SHCanada2

This is what I do, and then adjust scale to match what I will send to layout I tried this 0,0 marker with the drawing sheet being shown. if I change the scale of the drawing sheet to match what I will send to layout, the marker stays outside the new "smaller" sheet9it was on the bottom left corner for the larger sheet). i.e. the 0,0 marker for a 1/4" scale sheet does not move to the bottom corner of that same sheet once I change it to 3/8". My guess is I should move the new sized sheet down to that marker so the send to layout shows in the right place

posting the plan may help

reminds me of this....: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na47wMFfQCo :o)

I mistyped in the post above I was looking for $ga but I did not check the macros...interestingly it is not actually in a macro (which is where I looked originally, macro management). I just tried and sure enough if you check macros it finds it. Thanks! some other tidbits in case others find this post...from the user doc: Find/Replace Text and Spell Check locate text in Rich Text, Text, Callouts, Markers, CAD blocks, schedule titles and headings, and custom labels for objects and rooms. They do not locate text in automatic object labels, default room labels, suppressed labels, the Materials List, or in schedules, however.

I'm pondering if my workflow is the best way. I just finished doing a deck plan and new door for someone. This requires an elevation for the City to accept the plans for a building permit. Same rule applies for any reno which involves a change to an outside wall. a plot plan showing the deck is also required. So for the plot plan I take the surveyors plan provided by the home owner and draw the outline on it, to scale, by scaling the pdf properly. All good. This time around I decided to overlay the floor plan (cropped) on to the surveyor plan. 'This avoids any manual errors, but does not look that pretty as the railings are shown wider than the typical single line on surveyor plans. We'll see if the city accepts it. For the elevation, instead of drafting the entire house, this homeowner had the original drawings, so I figured I could overlay the CA elevation onto it. Good in theory, until the grade line on the elevation was off by 6"(found this out at the end). This client wanted the stairs to go beside the P/L line within the setback, so he wanted to alter the size of the deck to fit the stairs. This means the elevation of grade was crucial. The client took some elevations measurements for me, and I drew the plans based on that. Then I went to superimpose on the elevation PDF, and found out if I aligned the top of the new door correctly, my CA grade (and stairs) were below the PDF one. I then double checked the original plans and yes the main floor to grade height was different from the actual measurement by 6". So I ended up cheating a little and reducing the height while not maintaining aspect ratio (And left everything undimensioned). The other thing I noticed for the site plan, is the surveyor plan had text where I wanted to put my text, so it looked a bit like a dog's breakfast when I was done. So it got me thinking, does anyone use another PDF to CAD program for this purpose. because if I had the original elevation in CAD, I could have simply altered the original drawn grade line to match my CA ones(and what is actually there) , and I could have easily removed surveyor text or moved it (rather than the usual "draw a white box") there have been a few topics on this, but I'm not entirely sure if people use some commercial (or free) PDF to CAD for this purpose, and if they use it for a similar purpose, does it work alright or is there a bunch of manual fiddling around? in other words are people happy with PDF to CAD and then bringing it back into CA or is it more hassle than its worth Attached is how it ended up (PDF pge 2). The deck is 9' and the exiting lower window is 9' from the garage so these kind of had to match, which is why I could not reduce the size at the correct aspect ratio Anyway, just wondering if a PDF to CAD would have worked better and what others are doing. And I get pdfs which are both raster(bitmap) based and vector, so any program would have to convert the raster based lines to vectors Thanks! MArk VR v0.6.pdf

well in this case it was not my plan (and there are actually two linked plan files), so I had to go looking. It turned out to be on the redrawn plot plan. I figured maybe you knew an easy way to find them :o). But your line of thinking is probably a good one, what are the chances of one forgetting where one put them....probably low.

