capitaldesigns

I have sent part of a small one story addition to the layout page. When I move the cursor around the page it is jumping and not moving smoothly. The only things that are on this page are the floor plan of the addition (not the whole house), electrical schedule, cabinet schedule, fixture schedule, and notes. When I switch to a plank sheet in the layout the cursor moves freely. There is not allot of stuff on this page. I have never had tis problem on other projects. How would I go about finding out why the cursor is jumping around so much on this layout page. Thanks, Mike

How do I get the line with arrow to automatically be placed on its own layer ? I finished a floor plan where I have a number of notes and lines with arrow pointing to the items the note refers to. When I change to the framing layer set those arrows appear. I want those lines with arrow to show up on the floor plans. I will also be using the line with arrow on the framing layer set as well. I want those line with arrow to only show up on the framing layer set. I looked at the annotation sets and see there is no option to have the line with arrow on a predefined layer such as "line with arrow-framing" or "line with arrow-floor plan". Do I have to create these layers and remember to change to the appropriate layer every time I draw a line with arrow ? Thanks, Mike

What I did is put the garage door on it's own layer and then turned that layer off. This way the other doors will not be turned off when I turn off the garage door. You know what would be great for us newer users is if a long term CA user with a lot of experience put together a training video incorporating all of these work around solutions. I think the project should be an addition project since it would include both existing and new. The project should go over all phase of the plans. It should include site plan, floor plans, elevations, foundation plan, framing plans, section, structural details, electrical plans and schedules. This project should include as many work around solutions as possible, such as my question with the garage door. Other problems such as the best way to draw a new slab foundation to the existing slab foundation and how to have the new footings show a concrete hatch pattern and the existing footing not showing such pattern. In the footing specifications it shows the footing has a conc, hatch pattern, put in the plans it does not show up. Why ? I called tech. support and they offered no solution to this. How about the best way to show a new window that spans across a new wall and existing wall. And there in many more areas in CA that needs a work around solution to accomplish a part of the plans. When a new user comes across such an area in CA they are not sure what to do. Where do you go in the user guide or reference manual do you go to find out how to turn off the dashed line that is a part of the garage door ? You can spend a lot of time reading through the manual and finding nothing to solve your problem. I know CA has a video on the window issue, I was just giving that as an example. But there are areas they do not have a video on how to work around these issues that seem to come up all of the time. In conclusion it would be great if there was a video of a small addition project that required many of these work around solutions, so us newer users would have a good reference video to go over and over again. A video that would show us when we needed to use a work around or where to go to change something that we need to change such as the dashed line at the garage door. Thanks, Mike

The problem with turning the door layer off is all other doors are also turned off as well.

The client is converting a garage into living space. They want to keep the garage door and build a parallel wall just inside of the garage door wall. The dashed line of the garage door come way inside of the new living area. I would like to have the ability to turn off the dashed line, but from what I am hearing is that CA does not give us that option. That's the nice thing about having everything on its own layer. Thanks, Mike

Thanks, I will try that tomorrow morning. I have to run. It's my fathers 95th birthday is today. Party starts at 6:00 p.m. PST. Thanks, Mike

I have that turned off and it still shows up.

How do I turn off the dashed line that represents the garage door in the open position on the floor plan. Is there a layer associated with this dashed line ? I can't find it. Or is there somewhere I need to go to turn it off ? Thanks, Mike

I agree that we should all push for the improvements to CA that members have submitted. Is there a way for use to get all of the interested parties email addresses so we can email each other directly with our suggestions. I am not always on the forum. But I do ready my emails everyday. Mike

Does anyone know if CA programmers meet with CA users and go over our ideas to improve the program ? I have heard people on this forum suggest that CA hire an architect to help them improve the program. I think that is an excellent idea. I believe it would be a good idea for CA to have quarterly meetings with new and existing users of the program and go over our ideas on how to improve the program. I know there is a suggestion website where we can write down our suggestions. I have done that several times in the past. I have never gotten a response from CA. I don't know if they read my suggestions or not. It would be nice of them to at least confirm they have received and read my suggestions. Another reason AutoCAD users have a harder time learning CA is AutoCAD has more intuitive commands. For example, In AutoCAD when you type in the command such as copy, AutoCAD gives the user on screen instruction at the command line of what do next. I type C then enter to start the command. AutoCAD tells you to "select object". You follow the instructions and select the object. Then you are asked <base point or displacement>/Multiple. If you are only making one copy you select your base point. If you want multiple copies you type M then enter. Next you are asked to pick the second point of displacement. After doing that you are done with that command. This is typical for all of AutoCAD's commands. If you are not sure of what to do in a command, AutoCAD walks you through each step of the command. CA gives the user no such on screen help. That would be very helpful to new users if CA would incorporate these on screen instructions. Also it would be helpfully to existing users that are using a command that they very rarely use. I would thing that it would be fairly simple for CA to incorporate on screen instructions similar to what AutoCAD has had for over 20 years. Thanks, Mike

