GeneDavis

If you've got 2x2 balusters face-nailed to those upright 2x4 rails and shoes, you might need to continue modeling for true 3D representation.

Pretty large opening headers for a gable end. If I was paying for the lumber I would have someone check it.

Free Sketchup is, well, free. Easy to download and install. You want to learn at least the basics of exploding models and editing materials before you go with it for Chief. Open up a new blank SU file using the application, and with the 3D Whse function, download whatever you want into your SU file. Examine it carefully for size, geometry, and if needed, explode things to be able to get at the materials for all the surfaces you want for have separate materials. Edit your materials the way you want them. Resize the model if needed using the tools available. I often just use the 3D scale tool to stretch or shrink. When done, save it and give it a name. Now you have a file on your drive you can import directly to Chief.

And be prepared to dimension and annotate them yourself.

I've built with ICF and am curious to know why one would want to see a 3D view of a such a structure this way. Who needs to view the concrete core as if the styrofoam forms were stripped away? And why?

Spend an hour with all the dialog boxes for railings. Check and uncheck, change fills in the display, newel sizes, balusters, everything. You'll learn a lot.

I think you had better edit your signature line. Click on your name upper right, go to settings, then create a signature script. It should include which version of Chief, and something about the system on which you run it. We cannot offer specific advice without knowing this.

Will the OP please enter the room and tell us if Michael's quick and easy solution (fillers) will be used? I love getting into the weeds of the builds, because I detail stuff like this for CNC fabrication, but I'm betting the need here is for simple representation, just as is shown in Michael's post, above.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, Michael. Works fine when done right, but one still needs to check the lazy susan option in the cabinet dialog to get the 2D display to show it. And yes, it puts the RevAShelf product inside in the correct position.

A 32" dia susan should go into a 36 x 36 corner. But it won't. Well, actually, it will if I force it and move it into the right position. But it should pop in as a sink does, nicely centered. And to rant further, a corner cab is built with fixed shelves, which stay there if you put a Rev a Shelf susan inside. And the susan gets placed on the floor, not on the bottom deck of the cabinet. So what good is this Rev a Shelf library, with something so basic as this not working? And

I use CAD on the foundation plans to do this, because I not only want them appropriately placed near corners, but placed so that butted ends of sills get bolts near their ends. Call me anal but the builder appreciates it. How would you specify things to get the program to do it?

Thanks, Mark. I wanted to do it because the spec for the kitchen is different from the rest of the house. It is probably not worth it and I'll just take care of the situation by annotations in the manufacturer and comments columns. .

How can this be done and still retain cabinet labels? I want the kitchen in one schedule and the baths and laundry in a second.

Nice topic and really nice barn. One of the coolest houses we almost ever bought was down in Boerne, TX in the hill country, and was done in the old Fredericksburg style, minimum roof overhangs, no hips, all gables, stucco, and all trimmed with bright spangle hot dipped galvanized steel, to complement the unpainted galvalume standing seam roofing. It had what looked like chimneys on the ridges, clad in the same material as eaves, but they were skylights. I've wanted those skylights on a house ever since.

Thanks, E. I had just done 3D molding polylines, using CAD in close-cropped sections to estimate heights needed at start and finish. Yours is better because tracking is precise. EXCEPT! I would like to get a clean line showing in 3D where the ceiling finish is intersected by the molding. And I can fix that by incrementally moving the molding down until a line shows

Thanks, E. I had just done 3D molding polylines, using CAD in close-cropped sections to estimate heights needed at start and finish. Yours is better because tracking is precise. EXCEPT! I would like to get a clean line showing in 3D where the ceiling finish is intersected by the molding. Here's what I found when trying to work with the 3D molding. One can set it with specification, but one cannot then use a move tool to tweak its height in 3D space.

I've got cathedral ceiling and the 2x8 rafters hang from hips and valleys that are paired 2x10s. With the hip and valley members protruding through the ceiling finish, I want to wrap them in painted 3/4" boards. Molding polylines work readily when the beams are horizontal, but what about this condition?

Grego's in Austin, where it seems to me, pitches on new roofs are either pretty low, like a prairie style, or steep, as in what some might call French or country French.