I'd be interested in this if it was cost effective. Currently I use a bosch laser measurer with their free software. It takes me about an hour to do one level. If I could roam around instead of beep around (and have to draw the walls), it seems like it would be worthwhile. Some measurements are critical for code though. I need to know the furnace door is 34", not 33.45678" same with hallways, posts. a 5' bathtub does not fit into 57" with the bosch I have to take some auxillary measurements for posts, clearance of furnace, etc. I would assume I would need to do the same thing with this software?

is there a way to "find" variables. I was hunting and pecking looking for" $ga" in the layout and the plan. the search/ find tool in CA doesnt seem to find it. IS there another way?

interesting technique, took me a bit to find it... defining the global variable right in the label: " Proposed Garage Garage Area = %$gasf=area.round()% %$ga=(area.convert_to("sq m")).round(2)% m² " I never thought of doing it that way. I was always calling a macro to set the variable. Doing it the way you've done it means no macros Thanks for the insight.

Thanks, ironically, I did that (added in two lines,before and after) about the same time you were writing it. so good to know that is the correct way I watched the videos again, and the difference in size of retaining wall is her terrain does not go to the bottom of her foundation. Mine does because it is a walkout. So when she draws the terrain wall it is only a couple feet deep. Anyhow, thanks for helping.

I find I am not there yet. sometimes it is full sets. i do a lot of basements, addtions, suites, but the size varies, so it is sometimes at 3/8, sometimes at 1/4. sometimes there is a stair section, but if I do not have to do two floors there is not. I tried to use my full set layout, but there were too many pages. In thinking about this some more, to make it as general as possible, there should be as little unique plan info on the layout as possible. Today I have the section callout on the layout(I think I followed one of CA's videos) it keeps the callout label consistent size, which is nice. but I have to move them around if I have more or less sections. It would be easier to have this on the plan, and perhaps live with the callout label size inconsistency (and have to constantly place them on the section...which is why I think I moved them to the layout to begin with). I guess where i am gong with this thought is, if you had to create mutiple options for the same plan for a client, and started a new template for each, it would be a bit of a pain to repopulate the layout with all of the details (that did not come from a plan) and do any other adjustments to the layout (notes). The only way to do this today would be to do the whole process of, save layout as new, rename linked plan, open layout, link to new plan, rename old plan back to original name. I'll try out the tool for a bit, and see how it works. If it seems useful, I'll post it. The other thing i might get added to it is a function to just not associate any plan file to the layout. This would essentially create a template layout from any layout without having to go through the rename thing

extend you second floor walls over: i moved the roof back to take a look moved back:

thanks: yes that is the conclusion I made in my earlier post: "So i think the lesson here so far, is I cant just go into the room to change the elevations. I need to setup the floor defaults/structure defaults to match...if I have a tiny room(wall beside foundation). Whereas before I always just set the room elevations to be correct and did not care what the defaults were." in other words, you do not have to change your defaults the vast majority of the time. The vast majority of the time you can just change the room structure values on the room dbx. But if you are changing a room to be a tiny room, CA then all of a sudden changes the current room structure values(based on the defaults)...for some unknown reason. So in this specific tiny room case, one MUST go and change the defaults. I'll log a ticket and see what they say. I'd actually appreciate it if they had a category of published notes which showed this type of odd behaviour, so one could go review them. This is not an easy thing to just search for

I read the manual on Dynamic defaults. It states: Dynamic default text fields have an Active Defaults icon in the value field. • Click on the Active Defaults icon to remove the red check mark and prevent the value from being dynamic. • Type a value into the text field. The red check mark is removed from the Active Defaults icon and the setting is no longer dynamic However clicking on the rough ceiling elevation red check box on the upper floor in the attached plan will not remove the check box, it will only remove if I actually change the value(the second part of the above). it seems CA is using the red check box for two purposes, i) identifying when the default is being used, ii) not overwriting a value which differs from the default. Unfortunately this means there is not a way in the room DBX to ensure the value does not get overwritten by the dynamic defaults, at least that I can tell ideally to try and achieve what the user manual indicates, there should be an indicator for "is default" to indicate it matches the default and an indicator for "do not override" which stipulates to not be overrriden by the dynamic defaults

yeah I saw that too, and changed it, did not make a difference if I remember correctly. it was a "very bad way" to show grey for a 12" ICF wall I did previously. as the ICF was showing blue interior and exterior. lazy just pure lazines