I wonder why CA does not add these features to their program. When I am in the construction drawing phase of a residential project I can have 50 to 100 detail and section callout on the structural plans. Being able to have these callout more automated is a big time saver. This really stands out when comparing AutoCAD's routines to CA lack of such routines. CA is very good when it comes to drawing the floor plans, elevations and perspective views. But when it come to the construction drawings AutoCAD hands down beats CA. It's as if CA has determined that the construction drawing phase of the project is not that important. It seems as if they think that the construction drawing phase of the project is just a minor part of the project and not worth their time and energy to improve this part of the program. I wonder if CA believes most of their users do not provide the structural drawing for our projects. That we send them to our structural engineer to provide the structural plans and calculations and that all we provide is the site plan, floor plans, elevations, cabinets elevations and 3D perspective views. I do not know all of their users provide in your plans, but I usually provided all of the plans from the site plan all the way through the structural details. The routines that are provided in AutoCAD have been a big time saver for me over the last 20 years. I wish that CA would listen to their users and incorporate the routines found in AutoCAD into CA. If they did CA would be an all around great program, from design drawings to construction drawings. Wouldn't that be something. Thanks, Mike

I will look into that tomorrow. It sure would be nice if CA would give us these callout that are more automatic. I do not know how much others use this type of detail and section bubbles. Where I'm at in California we use them a lot. I will use 50 to 100 of them in anew house design. This should be very easy for CA to incorporate into the program. Thanks for your help, Mike

Where did you get those detail callouts ?

Here are the detail bubbles. The lines came out a little thin in CA. In AutoCAD you insert these automatically.

I can copy them from AutoCAD. It will take me a few minutes.

Please count me in on the meeting. Thanks, Mike

Does CA have detail bubbles somewhere in the program ? I have been looking I can not find any. I am assuming that most CA users use detail bubble to call out your details on the framing plans, foundation plans and sections. I am coming from AutoCAD background and AutoCAD gives the user many different options for placing detail bubble and section bubbles. I hope CA has these options as well and I am just not finding them. Can someone let me know where to find the detail bubbles. Thanks, Mike

I used MapQuest to create a vicinity map. I used a program call Snap My Screen to capture the portion of the map I needed for my vicinity map. I then inserted it into my layout sheet. I then printed as a PDF, then sent to my plotter for printing. The vicinity map image prints out way to lite. Is there away to get this image to print out darker ? Thanks, Mike

I am drawing a plot plan using CA line type with P/L embedded within the line itself. Is there a way to change the line type scale to make it larger ? I would like to space out the "P?L" in the line and make the text larger. Right now I am getting at least 50 of the P/L callouts on each property line. I Would like only 2 or 3 of them on each property line and if the callout could be several time larger as well. Is there a way to do this ? Thanks, Mike

Thank you very much David for the video. I was having a hard time figuring out where to go to resolve the ceiling/floor height issue. Thanks, Mike

I am new to this so I am not really sure why this is happening. I enclosed the room above the office and clicked on that room, went to the structure tab under room specifications and changed the Floor (C) to 148" from 149 1/2". I also did the same for the other rooms. I went back to floor 1 and double clicked on the break room where we are making the coffered ceiling. I now get a message in the BDX that " Ceiling values may not be changes as the floor above has varying ceiling heights". All of the boxes under absolute elevations and relative heights are grayed out except Floor (C). I went to each room above and they all have Floor (C) at 148". I clicked on all of the rooms around the break room to see if I get the same message in the other room. In all of the other rooms I do not get this message. I am missing something. I am not sure what I need to change and what floor to do it in. Can you take a look at my plan and let me know where I screwed up and how to fix so I can put a coffered ceiling over the break room. Thanks, Mike PTI_Technologies_Remodel_with_coffered_ceiling.plan

My client wants to add a coffered ceiling over the break room. I drew a rectangular polyline where I want the coffered ceiling to go. When I try to convert the polyline into a hole in the ceiling I get an error message saying the ceiling hole polyline is placed where the ceiling platform has 2 different heights, and tells me to move the hole. The ceiling in this small room is 10'-0" high. No multi-height ceiling. How do I fix this and what is telling CA that I have multi-height ceiling platforms ? I have included my plan. The area I am speaking about is clouded. Thanks, Mike PTI Technologies Remodel with coffered ceiling.plan

Glenn, I found the problem wall. It was highlight by a circle at the problem intersection. This building is 140,000 s.f. I have been working on some offices on the other side of the building. I do not know how all of a sudden a wall on the far side of the building got screwed up since I am not working on that section of the building. Thanks for the help, Mike

I just tried both of the methods you suggested and nothing happens. This happened right after I used the wall trim tool to remove 48" of a wall next to a corner. The corner walls next to the section of wall being removed appear to be correct. I have one of the remaining walls back from the corner so they do not connect. I then get 2 circles appearing where the walls use to connect. When I reconnect the walls together again the circles disappear, but the broken wall symbol still shows up at the cursor. I'm not sure what the 2 circles indicate. Thanks Mike

I am working on a tenant plan and I am getting the broken corner symbol at the end of mu cursor. I can not find the broken corner. Is there a way for CA to indicate which walls are the problem walls ? Or is there a way to turn off the broken corner symbol at the end of my cursor. Thanks, Mike