GeneDavis

Zip the .layout file and attach it, and I or someone else will print to .pdf and then post the result. If it's under the size limit, it may attach without need for the zip. Try that, first. You won't get help from the ghoster, but you will from us.

Well. Mr Tiny House, I think you have likely lost most of us here at the forum, who in future will see a post from you and click right past. Any quick foray into Chief's HELP dialogs when exploring the dimension defaults setup would have exposed the term "secondary" which you gotta admit is getting near your preferred term of "dual." So dual off, guy.

Here is two room house I quickly sketched. I selected the interior wall. Look at the picture. And fill out your signature (if you are a Chief Premium user) so we know. If using Home Designer or something else, find the appropriate forum to post your question.

Be sure and open the breaker before trying this!

I changed the glass in on of the pendants to "lighting white" and moved the light source down to 55" so it is inside the shade, not above it. I also set the number of light fixtures to be on to 100, from 20.

The ones in the kitchen? OK for me.

You drew a one room house. House area is measured to outside of walls, not middle or inside. Check with your local jurisdiction to find how property records are done for taxation, for bank lending, and in doing building permitting. Real estate goes the same way, to outside of building lines. Room figures are typically given in inside wall to wall dimensions, not in areas.

Putting these 3D birdseye view of a floor on the CDs seems all the rage. Look at all the Chief sample plans. How does one get the best resolution? I bring up the view in Chief, carefully orient it, and then export a picture. Importing into layout, I don't see the resolution I would like.

That function is available in other CAD packages but in Chief you need to work around it with a patch. In the two images, you can see the dimension as generated, the patch, and the patch moved to cover the true dimension.

Try it yourself. Go into a wall detail with whatever dimension default you want to use, turn off the framing finds, and you'll see you cannot get a dimension pulled. Then draw two vertical parallel CAD lines and dimension with end to end or baseline. Now pull OFF THAT dimension to snap dims to other points. It'll find all the stud edges, when it would not before. It's like the starter in making bread.

Well excuse me! That was it! But the big question remains, which is with the preference for framing find (edge or center) OFF, why does it start to find edges or centers when one begins a string using CAD lines?

That's not it.

The only kind that works is point to point. No end to end, no baseline, no running. I can do it if I "kickstart" things by drawing a cad line and pulling a dimension from the CAD line, but without that kickstart, Chief CAD will not pull a dimension. Try it yourself. Draw a wall, frame it, open up the wall detail, and try drawing some stud to stud horizontal dimensions.

Each of those is done with a wrapped molding. Note: Attach your images, don't attach a link that must be downloaded.

That "door height" is actually the door opening height. Chief does not give you door heights. Play around with cabinets and take section cuts, use the measure tool, and you'll get up to speed on what to do. Some of us use the faceframed approach to do frameless cabinets, setting the "separation" (i.e. faceframe stiles) width at 3/4", and the overlay at 11/16". Customize your verticals however you want, but I set things to my wall cabs have a top reveal of 1/8" and a bottom of zero. Basecabs top reveal is 3/8" and bottom is zero. You back into these numbers setting separation sizes and overlays.

Wouldn't one, after changing pitch of a built roof, just take a section and measure how much it should be raised or dropped, to re-seat properly? This, whether one rotated the planes about their baselines, their ridgelines, or their fascia lines?

What scale are your floor plans at the Super B layout page size? What scale are they at the Arch D page size? Did you rework all your annotation to be scaled right for the larger layout page size? Whether I am printing at letter size or Arch Whatever, I want my letters and numbers 3/32" high. What would carpenters need to know that they would scale from a print? Please be specific, because scaling seems so archaic in this age of digital plans-making. The only thing I can think of is "where does this interior door go?" My interior doors are either (T) for tight, or located with a dimension if not tight. "Tight" means "you guys figure it out from however you are going to case the framed opening. That casing edge should be maybe 1/8" off the sheetrock."

Thanks, Mark. I did not know that break that happens between separation = 1.875 and separation = 2. I can certainly live with 1-1/8", particularly with all the LED strip lights we have available now. Back in xenon bulb puck days we needed more depth for the housings.

Well, that's the diff between Pro and Free Make!

Thanks. I probably did what Michael did, which was to do some degrouping. A lot of the stuff you get from the 3D Whse needs this kind of fiddling to get textures to identify separately in Chief.

David, what version of SU are you using. I see it is labeled as 18.something. I use free Sketchup Make 2017 and could not open your SKP file, but downloaded the Cessi chair group from the 3D Warehouse. Is yours the web-based 2018 version of Make?

My customers get their cabinets made by batching entire jobs or rooms using eCabinets software, then buying out the packages of components: carcase parts from a CNC shop, fronts and trim from someone like Walzcraft, hardware from usual sources, drawerboxes from another, etc. Unbundled sourcing. All is put together on site. It is fast and VERY cost effective. Uppers always get undercab lighting, and instead of doing light rails, the decks (i.e. carcase bottoms) of wall cabs are raised 1-1/4", a behind-door piece of trim goes on at install-time, and the doors overshoot the decks by 1-1/4". See the sketch, attached. The applied valance trim piece, 3/4 x 1-1/8" is shown. How would one do this in Chief? It's no biggie for me that I cannot do it now. Just thought it might be good for accurate section views.

WHAT 3D Framing layer set? If it is one you created, not something Chief has OOB, you should give us more detail. Sorry, found it. But what real value is there in showing this on the plans, without extensive annotation?

They build those walls one at a time, so I give them each elevation, and show where the on-center layout origin is, plus other details. Here is an example. They use the floor plans to locate the window and door openings, and the interior wall junctions. Wall heights are in the building section views.

I charge extra for garages, piers, and thickened slabs. But the offset tool, the "follow me" tool and of course the push-pull hotkey make pushing out a quick foundation in Sketchup pretty easy. Here's my foundation story. Long ago, two years out of school, this engineer was running two gangs of union surveyors every day doing line and grade work for a paper mill expansion in Pennsylvania. Way before 3D, way before CAD. The preps for the pours was being done by a 65-member gang of union carpenters working out of a large site-built shop, building forms with lumber and plywood. From October through the following June, we averaged 60 redi-mix loads a day pouring 'crete, a number of the heavy pads for things like digesters being 7 feet thick. Winter pours were under temporary enclosures built by that same gang. With air temps in January and February of maybe 7 F., you can lay atop a 7' pad poured early this morning, and the heat emanating from the curing 'crete will make you think you are in a sauna. It may be different today, but just the machine foundation inside a paper mill needed about 40 thousand cubic yards of concrete. We didn't need 3D then, and lets face it, it's use today is really just window dressing.