it reported on his material list. I provide material lists for one of my builder clients, but it's only for lumber and structural hardware, plus sheathing and if he wants it, sheetrock. Never insulation.

I saw that, Rob, which is why I went to a plan and did the material list and saw it had the batt size different from my preference. We frame at 24" centers an use batts 5.5 x 23 x 47. It is reporting 6 x 16 x 97. I know area is what to do, but was exploring because of that other thread about piece counts. I know nothing about macros. How could I get a bag count to report knowing sf/bag?

I have searched in help and find nothing. I go to the material list line and click the column in which the OOB default batt size is shown (6" x 16" x 97" batts) and it opens up a set of options I do not understand, some of it macro of which I have no knowledge, so please help. Is there a training video that deals with this? I want the count for the Rockwool R23 5.5 x 23 x 47 batts we use in all the jobs.

Bob's plan file used but with lights set to 3 lumens not 100. And then at 1 lumen.

In the wayback past, Chief's website had some nice examples of plan sets done by users, some of them like Joey, regular Forum contributors. I got plenty of style tips for layout arrangements and CAD details from those. There are none at the site now. It is all Chief content, and there is not much in the CAD detail category. I went looking after the recent thread by the guy with his X12 version (how'd he get that?) trying to figure whether it could auto-gen CAD details like the setup the boss's son-in-law did on some old software. I wanted to see how the Chief details in the galleries compared to what he was after. Why did Chief stop using user submissions? Any ideas?

I don't like a hipped return to have the same pitch as the main roof, and so lower the pitch of the two small roof planes that make the return, to maybe half what the big roof has. Which means I gotta build them manually. Maybe I ought to find out how to edit the auto-generated ones.

Any footprint can be roofed hip-style

Let's start with you reading the pinned thread at the top of this section, "How to get good answers when you ask questions." And then you continue by completing a signature in your profile, kind of like what you see in mine. What Chief software and version you are using, and what you run it on. And then, no, we're not done, you attach an image, a screencap is best, of what you have on your screen that shows us the issue, and you attach a plan file (you gotta close it to be able to attach it) to your post. Finally, if you are using Home Designer, and not Chief Premier, you're in the wrong room. HD has its own forum.

"In a few years" unless you take on Chief with the new subscription arrangement, you will be stuck with your one seat of X12, no support from Chief, and no way to get more X12 seats for all those everyone elses. So if you are really going to transform HomeDesign into a Chief house, you're gonna have to talk Mr Boss into you getting X14 and a proper machine on which to run it. And funding to keep X14 under full support. Otherwise this is just a lark. Up thread, in your post in which you show a collection of CAD details and a full-house cross section, including your dialog boxes which seem to work like a rules-based-configurator to search and deliver CAD details from an indexed library, how do your CAD details differ from the example attached here of one cut and pasted from Chief's stock box of CAD details? And could you not just take that and edit it to your needs, then copy paste to your hearts content, editing each new one to achieve one for every roof pitch, every wall thickness, and every insulation callout scheme you seem to have in your present system? Then work to build the huge library of CAD details necessary to support the business, since you want everything pre-drawn. You would pull them from the library, which would all be indexed in such a way as to make pulling CAD details as easy as today's op of filling out a dialog box for the pull. And also upthread and from that same post in which you have the building cross section, does your present system give you a live section like that from anywhere you cut one, as Chief does? 'Cause it looks kind of generic to me. I looked at your dialog box for cross section. How do you generate a building section, for example, for a house with high-side shed roof and a walkout finished basement level with 5 foot stemwall under the walkout?

Don't use the 3D camera. Use the elevation/section camera, or the wall elevation camera.

I've looked at the OP's website and it seems the firm has a long history of selling stock plans with a library (they say) of thousands, and customization available for any of them. Everything looks absolutely whitebread traditional, and the website says they have been in biz for a long long time. I looked at the website for the software they use and it's vintage stuff from back when Chief was beginning, but doesn't look current. No modern stuff, no midcentury modern stuff, no flat roofed contemporary, nothing about site-specific full service architectural services, it looks like they are grinding out a lot of work using their libraries, and those must have all been coded to work with this detail configurator that is in use. Someone worked long and hard to build the whole setup the way it works. To change the operation to be Chief-based, someone would need to make a commitment to the change, and that would be the boss, the owner. It would take as much effort to change the op so that Chief is the tool, as it did to build and deploy the existing setup. Did the boss look at Chief and say, hey, that's what we want to do to make a whole lot more money? I don't think so. I don't see it happening.

I drew a 24x24 building, added a second floor, out of box default ceiling heights for floors 1 and 2, manually drew a gabled roof at 11/12 pitch from end to end, then took the front plane, dragged it to 1/3 its width, copied it in place, dragged the copy to the center, then copy-reflect the end plane to the other. The center plane was edited to hold its ridge height but changed its pitch to 8/12. Look about right. Then lowered all the roof planes down to get a knee wall height inside of about 5 feet. The window is 64 high and has enough overhead to get a header over it. You'll need cheek walls which can be manually placed. Specify them as "roof cuts wall at bottom." I don't think of this as a dormer.