Saltbox style? Really?

eCabinets does not integrate with Chief. Here is what it does. The user creates a "seed" cabinet in each and every type needed for work, and the seeds are all placed in a library file in eCabs. A seed is not a generic cabinet, but a specific model with features. Seeds are used to batch up a job file. Examples of seeds follow. Base cabinet, one drawer over a L/R double door Base cabinet, corner with diagonal door, lazy susan inside Wall cabinet 33 tall, single LH door Seeds are built using eCabs to a size, but are then resized as required when a job batch is built. The user has total freedom in building seeds to use just about any type of cabinet construction wanted. Choose materials, thicknesses, joinery, stretcher arrangement, drawerbox type, hardware, and more. The eCabinets focus is on CNC-cut parts, but the software can produce cutting sheets for shops operating saws. In addition to the cutting sheets, eCabinets provides buy lists for hardware, drawerfronts and doors, and drawerboxes. It takes me a minute or two per line item of a Chief cabinet schedule, to enter it to a batch and perform any necessary editing. If no editing, and I am only sizing, which is the more typical condition, it only takes seconds.

Our constraint is due to the frameless design and the fact we're cutting with CNC. And as I said, even cutting at a panel width of 49 not 48 (49 x 97 being a common panel size) we end up with the 23 and a fraction. I've worked in this cabinetry part of the business, designing and building installations, for quite a bit, and we've used a half dozen different hardware systems. The drawer slides from Blum, Grass, Hettich, Knape & Vogt, and likely others, the ones that go into a nominal 24-depth basecab, are all in the 21 and a fraction length, and any of them will work in the 23.375 boxes I've got for the latest project. Drawerbox lengths are always right around 21 or exactly 21. So for the basecabs, I'm happy to be doing it efficiently. Wall cabinets are a different story. A depth of 13.5 inches is what works nicely for the oversized dishes many people have, and the nesting works out OK when cutting from panel. Sides, decks, tops, and shelves nest three across, and there are always nailers and stretchers to be cut that pop into the space that's left. Built-in appliances like oven stacks typically get a cab depth near 26 inches so countertops resolve into them without protruding, and fridge boxes for SubZero-class units go the same. If you have to suffer some sheet stock loss due to those, it really doesn't matter. Those are going into a 32-sheet kitchen where money is hardly an object.

Design with Chief, use eCabinets for the shop. It's what I do.

Michael's method is good but results in adding another riser to the total between-floors run of the staircase. The reason I have had to split a landing is to save space or lower the bottom run for headroom reasons. Do the sequence as Michael shows, but then shorten the upper flight by one tread. Now you'll have the pitch the same for both flights. The split landing can be anywhere along the total stair run. One can go two steps down to landing 1, then maybe 11 steps down from landing 2 to the floor below. Arrange it all to suit your spaces.

This isn't a Chief question. It is about practice and convention, and I am just wondering what others do. Chief lets the user set whatever cabinet depth one wants. The out of box defaults are 24" for base cabinets and tall ones, and 12" for wall cabinets. I work with a builder that outsources cabinets, prefers frameless unless his arm is twisted, and the carcase parts are always done at a shop with a CNC router. Yield is terrible if cabinet depth is 24". Yield is excellent when it is dialed down to 23-3/8". Even a sixteenth more in depth above 23-3/8" blows the yield. It's all about panel size, bit size, something called collar size, but it is what it is. You want a base cabinet side such that you can nest two across a 49 inch sheet. Frameless or faceframed, base cabs with overlay doors come it at a total depth around 24-1/4", the buildup including doors at 13/16" and bumpers, which means a stock countertop with depth of 25" has a nice 3/4" overhang. The inside depth of a 23-3/8" base cab, built the way we do the backs and nailers, is 22-1/4", which permits nice clearance for the two types of Blum slides we use. Sink cutouts work OK, and we've experienced no issues with built-in appliances, which mount to the applied frames out front. Tweaking the depth in a kitchen layout is pretty meaningless unless you are dealing with a U-shaped end, and even then it just affects filler widths. So, what do you do?

You really should take the time to watch some videos that layout work. If you have put in the time and effort needed to build an accurate model of what is to be built in Chief, you should know that nothing comes "automatically." And neither do the construction drawings. But just as Chief can quickly produce a 3D model of a house, it can quickly produce the 2D floor plans and inside and outside elevations that are the core of a set of prints for building. Chief tools will place scale images of plans and elevations on the drawing pages. There is no redrawing needed. Dimensions, notes, callouts, and all the rest of the annotations needed are done by you the user, using Chief's excellent tools.