VHampton

That's it Alan. Whatever the heck the boolean tool is....I'm off to master it!

Thanks very much everyone.Glad to know I'm not crazy. I have the free True View as well and you can see the entire drawing as soon as it opens. I'm going to follow up with your suggestion Rob and see if the sender can make some adjuetsments on their end.

I'm supposed to working on a site plan today... and have tried importing this dwg about ten times. It shows all the layers but the drawing is nowhere to be seen. I've tried everything including zooming way way out and doing a shift select to grab whatever is out there and force it to absolute zero ....but there's no sign of the line work. Can anyone see what I might be doing worng? I would greatly appreciate it if you have a moment. Thanks. Val Eagle Rock Site plan.zip

Didn't know you could do that. I guess you would creat an angle plane and use it as a slice through the cylinder ?

Does anyone know how to make a cylindrical tube have a slice taken out of it ...which would result in the shape as shown in the attached image? I can make the cylinder in sktech up, but have no idea how to stretch the outer rim on one side only. Thanks very much for any help. All the best. eyelid.zip

I've had it happen. The grab handle on a p/solid can get confused with the "stretch" handle. Just my observation, I've adjusted solids in plan view and they look perfect. Then I take a look outside with teh 3D overview and they are shaped terribly wrong. They become sStretched too long and don't look anthying at all like my plan view. I think it's because I've grabbed the stretch handle rather than the grab handle. (Older versions only had grab handles.... that's the way I've always manipulated polyline solids.) It still makes me crazy that we can't grra an image file and stretch it be tugging on the side of it with the grab handle. Now some wierd stuff happens and the whole ability to reproportion imported images is gone unless you pull on them by the corners only. Back to your question and solution....For creating moldings, the safest bet is to make them with a molding polyine. Those are bullet proof in terms of maintaining their length and size in both plan view and elevations. They're also very easy to work with in making a molding turn corners around a room as well as being able to make mitred returns.

As a rule of thumb I always make the roof thickness 1". We use wood shingles on most every project and at the end of the day not only does this make 2d layout views read correctly, it solves the all too common distortion effect from Z fighting. Also...the terrain perimter should ideally be spread pretty uniformly around the model. If you've got too much real estate towards one end of the house it can create a lopsided effect which sometimes results in the Z fighting. In addition to the roofing it can help to thicken the siding as well. Often I will elimnate the plywood layer and make the exterior siding 1" thick just like the roof. If you don't want to kill off your plywood layer, just change it's material property to match up with the siding. Two layers will stop the bleed through effect. (...just like David suggested) Between the roofing and siding changes, this should make your model bullet proof in terms of avoiding distortion.

You could do a 3d view and then use the cross section slider tab to do a slice into the house (from about four feet above finished floor) Then go back to the 3D tab and look for view direction. Select top view. This will give you a plan view which can be rendered using one of the various rendering options. It's not exactly what you may be looking for...but close.

Wendy is surely missed as she posted some very insightful information as she unlocked the many features of each release. ....Louis and Tim were invaluable assetts to the forum. They both were extremely generous with their time, and their posts were incredibly informative. Glad to hear that Louis is well. Tim became a part of (or may have even started) the Chief users group on yahoo when X1 first came out. ...like Louis he was one of the most adept Chief users ever....if not the best.

Sorry Robert. ...the new zip is attached. The roof was given a texture and It does seem to read a bit cleaner in layout. (And yes...that was indeed a really great video Scott.) tower molding profile (2).zip

You can also make that roof with a molding polyline. The one benefit of using a molding is that the roof surface (when made with roof planes) will always look somewhat funky in vector view. You get all these unwanted facets when it gets sent to layout. PS...I'm also guessing that this method is way cleaner and reduces the probability of Chief stalling out per your initial post. Example...look at the size of my plan which is posted post versus the size of the example using roof planes. It's a fraction of the file size. Take a cross section of the roof shape...draw the profile from the tip of the ridge right down to the eave (on the left side of your cross section)....and save the line as a molding profile. Draw a radial line around the tower in plan view and convert it to your new molding profile Change the material (of the molding) to roof. Go back to section view and tweak the settings as needed to make the shape read correctly. Note...you'll have to add moldings for the fascia and gutter in the same way as you made a molding the roof. Make two more circular molding polylines. The little dormers (in the photo) can be made with walls and conventional roof planes no problem. tower molding profile.zip

If the glass wall is checked off as 'no room definition', you can use the delete the surface tool in vector view before sending to layout. Whatever is behind the glass wall will now show up in layout where it previoulsy did not.

That's correct. You can have the same texture in the same plan but they will each need their own properties if one is to be displayed in a different direction Keep the "normal" brick as it exists, but make a copy of it for the secondary brick's use. Then change the copied texture as you would like. That's how you can succesfully have brick with two different angles and direction.

Chief crashes are often associated with memory issues. Back in the days when most computesr only had a half gig of ram, crashes were a common occurrence in camera mode. That's when I came across a problem solver. The undo/redo feature in the "preferences" is often set to 10 or more. Narrow it down to one or two...or try turning it off altogther. The program won't be sending your comptuer into overdrive while trying to record snap shots of the ten previous mouse moves. In fact, turning off the undo feature will result in a noticeable increase of speed on very large plan files. Not saying that this is the solution to your crashes, but it may be a way to mitigate the problem.

Clipped gable is what that is. Unless you're Dutch ...and happen to wear clogs on the job site ....instead of Timberlands.

I noticed the wayward library browser from day one. Some days it sticks where I placed it on the second monitor, some days it doesnt. If it decides to move for whatever reason, the thing always winds up on the top left hand of the primary monitor.

Also... try turning off your undo-redo options in the preferences. Having it off will make the plan fly like the wind again. Just learn to be decisive when you delete things!

It's a Chief thing I suppose. I've never heard of the term either until this feature was introduced in the recent versions. In carpenter speak, a shadow board is just a build up of the rake board. BTW, has Wendy even signed up on the new forum? I'm wondering if this place is only for SSA members?

Any trim which gets added to the rake board is known as a shadow board.

The easiest method would be to take a cross section of the room. Draw an arch (barrel) using the CAD tools. Convert it to a molding polyline with a thickness of say 1" times whatever the length of the room is.

The program has no objections to balconies over living space. Decks on the other hand will get you a warning message. Not sure if this helps your sitution, but anytime you build a "deck" other than one in the ground...change it to a balcony.

Very welcome.

With the rainbow icon, clcik on the brick in a 3d view and open up the dialogue box. Change the grout joint to a dark grey or black. The print will show the contrast which you're looking for.

Thanks Doug. I think that typing in ResCheck as one word may be the difference!

Quick question... I think I saw a new feature in X6 where the Res. Check can be generated directly from one's project. Is there anyone who might be able to offer some insight? Both the users guide and the table of contents come up empty when Res Check is placed in the search bar. Thanks very much. Val