@SNestor look at the one I just posted. the original posted one I had fixed (just did not know how I did it at the time how i did it)

it essentially modified an existing room' structure with the defaults once I moved the wall to make the room puny. Granted the defaults are wrong, but who would have expected this kind of "if room made small, then change other room to defaults" behaviour

plan as I will post: that living label is for the puny room between the interior wall and the foundation wall current elevation everything looks good: move that wall to the foundation, it forces the puny room to become really small (to the left of the stairs) and now the elevation is hooped plan attached chuck fed up.plan

sorry i'm a windows user and posted a zip file to keep the size down. Let me see if i can post a smaller file

i stand corrected "DYNAMIC" defaults. good thing you reminded me otherwise I'd be reading the wrong topic .... and I spend a lot of time reading

Thanks, my next question was going to be, how many people just redraw from scratch after spending hours trying to fix it? Its actually posted at the top, but I think I have most of it documented now. I would suggest that the puny room problem is a bug. i.e. if I have two rooms, setup correctly, and virtually eliminate 1 by moving the wall, the current big room or the puny room, should not magically change elevations based on the defaults. it looks to totally be a function of the room size. but i need to read up some more on the active defaults. So i think the lesson here so far, is I cant just go into the room to change the elevations. I need to setup the floor defaults/structure defaults to match...if I have a tiny room(wall beside foundation). Whereas before I always just set the room elevations to be correct and did not care what the defaults were ...but i'll read up some more on the active defaults before asking for some assistance on the plan thanks all

I shall do that, thanks, it might explain a lot...except for the whole, make the room puny, then bang, CA changes the heights of the current room, but never know, I'll read up on it

ok this is interesting. I go into my room dbx, structure for rough ceiling for basement is at 91, and 94 for stem wall. This is correct, same with my micro room between the wall and the foundation wall. Then I go to edit ->defaults settings->floors and plans->Floor levels->Floor zero and change rough ceiling to 85 just to see what happens, stem wall still at 94. click ok, get out of there, and then go back to my room dbx. The rough ceiling is now 85. I did the same for the top floor except changed floor 1, and sure enough it changed the room on that floor as well. This is interesting because what it means is the room structure rough ceiling height can be overridden by changing the defaults for the floor. But I believe this is inconsistent behaviour. Most other defaults only change, when a new item is done. For instance if I change the default window size , CA does not go around changing my existing windows. Granted floor structure is not the same as room structure, but it obviously is overwriting the room values. also interesting is if I am at the correct 91 and 94, and go and change the edit ->defaults settings->floors and plans->floor/ceiling platform-> floor structure from 10 to 11, my room rough ceiling changes from 91 to 92. This explains why my ceiling went down when I changed from 11-7/8 to 9.25. although I would suggest CA is moving it in the wrong direction. If I decrease my joist height, shouldnt the basement ceiling get taller? the setting lock floor top/bottom on structure resize did not seem to change the behaviour. and it does not seem to change the basement ceiling elevation, it still sits at 10" after I changed the floor to 11, but it does uncheck the default.

..hmm I dont remember, but after I did the video I rechecked the floor 0 defaults and they were not correct (not sure how it got back to that), so now it is back working, for the second time. still seems odd that when I eliminate a room, or make it micro sized, all of a sudden it transfers the defaults to that room. me thinks CA has a "if room size is less than x sq ft, then ignore current room structure heights, and use defaults" rule

attached is a video which shows the problm e 1245980094_bandicam2021-05-2322-18-49-572.mp4