robdyck

Complex handrails can me modeled using 3d moldings. It's a bit tricky but it can be done quickly with a bit of an adjustment to the mindset. In Chief we're used to dragging and moving things. A 3d handrail that makes turn and has offsets requires a bit more planning, and constant awareness of x,y,z of each line and segment. I've used it to make spiral handrails, as well as to notch around a wall, and return back into a newel post.

If you post a plan, I'd be happy to take a look and see if I can help.

I also do exactly what Mark described. He's bang on when it comes to control of getting just the right reveal over the finished side of a cabinet to match the reveal over the front of a door. Another instance would be where a 5/8" or 3/4" gable end is installed tight to a cabinet box, whereas a door has a small gap to accommodate bumpers.

Using the molding line keeps you from having to try to match full height cab. with wall cabs. Try remembering all those offsets when you have a build up of 3 moldings!

Viz, you can send that view to layout and remove the lines there using the "Edit Layout Lines" tool. Note that those lines will come back each time the view is updated, and then you'll need to remove them again.

The reason those lines are showing is because your walls are not connecting the way Chief would like them to. Right now it looks like they overlap. If you drag them to meet exactly or use the default top and bottom, then they'll connect and the line will disappear permanently.

Hey Scott, thanks for the vid! I was kind of surprised that anyone would go to that level of effort to respond. I typically build the slab exactly like you did, exact I build it on floor 0 the first time! (kidding). I'll point out a couple of things that were going on in that plan there:

-the molding that you deleted was actually a plywood or puckboard used to cover the above-slab portion of the ICF fdn. It will manifest itself later in a 2d and 3d detail.

-the man door is 2" above the slab to show the sill correctly and to get the framed R.O. to match the manufacturer's spec's. exactly. No adjusting headers when doing a framing detail.

I don't mind making this adjustment. I was just hoping to learn something new. By the way Michael, the bearing material in ICF walls is concrete and the XPS is insulation.

The workaround is what I'm going to do until I learn something better. Thanks to all who took a look. 

Perry, hope my last post didn't sound petty. It certainly wasn't intended that way. I'm not the best at making sure a typed response relays the pleasant conversational tone that my voice naturally provides!

Hey Newell,

I opened your plan and took a look. That stubborn roof just keeps cutting the wall... until I checked 'no special snapping'. Just open that roof dbx, then in the 'Measurements' section under the 'General' tab, you'll find that option. It worked, and is holding...

I've dealt with that issue before. Hope that helps. By now you've probably figured it out anyhow.

Rob.

Here's an interesting work around that I just experimented with. Once you're stairs is finalized, copy in place, and change the railing profile to the insert. You'll just need to guess at the new railing height to get the plow insert into the right location. With the 'princeton' rail and insert, lower the insert railing height by 2". That nails it.

Perry,

I've got the plan posted right above the picture. The picture is just showing the top of the slab is level with the top of the door buck, and the inner layer of the ICF is the white strip that is displaying.

Steve, the simplest fix to this would be if Chief would let you add more than one profile to the Rail Profiles dbx and also specify it's location on the xyz axes. In the past I've used m own molding lines to properly make railings that suit the actual site conditions rather than the limited options provided by Chief. Chief's stairs also don't let you specify the stringer shape or thickness with any degree of true control. Nor does the dbx allow for a riser thickness. As we shift to the world of 3d matching the 2d, the 'smarts' of each object needs to be increased. The same model should offer enough control that the renderings and sections can be efficiently produced without so many workarounds. We're going to get left behind if Chief doesn't improve this.

I thought it must have been discussed. I just didn't find anything relevant when I searched the Q&A.

