Investmentbiz

I hate to sound completely ignorant, but where would you insert this string of code to achieve window & door sizes to be formatted this CORRECT way? Is this Ruby or something else? I haven't gotten in to that part of using CA. I've used CA off & on since x8! But I've gotten to use it heavily the last 18 months! Thanks to all of you who are willing to suffer through to help those of us with less knowledge in CA!!! Jason Moore Ironwood Architectural Design/Build Chief Architect x8-x15 Texas

Early on when I first started drawing PEMB plans for my own company where I built several spec AND custom buildings and then leased them for long terms, I was approached by a company who wanted a significant custom office/warehouse plan. I drew it and modified it at least 4-5 times (I am in NO WAY an Architect or Architect student just a filthy, stinkin' capitalist who enjoys building commercial or residential buildings & drawing them) and then the company that asked all of this to be done, goes dark. A friend of mine who knew I had been working with them said "Hey those guys are building a new building way on the east side of town... So, I drove over, it was late in the day and the building was open, so I just looked around and realized they had taken my "review set" and built almost the exact same building! So, I had an attorney friend (oxymoron, I know) send them a letter and I sued for something like $25,000! I knew I would never get that, but I wanted to set a tone with these folks about directly stealing my work & time and almost literally within a few days start building on another piece of property with the plans I had loaned them to review. They settled for about $5,000, But I was really thankful that starting about 3-4 weeks before I started dealing with them, I realized I had no such warning against someone using my intellectual property to build a "like kind or substantially similar building..."

Ok I hate to ask such a basic question but this is driving me crazy! What is the process for drawing one of these 3d walls (attached) where I can show & label each layer? I have not done much work in CA in awhile but I have kept it updated X14 (24.2.1.2) . I remember being able to do that sometime ago but you know how it is getting old. I guess recovering from my second kidney transplant in the last year migh have something to do with that! Thanks in advance for not ridiculing me!

It is not that I have trouble necessarily moving and positioning the individually drawn units. One work around I found at least for practicing moving each unit into the perimeter I've drawn is to use the "CAD detail from view" which opens a tab where I can then select a unit's walls, etc. and then make a CAD block, then I can "select an insertion point" which allows me to precisely move that unit,etc. and I can continue to move these 4 blocks of apt. units around to see how close they fit within the perimeter drawing I made around the exterior of the house. However......if I then say "OK, I've moved all four apt. units around inside this perimeter drawing and I am confident I want this arrangement saved just like it is..." then how would I translate that back over to my floorplan from the CAD detail page? I am having to do this because I cannot get to all the walls to verify their thickness and I believe there are some double walls hidden, etc. So I am trying to reconcile exterior perimeter dimensions with the rats maze of rooms with every wall thickness known to man, plus walls I can't even measure.... Hope this makes sense...

I may be making things to difficult on myself but I need some help! I have an early 1900's 4-plex (2 story, pier & beam) that I own and I am trying to do an as built drawing. The poor old house has had an addition in just about every decade and as you can imagine not all of them were done by skilled craftsmen. Initially i measured and drew the perimeter of the house (where I discovered that it was about 4-6" out of square) but with so many jogs in & out and out of square I decided to measure each unit individually when I did the interior walls. I used CA's RoomPlanner & Bosch Bluetooth measuring device (which all I love...for the most part) over several days to measure the units. I then sit down at the desktop & imported in each unit but I put them all "on the same page" so to speak (in one file) with the hope of fitting all these puzzle pieces together to form the one big "house" that it is. However, the problem comes in when I select one of the units (walls, stairs, appliances, fixtures, etc.) and drag it over to my original perimeter drawing it joins the walls up, stretches a wall here & there and countless other little tweaks to the point that I do not know what has been changed! I would like to be able to make the equivalent of a space planning block that locks everything together as a group until I am sure I have bumped everything together correctly and that all the "puzzle pieces" are correctly situated next to and above & below each other before I "release" each block to merge in to one big drawing. Again, there may be a simple answer but because I do not use the program every day or sometimes I may go months without drawing, I have to almost relearn the program when I start a new project! LOL Thanks in advance for any help from you Pro's!

Old habits die hard...the program i used to use you had to click each corner then the 3rd click set the distance away from what you were measuring. I keep finding that the longer i stick with CA the more i find great features; they're just not always easily/quickly found....and then sometimes i'm just so anxious to get stuff done i overlook some obvious stuff! That's why the CA family is such a God-send!

BrownTiger OHHHH!!!!! I see what you mean! I had everything set correctly already I was being to anal in trying to click on the the corner of the wall rather than out away from it! That saves me several clicks per dimension. Normally I would use Auto-Exterior dimensions but I had several other buildings within the same drawing and I didn't want all of those to be covered in dimension lines.... Thanks to all of you for being willing to answer my question!

Perhaps this question has been answered but after an hour of searching the forums I can't seem to find the answer. When I go to manually place dimensions around the exterior of a house I snap to each corner of a section of wall and I get a dimension placed right in the center of the wall.I then have to click the space bar, select the measurement and drag it away from the wall so that it has the appropriate spacing away from the wall. I have tried every default setting I can find that will allow me to draw MANUAL dimensions that automatically stay say 8"-12" away from the wall with the appropriate amount of extension line. What am I missing? I will say since I use the program irregularly I almost have to relearn it every time I start a new drawing! lol So it may seem like newbie question....and I guess it is! Thanks in advance!

I am drawing a multi-family apartment with 8 apartments and I am wanting to group select the fill layer where I have hatched each apartment differently so the HVAC contractor knows which rooms go with each apartment. Because each apartment has several different rooms of course I have to go to each room to adjust the transparency of the hatching in that room. In a previous CAD program I used there was a tool to "select by" with numerous options to select by objects, layers fixtures, etc. so if you wanted to select all hatch lines at once (regardless if they were all the same hatch pattern or not) it was just a couple of clicks and then you could set the level of transparency for all the hatch patterns at once without having to go in every room. Does CA have anything like this? Or is there a way to do this easily? I've attached a picture of the main floor if that helps understand what I am trying to do. The HVAC contractor needs to see the differentiation between apartments while seeing where the units are placed in the apartments.... Hope this all makes sense!