Christina_Girerd

I'm working on an older home that has the equivalent of corner boards on it's bay windows. The cornerboard tool doesn't seem to work in this situation, so wondering if there are any suggestions aside from just using polyline solids? This bay window is angled, but I also tried the tool on a squared bay window just to see if it was the angle that was the difference - didn't work on those either, so I'm assuming the tool was only designed to work on regular wall corners. Sure would be handy if that tool did work in this situation as it is such a quick help on regular corners.

Also, I changed the exterior sill style in the window defaults, and was surprised that when I select a window and open the spec dbx, I do not have an option to "use default" for the exterior sill style - or for that matter, any of the other window components. Just wondering why we don't have that option? I don't want to reset the entire window to the default, because that would also change the size and type. Seems to me it would be logical to be able to individually change any of the components to the defaults.

I'm trying to use the object eyedropper to "paint" an exterior window sill on a couple other windows. I only want to copy the exterior sill style, so I clear the other properties in the "select properties to load" dbx, but I'm confused because the property "Exterior Sill Style" has "Use Default" listed under the Value column. I have an exterior sill style selected from the library. I don't want to use the default. I must be missing something... I re-read the section in the Reference Manual, but didn't seem to find anything there. I also opened up a new plan and did a quick test and noticed that on the test window, in which I changed the exterior sill style and sill extension, when I "painted" all the window properties (I didn't unselect anything) that the "painted" window took on the new exterior sill style, but did not take on the extension. I also did some quick tests and adjusted a frame size and was able to only "paint" that to other windows, but for some reason my exterior sill style "painting" is not working as I would expect. By now I could have done this manually, but I'd like to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Thanks for any suggestions.

That's what I suspected, but thought it was worth an ask...

I'm doing an as-built with a non-rounded starter tread. Before I do a work-around, is there a way to change the radius on the default rounded starter tread? I looked to see if I could just turn the curve line into a straight line with change line/arc tool but I don't seem to have that option available in stair mode.

When I've had to deal with issues like this and don't have time to get the whole thing figured out before I have to get it to a client, I will do two raytraces and merge the "good parts." In your case, I'd take the "correctly shown" glass from the raytrace with the sliding doors shut, and copy that glass into the sliding doors open raytrace. Or temporarily take out the sliding doors and just put a single giant glass window across the opening so that you have the glass with the proper backdrop to "harvest" wherever you need it for the "doors open" raytrace image. It'd take a few minutes messing around in photoshop or similar program, but it'd get the job done.

Thanks Robert - that was very helpful! I realized one of my problems was that on the innermost steeply curved roof plane, I was only adjusting the angles for the curve at roof and eave, and as I was trying to figure out why I couldn't get mine to do what yours did, I saw your curved plane also adjusted the roof pitch. Duh! Somehow I had thought that part was no longer applicable when I was dealing with the curved angles. Anyway - now I know! Glen - I don't know any of those details - I am only doing this based on photos, the ever helpful google earth shots and a landscaping site plan. Just trying to get it to look right for large scale 3D views and that pitch adjustment was the missing piece. Thanks for asking though.

So I just tried that on a large multi-acre site plan where I get a lot of z-fighting on the roofs and terrain in particular when the camera is far away doing a full-site overview. But the problem got worse when I tried smaller increments, but in this case, fixed the problem when I did a larger increment - 60" in this case. Thanks for the suggestion. I don't remember if I heard that one before but it is an easy fix.

That is called "z-fighting" - I've had that problem too. It has various causes such as distance of camera and thickness of surfaces. For one recent issue, I had to increase the thickness of my top roof layer slightly. Do a search on z-fighting and there are several posts with suggested fixes you can try. Good luck...

I'm have a hard time trying to create the roof shown in the attached photos - one plan, one mostly elevation. This roof is on an octagonal structure. So far, I am not having much success, despite spending a lot of time playing around with the angles at eave and ridge for the curved roof plane. I know I need multiple roof planes, and have used a flat piece of roof for the first 25' or so of the roof with about a 1:12 pitch. Then I start a second roof plane that is curved. It seems that if I can get a steep enough slope up toward the ridge to match the actual roof line, then the lower part of the roof has a negative curve and goes below the first roof plane, which is no good. I'm wondering if I need to have more than 2 roof planes per segment to get this particular roof shape... The third image is the best attempt so far, and that is with one flat roof plane and one curved plane. But I'm hoping to get closer to the actual roof. Any suggestions? This is my first time working with curved roof planes

Thanks Larry - that's an even easier fix. That worked well.

I've been having a problem with z-fighting roof planes for the last week or so as I'm starting to model a large property with multiple buildings. It's really bad in perspective overview. It is not an issue in the other camera views and is not an issue when raytraced. I hadn't seen the problem in quite a while and just searched on the forum here to try to remember what work-arounds were suggested. Adjusting the Camera Spec clipping to 300" solved the problem, as did the camera zoom/"I" key suggestion. Thanks! Before I got to these helpful hints, I realized that it is the roof sheathing material that was fighting with the roofing material, so I changed the sheathing to a solid color that is close to the roofing color and that solved the problem enough to show the model "live" to the client. But glad to know the better fixes!

