SHCanada2

thanks, I had offset -1.75 and dropped 6 so close to yours. I'll give it a whirl

one post left to move to the outside. Currently it is the deck doorway wall's post so I cant offset it, but when I set that doorway wall to no newel post, there is then no post from the intersecting two ramps. any ideas? doorway newel post enabled:: uncheck newel post for the railing doorway wall

look up furred walls

add a second story and just put the bathroom in it ..plus the stairwell

i tried out the plan footprint but found too many limitations (for instance I have to show eaveline on site plans and the plan footprint does not show this. Yes, one can concentric make a polyline, but with different overhang depths, this is a pain) Cantilevers do not show, front landings, decks do not show).But I will concur the terrain tools leave something to be desired. One would think it would be simple to create a even sloping grade next to a foundation, and different elevation points along the property lines. but it is not that simple that I have found. I inevitably draw a grade line on an elevation. For the site plan I have a reference view of the roofs and the main floor plan plus the CAD lines for the property line. Then I dimension setbacks to that CAD line

i'll use a 3dsolid if it is not structural. if structural, and large enough, I'll draw a wall and leave a room, but then change the walls to no room definition

could also look at this one I had awhile ago

there is a setting to adjust the model in google earth vertically as I had a basement in the model. it took me awhile to find it, and now I do not remember. so if you are wondering why it might be floating, look for the setting. The only real issue was it was hard to get a street view of the model, as google earth uses the satellite, not streetview. But a birds eye view looked good. I also had trouble cropping trees where the building went, never did get that figured out

i've done it the other way around, export the CA model and import into google earth

use a perspective camera

is this what you want: It looks like an exterior style pallet tool, where the "creativity" slider starts to change more things, and uses key words to determine what to change. I do like the what if functionality, not sure if he can save it as different versions of the model, as he shows them as bit maps. He also spends a fair amount of time waiting, and it looks like trial and error. What they should do is just batch 10 different options, so he can go have lunch and then come back and see ten different results

and walls with no roof above. This is typically seen on multiple storey structures if your exterior walls between floors do not align perfectly. Use the align up or align down buttons to ensure they are in alignment (the buttons only show if they are slightly (a few inches) out of alignment. This is the majority of weird walls that I get

the bushes by the front foundation look like they are dancing ...either the dog is singing a tune or the wind is whistling sweet melodies. Just need a good soundtrack

i have not seen this. do you have a plan?

I suppose a question would be, using the OOTB residential template, do you get this slowness, or do you only have slowness for the 95MB file sizes

please characterize "slow" I bought a new computer thinking things would be faster, but they are not really for opening up dialog boxes. I notice dialog boxes have a variable speed. sometimes they open quick, sometimes it takes a couple seconds. Ray tracing is faster with my new computer. I personally do not get the render errors anymore. They were originally caused by the video card driver. You should upgrade your driver to the latest if you have not yet already if you want post the plan and what is "slow" and I can try it out

you can zip the plan, that might help. I'm guessing (given that it looks like you have a basement) that your main house floor top is at 0" absolute elevation, and the floor is at least 12" thick(height), but your front porch is only a slab at 6" thick, so you will have a difference of 6" or so. If you go into your porch room and lower the top elevation of the structure to eual the math of the difference between the main floor thickness and the slab thickness, then the heights should be the same (perhaps less the mudsill). but I would ask, is that actually what you want? typical main floor of a 9' ceiling house:

search this forum for device removed. I believe there is actually a CA technote or something set to search for all search terms:

I have a fairly complicated macro in a the window label, plus a macro in the polyline which does it all. the polyline sits in my template file on the elevation If CA could publish schedule totals to a macro it would greatly simply the macro...pretty please CA

one thing to be careful of, the wall thermal_envelope_area does not work for walls which are partially below grade (i.e. basements). It is easier to draw a polyline on the elevation, and use its area. As well, if I remember correctly wall thermal_envelope_area does not include rim joists, and excludes some other things. i.e. a 109.125 plate height times a 20' wall with no openings does not give 109.125 * 20

Interpolating what?

hmmm, I think there are too many weird things going on, including the hockey stick looking wall in the "room", closet in the hallway, closet walls on the left being thicker than the bedroom walls ..... there looks to be 5 different thicknesses of walls on that plan, and thats not including the bathroom plumbing walls. It hten begs the quesrtion, how does one draw it in CA? would one change the closets to 2x4 walls, and then move the closets on the left all down, or simply increase the closets. I assume the latter, but then does one adjust the closet widths to the nearest inch, and leave one shorter if they are believed to be all the same. I would also assume that is what people do. But maybe not ...

I'm curious. Did you actually draw 3 or 4 different wall widths for the plan like the pdf? or do you guess at any support walls, and draw the others as 2x4

I think the bigger needed functionality is for walls to retain an "as measured" value, but it would also need to know what side of the wall was measured. The measure on app is quite smart. for instance, when you measure a window to a wall you tell it which side you are measuring from. For CA to do the same thing, it would need some sort of special temp dimensions. Or when editing the temp dimension, you have to key in a special character so it would know it was an actual measured dimension

and the dimension question: Are you saying the dimension number itself is in the PDF, but not the dimension line? Why not just put the PDF on its own layer and turn off the layer, or are you looking to show both, but dont like that the B&W layout shows through? If so, why not sent to layout in colour? If you are trying to mask some things in the PDF but not others, the other way to do it would be to put white boxes in your elevation to mask out what you do not want. What I do in cases where I want to use the PDF as an elevation plus some parts of an elevation I have built in CA, I will use the masking boxes plus I will convert the elevation to CAD detail, and then remove anything I do not want from the CAD detail and then copy it back onto the a CAD detail where I have the PDF sitting. And then I align it. But before deleting lines from the CAD detail, I typically double check the scale matches the house on the PDF. For instance I do this when I just want to add a window or Door to a house and I have the existing plans, if the existing plans(rooflines, details) are complex. I did it also once to convert a balcony to a closed in balcony with windows. I find it is a tradeoff in hoping it is less time than redrawing the house. For instance to add a new door, I will draw a house in CA with the correct outside dimensions and add the door. I will import the PDF into a CAD detail. Size the PDF to scale. I will then create a white box where the door will go and put on the PDF in my CAD detail. This will blank out any siding lines. I then Create a CAD detail from view of the elevation. And then copy it over including the exterior line that is the width of the house (usually one below the door). I will then align to that line. Then delete that line, leaving only the door and its trim. In your case, you may be able to just add the white boxes with the correct drawing group to mask what you do not want to see. The advantage of doing a CAD detail from view, is all the lines will be on one layer