Perry, I've posted the plan and a picture. I take it from your response you don't have this issue. I've never not had it model this way.

bravada_2016-4_-_Copy.zip

Is there anyone who knows how to get garage foundation walls to buck down to the underside of the garage slab automatically? The garage slab should be sitting ON the foundation at overhead doors, not butting up to it. This would be a great time saver to not have to adjust this CAD detail in every section of every plan. This is especially annoying if you're using an ICF foundation because it affects the 3D view. This is all easy to fix in 2D section views, and it doesn't really show up in 3D if you keep the slab and wall materials the same...but, if you're producing renderings for marketing materials, or sharing the model with customers, or engineers, or trades, etc., the model must be exact.

This thread probably ties in to other threads like sloping slabs, and decks.

Any thoughts out there other than manually drawn slabs and p-solids?

The issue I've experienced happens at simple connections between 2 walls. It appears randomly on an individual corner. It seems that it may occur after a layout window is refreshed and usually only happens to one intersection, which of course, makes it harder to find. One of those things you usually notice after the plan has been printed to paper. This seems to be the only bug I experience regularly. Happened in X6 & X7 before and after the upgrade to Windows 10. I should just check with tech support. I assumed there'd be many others with this same issue.

glennw: I like that ramp idea. never though of that before; I'll give it a try!

Russ: My typical approach is to make sure that the framing, stairs, landings are finalized. Then, in a section view, I draw a CAD line along the nosings, and replicate it vertically for each rail and convert those line into 3D molding polylines to get exact appearances correct. I'll place one spindle and replicate it on the correct coordinates after I've calculated the spacing. The key is to keep adding every custom made molding to your library so it's easily available for any plan. Is that in any way similar to what you'd do? Or anyone esle, for that matter?

None of Chief's stair settings allow me to automatically display stairs and railing in the manner that we build locally. Any railings that I need to display in 3D are built manually so that I know the same model can be used to produce a dimensioned detail. It's no help to you CEC123, but that method has saved me many headaches, as well as giving me better layer control. I can assign different elements to different layers for different purposes. One difficulty I find is no control of stringer thickness (that I'm aware of).

Also, in my region, the railing assembly would be built on top of a sloped wall that would be framed to match a closed stair stringer. Chief doesn't do that.

Does anyone experience the beauty of random, occasional wall connections displaying a mitered joint in plan view? I use a solid grey fill for the main layer of walls, and the mitered joint displays a main layer line weight. The wall then needs to be dragged back a bit and allowed to snap back into connection with the joining wall to get back to a 'clean' connection.

Simple problem: when specifying a fill style such as "angle hatch" for a framing member and selecting "transparent fill", it simply won't become transparent.

For example: where a deck is framed, I'd like to specify a transparent fill for beams (so that the posts show through) and place them on their own layer so they display in my final plans without displaying the joists. Currently I draw the beams and posts using p-solids. I thought it might be easier to just change the layer of the auto-framed beams as opposed to drawing my own.

Certainly not a big deal, I'm just curious why it doesn't work.

Thoughts?

I'll certainly adjust my settings now. I did indeed do a couple of tests at different resolutions, and @ 96 dpi the only part of my printed layout file that was unsatisfactory was the portion that was an imported pdf. That portion was quite pixely and wouldn't be legible when printed to paper. Perhaps an email to tech would throw some light on this. I do use imported pdfs in my layout file regularly. I typically show some details that have been provided by the local code authority which are only available in pdf (and obviously i'm too lazy or prudent to redraw that which has already been drawn).

Great suggestions. I appreciate it. I had been printing @ 600 dpi too ensure that imported pdfs and renderings printed clearly. 96 dpi was fine for everything except the imported pdfs and that brought the file down to 2MB. I settled on 300 dpi which was clear enough for the pdfs with a file size around 6MB. 

All that being said, I am curious why my imported pdfs bog it down so much when in X5 I never ran into this issue using all the same settings.

I've imported a few pages in pdf format to a single page 3 of 5 in my layout. This adds about 12 MB (from 2 MB to 14MB). Obviously this slows down the printing (to pdf) as well as emailing the file to clients. This has only been an issue for me in X6. Anyone else?