When I just need the "pretty picture" and don't care about reality, I make sure I do not have a sun angle in the file. Then when I'm in the 3D view where I want to adjust shadows, I select the "Adjust Lights" dbx, select the Default Sun and then I can adjust the tilt and the angle to exactly what I want. I find this much easier and quicker than trying to fake dates/times/locations on a regular sun angle to get what I want. I originally made a little cheat-sheet for myself to help get the shadows right for doll-house views, then found it helpful for other views too. I've attached it in case you find it helpful. And you can always put the sun angle back in when you need the real-life shadows.

I did get a higher quality pdf to work better. I'll try the dxf idea and also resizing it, doing a jpg conversion before I import. Thanks.

Good point. I received the pdf from the client. I will try import with a pdf I know is high quality so I can verify the issue. Thanks.

I just tried using the "import pdf" command for the first time, for a large existing site plan drawing (less than 1mb file, 24x30 original size drawing). The pdf is very sharp and clear. But the image that imported was very small and grainy, basically useless. I got much better quality from the 8 1/2x11 scans that I stiched together and imported as a jpg. Am I missing something for how to get better quality on a pdf import? I'd really like to use the pdf import because it is a single image the scale and measurements are more accurate than my stitched jpg image. Thanks, Christina

I updated to the latest version, hoping it would solve this odd glowing light in an outdoor raytrace scene, but no luck. See the light "glowing" (for lack of a better word) under the sink at the left, under the people, chair feet, etc. The sun is the only light source, and I ran a bunch of tests making sure the materials were matte, etc, trying to get rid of the glow. The "c2" picture that has the more yellowish-green glow is the original file. The other one is my test file where I deleted a lot of the scene so I could run quicker tests. I also made sure to run Chief's default options for Outdoor High Quality, in case I had messed up some settings on my saved raytrace settings. I haven't noticed this issue with other plans and outdoor scenes recently. I also made sure to run the raytraces for 12 or more passes, to see if that would help, but it didn't. Any suggestions?

Interesting idea for Chief not to show layers until something is generated for that layer... I almost never use the Framing layers either, or Sprinkler layers, Footing layers, most Text or dimension layers, etc. Maybe this could be something each user could tweak in a Preferences setting for their default plan - which layers show at the start. So people like us who never use Framing or Sprinklers, could hide those, but show all Cabinet layers because we'll typically end up using those at some point. But if we did generate framing layers, then they would appear. And we could always access some toggle to show all layers, or maybe, show all layer groups. Maybe Chief would have a couple of generic presets for which layers show for interiors, construction, landscaping, renderings, etc, that users could easily customize further. I know I've requested something like layer groups in the past. I'd also be happy to see something like the folder structure in the library where we could do some custom organizing to access the layers however we want. I would be happy to collapse all 25 Framing layers in X7 under a single heading "Framing" and then ignore them. I also have a pile of custom layers too that relate to a couple topics such as Landscaping or Site, that I'd like to group in a similar manner. I do like the new ALDO, but I still use the full LDO too. I also sort it by "used" and/or "displayed" layers at times, but neither of those things is quite the same as adding some sort of customizable hierarchy structure to the layer name list. I would find that very helpful. And I also like the idea of a toggle to show only used layers just because it's visually cleaner when you are trying to scan for something.

Thanks for the tips. I did consider the stacked option, as well as the drawers plus doors option, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something first. I will also reinforce the suggestion for allowing different pulls since they allow two different door styles.

In X7, I split an upper wall cabinet to have the lower section with glass lites and the upper section with solid doors. My client wants the sections to have different pulls - see attached photo - and I can't figure out how to do that in the cabinet dbx. Any suggestions?

Thanks for the suggestions. I had originally wanted to break the wall like Glenn and Bill suggested, but couldn't get the corner points to show and thought maybe that was something I was remembering from an older version. But after you mentioned it, I looked into it some more and finally figured out I wasn't clicking close enough to the edge of the wall. I obviously haven't used that feature in a while! So that works great.

I have a wall with an opening in the middle with half-walls on either side of the opening. When I do an elevation view on one side, the lines between the wall and half-wall show, but when I do an elevation view on the other side, they don't - usually. In plan view, the walls are the same width. I tried this configuration in a new plan, and had similar inconsistencies. See the attached pics. I don't want the line between to show as the wall surface should be continuous. Any suggestions? I know I can do photoshop if needed, but wondered if I'm missing a setting or something. I assume the wall construction should be the same for each, as I don't believe I have changed the default.

I always get it stuck in that top left corner also. I also use dual monitors and have drag it over to my second monitor each time.

I thought I was in the 3D view when I checked last night, which was why I reopened X5 to see how it worked, but this morning after restarting the program, the Default Sun is back as expected. Maybe I was more tired than I thought last night and only checked plan... anyway, got it now. Thanks Glen.

I opened an existing multi-building plan in X6, and deleted the sun angle. In X5, if I deleted the sun angle in plan, then a Default Sun appeared in the Adjust Lights dbx that I could work with. However, after I deleted the sun angle in this plan, no Default Sun appeared in the Adjust Lights dbx. How can I get it back? I use Default Sun a lot so I can use Tilt and Angle to get exactly the shadows I need.