tommy1

X6 opened fast. X7 took a while to open this morning.

True. We build all kinds of screened porches and depending on the porch, I find it easier just to do it manually.

This should not be a big deal. I do it all the time. I use a cad line with an arrow. I do it in a few seconds.

Yes, when you select the text parent tool, you'll see a child tool for the callout or marker.

I have done this using slabs (p-solids are fine too). For the top round handrail, I would use a 3D molding polyline so I could break it and angle it down. You might have to do those balasters manuals too or create your own fence panel.

This is always a PIA most of the time. It's even worse if the floor heights are different. Usually I get it to work eventually. Sometimes it goes real smoothly. I always close and reopen the plan to be sure everything sticks....sometimes not.

Things are pretty good in Houston. Sometimes I have a slow period but in general, doing okay. A lot of new construction in Houston.

The last time this happened to me, it was a molding polyline causing the problem for some reason. Try turning off moldings in 3D view (overview render) and see if that helps.

I never use the post and beams for construction plan reasons too. I do it all manually. It really doesn't take that much longer to do manually I guess because I've done it for so long. By doing posts and beams manually, you can show and dimension anything. I also put the post and beams on certain layers I've made. The girl I work for uses post and beams with the walls because it's much faster in the initial stages, however, when it comes to me for construction drawings, I get rid of them and do it manually.

It sounds like you're going to do an existing/demo plan and the proposed plan in the same file. I personally don't advocate doing it this way. In a very simple model, you might be able to by doing this, but in a real complicated plan, you're bound to have troubles eventually. Just my opinion.

Look at your different cabinet types in the cabinet dbx dropdown> angle cabinet>adjust one side. 45 degree cabinet will be a separate cabinet at the end. Another tip, think about the width of the cabinet to make it a 45 degree.

I just saw this post. I'm in Houston (Spring Branch/Memorial area). I've been doing remodels now for about 10yrs. full time. We have around 7 builders that we draw plans for. I also have an Engineer that I have worked with for around 8 yrs. I would be happy to talk to you if desired. Please give me a call or email or send my your contact information. Looking at your zip code, are you in a flood plain? Concerning trusses, the truss company supplying the trusses will have their own truss Engineer that engineers the trusses. If this job is permitted with the City of Houston, then the planning dept. will want to have the truss plans done and provided by their truss company. Just helped a man a few months ago that tried to have the structural engineer design the trusses and the City of Houston rejected it. It has to be done by a truss engineer...to get a permit anyway. Looking again, it also looks like you might be in the County, not the City of Houston. If you're in the County, no permits can be done.

Alan, you can copy the terrain and elevation to another plan BUT, in the new plan, those items will be standard cad items/polylines. You can just select the polyline that is for the terrain perimeter and convert it to a terrain perimeter, and set it when the terrain dbx pops up. Same with the elevation data, they will be cad lines and you just need to convert them to elevation data and set the elevation heights when the dbx pops up. You really didn't need to start from scratch.

I see.

Alan, sorry you're having so much trouble. It should be fairly easy to move this the way you want. I doubt at this point that anyone could help to see why your having the problems your getting unless they actually watch what your doing. Sometimes procedure makes all the difference. Also, no one has mentioned that if the house changes location on the property and you are using elevation data in the terrain, then your building platform heights will probably change for every separate structure. I don't understand why your windows moved? If you're copying stuff in one plan to another, then I would probably have an idea why stuff jumped (even if you did a copy, paste in place).

I always move the site plan not the house or building and I always have the front of the house facing the bottom. About the only time I move a structure is like a detached garage if it is turned at an angle. I also do the site plan in a layer set linked to an anno set.

Terrain features, sidewalks and driveways will follow terrain.

To just try to get the terminology right, that looks more like a render with shadows than a Raytrace.

Maybe this link will help https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/?__utma=67784003.328034253.1435441502.1435794733.1436152854.3&__utmb=67784003.3.10.1436152854&__utmc=67784003&__utmx=-&__utmz=67784003.1435441502.1.1.utmcsr=chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/&__utmv=-&__utmk=196549227

Want another tip? If you insert the cad block for the telephone from the cad block management, the cad block comes with fill. You'll have to unblock it and remove the fill if you want it to match the cad block that is assigned to the symbol in the plan.

That is actually a hip roof, not a Dutch gable. Either takes one takes a couple of minutes to do (manually).

I do all my electrical legends in a cad detail. To get the cad block (not the symbol), either place the "cad block management" tool on your toolbar and get it there or go to the cad tab at the top toolbar and go down to "cad block management" and get the cad block there to place in the plan or cad detail. If your not sure which cad block it is then go to the plan and select the symbol>open symbol (not open item) and check to see what the cad block name is for that symbol.

We will have an online meeting Tuesday, July 7th. from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (Central time). Please email me at my email address below in my signature if you would like to join. Feel free to call or email me if you have any questions. I plan to go over how I do pergolas built manually. All other questions will be taken after that. Have a safe and happy 4th. Thank you,

Keep in mind that if you scale the image big time larger, the more distorted it will look. You really need to start out with a larger image size in the beginning.

Try importing it into a cad detail and see if that works. Hit fill screen if needed.