tommy1

Thank you! I enjoy helping people out especially one on one online because I feel it's better for the person trying to figure out something. One on one help and watching someone do it for you is a much faster way of learning and you can ask questions on the spot if you don't understand. This is what's so good about our user group helping people.

Jim, I took a full overview from the 1st floor on a house I'm currently working on (still in progress) just to see what happens if I exported everything, house, garage, driveway, sidewalks and terrain as a 3D Model (3Ds). It went fine with all textures. My image shown is the 3Ds model (symbol) imported into a blank plan. It looks like everything went okay. The symbol has 89546 faces. Exporting and importing went very fast.

Nick, sorry to hear about your injury. I would be happy do donate several hours with you online to help you out. How long have you been using the program? Which version do you have? Where do you live? You could also join our User Meetings (See Houston User Group). They are free (online) for 2 hours /month. Generally the 1st Monday of every month. I have people from all over the country getting in...around 8 people on average. Everyone is very nice and helpful. We're here to help and I don't care how simple you might think the questions are. If interested, please call or email me. My phone number and email is below in my signature. Cell is 832-754-6160.

Also, once you have a door, window or cabinet set the way you want, you can select the item and in the edit toolbar for the selected item, make it the default so that when ever you place that item, it will match the others.

Yes, it does seem to work now when placed under a window.

Yes it is. I also need to check and see if they ever fixed outlets under a window and if it is placed in the baseboard (12" baseboard or so) and offsetting the symbol from the wall so that it's past the baseboard. In previous versions, you couldn't do it using the offset in the symbol DBX. This has already been confirmed a bug by either Dan or Doug Park. I doubt that it has been fixed since no one complains about it but me. We have this situation in a lot of old Victorian style houses (which we do a lot). I'll try in the morning when I have the laptop out. It takes forever to do this for every outlet through out the house. A real pain like placing rosettes and plinth blocks at all doors and windows.

Can you import 3d dwgs?

I keep all of my cad details in the library. I have folders and sub folders. I place them in the plan cad detail management as I need them and then send them to layout. This way, it's easy for me to know the exact details that were used for the specific plan. I also do plan specific electrical legends. I know some people use a generic legend that has a lot of stuff even if it's not in the plan because it's faster but I like it plan specific.

Here is a switch and outlet on a slab column.

Keith, if you can't get it to work, then I'll be happy to show you tomorrow online via gotomeeting or (Skype if you have it) . Many people tell me oops, I missed a part.

Yes. I've been doing it this way for years which is why I can do it pretty fast. If you do it this way, you can rotate it also in plan view. Do not put it in the plan first. If you do it exactly like I said in that order, it will work.

Here's another way. You can make any electrical item like a light, switch, outlet, etc. be placed on anything you want. Open Chief's library to the fixture you want. First copy that fixture to your user library. Don't place it in the plan first. It won't work. Now you can open the symbol (not open item) from the electrical item copied to your user library. You can not do this while it is in Chief's library. Once open, make it sit on the floor...not on the wall. Now you can place it in the plan and it will be free-standing and you can rotate it or whatever. In plan view, place the symbol so it looks correct in plan view and set the height. Now take an elevation. Select the item and "open symbol". Now set the origins so that it looks right in 3D. Done. I know it sounds like a lot but I did the one in my attachment in around 30 seconds. Once you understand and do it several times, it's real fast to do. I already have electrical items in my user library ready to go. My image has a light fixture on a slab column.

Post you plan. I have a feeling it's a video issue.

Right off the bat, I duplicated your situation and it worked just fine at the end with the roof being flush to the other wall. I didn't need to break and move the roof plane over. There must be a setting or some that is not right or the roof plane is not meeting correctly or something.

You don't have to add another roof plane to return it. As mentioned, place a break in the roof plane and drag it over. Dragging it over an inch or two should do it. Depending on where you place the break, you may then need to bump it back to the wall surface. This will give you the look you want.

I'm sorry to hear that this hasn't been resolved yet. I know very little about her situation but from an image I saw of one of these projects, it looked very good to me. I have known Annette for many years and we get together often via Skype, email, phone and our user meeting. I can assure anyone that Annette is very honest, patient, and does good work and has a great personality. I will always back her up because I know the kind of person she is. Thank you for the heads up Annette.

That looks like a garage. If there are no interior walls, then try placing floating dormers. If it won't let you do it, then it's probably because the dormer is too big. It looks like you have a fairly shallow pitched roof for a dormer. Try making the dormer smaller before placing it.

Scott, Things have changed dramatically over the years especially in the last 3 years. Yes you have to attach an original legal survey (stamped), but you also for a remodel have to include a site plan based off the survey clearly showing the new work and impervious ground coverage. The legal survey attached must reflect the existing correctly. In other words, we often get surveys that are old and if it doesn't match the current house due to a previous remodel, then we need to the homeowner to get a current survey. The City Of Houston will require this. The only time you don't need a site plan is if you're working from with-in the existing perimeter walls with no new living space or garage. Any time you use and engineered beam or lumber, an opening larger than 10' wide, or all any concrete (foundation or flatwork), then you have to have it stamped by an Engineer to obtain a permit. The city codes have changed a lot and now you have to have the IRC code (with code number) noted in the plan for a lot of things. The plan checkers now are young and are total a** holes. It's getting ridiculous around here. New construction or involved remodels takes about 1 month to hear back from the permit office. It's now almost impossible to get new construction permits through the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. time. This includes adding new garage apartments. Most of our remodels, we can get through the permit office the 1st. or 2nd. time. Everything got a lot stricter after Hurricane Ike. New construction is a major pain now.

Scott, the only time I ever do this is possibly for surveys. I do it just to fine tune it if I'm tracing it for driveways, sidewalks etc.. Most survey's we get are screwed up anyway. I get scanned surveys and often they are skewed which is a pain. Like I said , I do it just to fine tune. it's not for anything critical.

Open the arrow dbx.. change the color of the line style. I do this all the time. As you know, you change the color of the arrow too.

We have a free online meeting Monday, Oct. 6, 2014 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm (Central Time). If you would like to attend, then please send me an email using my email address shown in my signature. Feel free to call me if you need more information. Sincerely,

Another work around you could experiment with is to do a "view to cad" of the plan view. Now draw a marquee around the interior walls and doors and delete them. When done, depending on how you're doing the site plan, send that view back to a site plan layer set/ annotation set. Not sure if you know where I'm going with this. You could also do your site plan in that cad detail. Just food for thought. Then send that view to a layout to whatever scale you want.

We only use call outs for the new windows and doors and are in the schedule. Existing windows and doors show nothing and are not in a schedule. We do note in the elevations what's new and existing.

Lew, the corner handles do move it concentrically except when you do a right click. In previous versions, the side handles would shrink the image (not concentrically). In X6, when you drag the side handles, it crops it (which I like and it didn't do that before). I like this much better.

Read it closer Lew, you need to right click. Then it works.