robdyck

That's pretty sneaky!

I'll see if I can put something proper together, but I'll quickly point out the most obvious nuisances as it pertains to fascia height. I assume no one would be looking at the finish material for fascia as a specification for the elevation of a roof, but rather the sub-fascia. In the example below, I'd like to specify that the 2x6 sub-fascia align with the main floor ceiling so that the truss bottom chord can run over the wall and out to the fascia. Steps: -edit all roof planes -lock roof pitch -specify top of fascia as (109.125 + 5.5) -results with fascia top of 114 5/8" .....right? -Heck No. It's lower by the vertical distance of the roof sheathing even though the roof sheathing is in the surface layers, not structure layers. Now try moving the roof planes vertically that exact amount...which for my 6:12 pitch roof is 0.4891398701". To get that, I draw a polyline in section view that snaps to the correct cross section lines, and copy the vertical dimension. Now I can replicate all the roofs in the z-axis. I hereby submit for consideration by all: that is completely ridiculous!

You can also raise your roof baselines so that the top of your sub-fascia = ceiling height + sub-fascia height. Just have fun figuring out that you can't specify a roof height by it's sub-fascia height. So you'll also need to know the vertical depth of your roof sheathing...for real.

Now if you can just get both sill plates to show up automatically...!

@HDbyJustin You'd want to build your own library of these types of windows (for this client) so you can just place them without ever having to open the dbx.

Is that because it's too stupid to believe? It might take time, but you'll need to convince them there's a better way! Maybe play around with your ideal schedule and show them a sample. Hard to believe anyone could come up with a method to make such a simple plan that awkward. Somewhere, somebody is laughing their @$$ off at the poor buggers who have to flip all those pages for basic info.

Forget all that.. use Elkay

A few things to consider for trusses...IF you're showing them at all: -you need to know the regional requirements for the heel height. This could be based on structural requirements, insulation requirements, or a combination -you'll need to know the lumber species used for the trusses, and the max. spans for the loads carried. This will apply to top chords, bottom chords, and stress members. It doesn't make any sense to be showing items that will come with an engineered layout and a specific drawing for each truss, unless you're clearly indicating its for visualization only. -In Chief, you can specify the above mentioned items in the truss dbx and at least your trusses will look quite accurate. For anyone using it out of the box...try adjusting the top chord and bottom chord spans to be the same, and add a king post. Check out the difference: Unfortunately, Chief still doesn't automatically adjust the length of the bottom chord to match the span of the truss and there are 2 ways to deal with that if needed: -edit the truss polyline (stable, these edits will remain unless you force a rebuild) -edit the truss detail (not so stable, this may rebuild if you open the truss dbx) If for some reason you are including a truss plan, or showing them all to provide guidance for the truss supplier, its best to complete your truss layout, THEN build roof framing. Chief will not build a rafter where a truss exists, so its less cleaning up to do.

As have so many things. It'd be great if Chief had a method or procedure to let users know which parts of the program were up for a review, and could put together a panel or committee to hash out some of the details that would actually be implemented. I feel like its quite ineffective and maybe even pointless to repeat the same requests in the suggestions part of this forum or to submit feature requests in the beta testing with absolutely no idea if or when they might be implemented...in whole or in part. Even if a feature is going to be implemented or tweaked, it seems like it could be helpful to know what, and when, and then have a formal process for input. Lets take the preview pane of the roof dbx for example: Its probably not all that helpful for me to spitball an idea for improvements and post it here or in suggestions when other users like yourself, or Eric or Michael or Joe (just to name a few) haven't also had a chance to pick apart or add their ideas and thoughts. Certainly, with a combined effort we could provide valuable enhancements. By contrast, weeding through a suggestion topic for the gold nuggets amidst a dog's breakfast isn't practical or reasonable.

That'd be fantastic! Now that needs to be sent in as a feature request.

I'm sure it used to work that way, right? Especially important if you're dealing with multiple pitches that need the fascia aligned. Often I'll put the roof on a bit rough, tweak some things for appearance, then finalize the heights. Its kinda a PITA now. The dbx isn't really all that clear or intuitive with its reference to 'fascia' height, especially when most of us would probably be referencing the "sub-fascia" height. And wouldn't it be helpful if the overhang was dimensioned to the subfascia? And I hate to say it, but that preview pane isn't great.

Ditto.

But if she wants to dimension to the intermediate posts? Which is what I understood...but I don't really know.

An even when a rotated copy of the material is used, it doesn't align with the original material. Not the pattern or texture, not x or y.

Still seems weird that you need a 90 rotated material for the shingle flare, doesn't it? Even with Global Mapping turned on.

You could place a point for the center of each post. Place them on the same layer as your dimensions and use the drawing order tool to make sure they're under the railing. If your railing doesn't have a fill style and your don't want to see them in the printed view, make those points white. You'll still be able to see them, depending on your working view background color.

To prevent a ceiling plane from being cut by walls, you'll need to uncheck "use room ceiling finish"

With a deck, it's critical to understand that it behaves a bit differently than other rooms. "Decks" work best when used for a typical deck...framing and deck planks. Keep in mind that the auto frame feature is really only useful for visualization and if Auto-Frame is on, it'll rebuild the framing as per its defaults, even if you edit it. Turning off the auto-framing for decks is NOT reliable. To avoid that problem, use a different room type like a balcony. There are better ways to show the framing (if you need to) than the deck auto-framing tools. If you double-click the deck beam I put in your plan, you'll notice it's a General Framing member, placed on deck beam layer, and shown in the schedule as a deck beam. I do that so that Chief will leave it alone.

Ha! No worries there!

How about early morning entertainment? Take a look at the adjustments... BILLY-CA1.plan

File / Templates / New Plan From Template

Thanks Steve! I thought you were onto something with your adjusted post symbol, but if you look a bit closer it only seems to behave as expected on one side. The adjusted bounding box causes the post to be 'off' at the end of each railing segment. It causes a discrepancy between the 3D view and the plan view. I appreciate the effort, and just so you know, this isn't for a current project...I'm messing around with this to try to figure out a consistent & repeatable method to display these railings accurately in both views. I just can't handle the poor railing job available in the stair dbx.

Combination of items. Curved Railing wall for the railing (or a separate skinny curved stair), capped curved wall for the capped wall, stairs. Some items will need to occupy the same space as other, so you might need to build multiple items and convert to symbol, then relocate to final position.

Don't laugh, that took me all afternoon! BTW, Free Symbol!! Bent & Rusty Nail.calibz