Bill_Emery

Nicely done, Yusuf !

It will work as you suggest if you specify a ceiling height that is just under the interior peak of the roof. I suspect your ceiling is above the roof.

There are a number of ways to take care of this problem; but this is easiest:

I tend to use plain text for everything that I can. Plain text has the advantage of updating automatically to a new size, color, or font, when I change it's characteristics in text stile of the layer display control. I can auto update the size of my text and dimensions if I change scale. This can't happen when I use rich text. Rich text has more formatting options; for example it allows me to have different fonts, sizes, or colors within the same text box.

Here are a couple of places to check: If your running more that one version of Chief, make sure you select the correct version in the Nvidia selection box.

suppress the railings on the stairs. Draw a railing wall on top of the stairs, and in the rail stile tab of the railing DBX check "follow stairs"

I'd start out with a pony wall, and then provide the tapered footing with a 3D molding poly line the same shape as the old footing. A lot depends on what you want to show in plan. The section and 3D don't look too difficult.

You can't suppress a dimension height in chief; but you can select it, and make it's size 0.01" so it will never be seen. The other option is to use a cad patch if it's part of a string. The advantage of the cad patch is that allows you to use the additional text feature to remain visible, so you can insert "verify in field" or whatever you need. The cad patch is simply a white filled cad box, with a white outline, that many of us keep in our library to cover a multitude of sins.

Here's a different take on the railing over a wall. It's done entirely with live walls, and live railings. The method here is to use a double stair. The stair is copied in place, and then made wider so the copied railing will come up thought the wall, while the original stairway remains in place to show the stringers. The walls are adjusted in elevation, and then slid into place under the railing. The method with the railing is to stay just shy of centered under the wall, or the stairs will cut the wall. Having live walls allows the framing to be correct, and having live railings allows me change newel, baluster, and railing stiles easily. It also allows me to easily edit the run and rise of the stairs as necessary. I've not shown it here, but this method also allows the stair railing to connect with a mezzanine railing above. The wider stairs that are used to show the railings are set to "back group" so they don't appear to cover the wall layers in plan view. I've attached the plan if anyone wants to have a look. Live stairs 5.plan

In my experience, you pay a good 40-50% premium (in dollars) for the equivalent performance from a laptop over a desktop... up to a point. Say roughly up to around 6 on a performance scale of 1 to 10 as to what is out there in computing hardware . Once you get to 7 and up on the performance scale, especially when delving into the high end GPU and overclocked CPU hardware end of things, there simply is no equivalent in the laptop arena. High end hardware/performance produces heat, lots of it. A laptop simply can't shed it fast enough, hence there is this self imposed performance boundary that laptops simply can't get past. That said a good Sager or Alienware laptop will be good enough for me. I figure that I can spend a lot on the laptop if I'm not buying a desktop too. The Dell Alienware laptops are good because they don't skimp on the power supply. The new chips require less power, and produce less heat than earlier processors, so the power supply and heat dissipation issues are less; and they will use the integrated GPU (saving power, and heat) until the discreet GPU is required. The GPU still produces a lot of heat when rendering, and 3 gigs on a mobile GTX card is not even close to the same 3 gigs on on a GTX desktop system; but seem to be adequate for my needs. I'm looking for convenience, and adequate power; not bragging rights. I'm running a 50" 4K monitor via HDMI, And a 30" monitor via displayport adapted to dual link DVI with no problems on my laptop. __________________

In the dimension defaults select "dimension to main layer ". You may also want to specify "both sides" depending on your needs.

Perry, I like your method of having linked plan, and layout templates with viewports already set up. I'm setting up your system on my computer this afternoon using a recent job for the linked plan and layout. I had not done this in the past as my layout sets vary a lot, depending on scope of work and number of stories; but with the page management in the project browser, it should be workable Joe, I like your method of handling details. Do you copy your detail plans to your working folder to keep everything in the same directory?

MickeyToo, Thanks for the information. Controlling the insertion point is something that I learned years ago, but had forgotten about. This is quite useful to me. I primarily use cad blocks to move topographic and mapping data into my plan; and this will make indexing to the model easier.

Although you have changed the defaults; existing roof planes are not changed. You must select the roof planes you want to change, and effect the change in the framing tab.

Thanks for the information, The rent to own may work for him. Sounds much better that the Home Designer Pro limitations.

I have a general contractor friend who is interested in Chief, and was going to recommend the Lite Version, but no longer see it listed on the web site. I know he would be frustrated by the layout capabilities of Home Designer Pro, and was hoping to find a less expensive option than the full version for him.

I used to make window symbols that were project specific much like you do. But I don't make them much anymore, as they are very limiting and time consuming, as you noted. I generally save the plan file that I use to develop the window (or any symbol for that matter) so I can go back and make changes. Sketchup is also good for making symbols because of the ability to group thing. In recent years I've largely lived with the limitation of Chief's windows, but have found creative ways to dress them up using attachments as the basis. For example, I'll create my surround or jamb extensions as a "blind", or apply an unusual casing as a "curtain". I also apply rosettes as a "curtain" There are also ways to alter sill placement, for accurate trim height, but it tends to make for an inaccurate look in 3D. And of course there are similar problems with doors, I've just learned to live with them.

My mistake, I didn't think they would snap.

I typically share it in Dropbox. the client can annotate the plan, (notice the text tools, and the measuring tool). Keeping the plan in a shared file allows me no see the annotations. My clients can generally sort layers pretty well, but there is no ability to shift, or control select for layers. Whatever layers are active when I save, are the layers the client will see. This allows me to give my framer the set he needs. If I have computer knowledgeable clients they can download the trial version, and have greater control.

The drawback of using the reference layer is that you can't snap to it. It's fairly important to be able to snap to the structural grid.

There has been some discussion of this subject on the old forum. I believe the consensus was to simply copy and paste the structural grid on to each floor. It's possible to put it on the reference layer, but then you cant snap to it.

This is done as a double wall. The brick veneer wall has no room definition. The best part is that it's very easy.

The words...Quirky, unintuitive, user hostile come to mind when I work with mono slabs. We do mono slabs differently in Oregon, due to the need for insulation we don't use a spread footing, but it's always difficult for me when I have mixed foundation types, heights, and thickness. I think that the limitations of floor 0 tend to compound the problem.

It's also possible to use the "select same", "load Same" tools to eliminate some repetitive work in the DBX.

The "curtain" method works for any small profile, interior or exterior. For deep set windows with wide flared or radius openings other methods are required. Another limitation to the "curtain" method is that it works best on rectangular windows. The other caution is that it requires some knowledge of symbols, and takes a little time to set up, and that the setup is a little different for windows with differing frame size, and frame offsets.