robdyck

The eave issue you are seeing is directly cause by the 'higher eaves boxed' setting. Chief is carrying the boxed eave across from the walk-in closet wall. Obviously this shouldn't happen so even after cleaning up the plan, this is worth sending to TS. That being said, the easy fix is to manually model the soffit by the walk-on closet or use 2 separate roof planes (even though they are co-planar) and hide the plan view line with a CAD mask.

Auto roofs with flush eaves works fine except for one place:

Boxed eaves work fine across the entire roof.

Boxed eaves with 'higher eaves boxed' works fine except for one place:

Flush eaves and higher eaves boxed works fine except for the same place as above.

Doug, I think this has something to do with your wall types. I can tell you 2 things for sure...Chief doesn't do flush eaves right all the time and Chief doesn't handle ICF walls well when all layers are shown.

I would suggest some quick experiments:

1. make a copy of the plan file and replace all the ICF walls with typical construction to see if the problem persists
2. make a copy of the plan file and adjust all the ICF walls to use a single main layer that is the entire thickness of the ICF form. See if the problem persists.
3. same as #2 except no flush eaves
4. when doing the above, ensure all your walls align from floor-to-floor. There are too many alignment issues.
5. when doing the above, ensure all main floor and attic wall use default top bottom elevations. 

Of course, you'll need to ensure the walls are located where you want them because there will be changes when re-defining a main layer. Following these steps, you should see a noticeable improvement using auto-roofs. Once that's done, turn of auto-roofs and proceed with cleanup and adjustments. They should be minimal at that point.

My advice would be to leave the display of ICF layers for section and detail views.

I set those wall to default heights which help with some things but the lowered eave went away when I unchecked 'higher eaves boxed'.

Obviously this creates other problems...

There's some pretty great materials in this catalog. Thanks!

You could draw a polyline around it and use the Edit Area tool.

If you know the square feet needed for the pad footing, you can simply divide by 2 to get the edge length, no?

7 hours ago, chief-greg said:

 

That sounds like a good option. just save as new -landscaping plan, then convert the imported contours to plain polylines, at least just the ones where I want to adjust the terrain. 

 

Thank You,

Greg

A couple of options that may help would be to place elevation points where the existing contour lines meet the property line. This will still give the overall effect of the existing, unmodified landscape at the boundary while allowing you to modify the terrain to suit the new building. 

Alternatively, you can cut the existing elevation lines for a set distance around the building allowing you to modify the terrain at the building to create positive drainage. The technique you choose is somewhat dependent on the amount of modification you need to show and how gentle or dramatic the existing terrain is.

20 hours ago, CARMELHILL said:

Older versions of Chief had this ability, to set certain layers to report to the material list. I think it was removed in X14.

Hey Ed,

what Chief did was to consolidate that function into a single layer set, as opposed to having it's own check column for every layer set.

12 hours ago, TeaTime said:

so...

Umm, I guess so

Further to what Gene mentioned, you have to build the floor for floor 1 using the 'build framing' tool. This requires that the foundation walls have the sill plate option turned on and sized.  If you have manually drawn the floor, no sill plate will be built. 

On 7/12/2023 at 2:14 PM, BruceKC said:

Is it possible to do a full orthographic overview (top view) and display the labels? Seems like a no-brainer, but I'm thinking it's not possible?

I've used an orthographic overview underneath a plan view, with a customized layer set just for displaying certain information on top. You can send the overview to layout at your desired scale and then simply align the 2 views using the point-to-point move tool. One of the nice things about this method, is that if the camera is saved in your template plan, and if you have a layout template for this purpose, relinking the views is quick and simple.

5 minutes ago, TeaTime said:

I wonder why you're seeing a performance hit.

It usually gets worse as the plan file progresses to completion. At the beginning, there's no problem. But then again, who edits / places notes at the beginning?

43 minutes ago, TeaTime said:

I don't think I understand, if you don't want them in 3D just don't display them in 3D?

I don't but I have always found that text notes slow Chief way down on my system. I still use them but sparingly. And while I can't prove it, I assume it is because of how frequently Chief is rebuilding the model and every 3d item that gets rebuilt, makes it slower. Generally speaking, I have 2 sets of text notes in my plans, only on the elevation views. Chief works much faster if I delete them all. So naturally I assume others must experience something similar at least some of the time...

41 minutes ago, TeaTime said:

Hopefully some day we'll get the ability to show text and dimensions in 3d views and none of this will be necessary!

I take it you don't feel that the 3d aspect of text notes make Chief slow enough for you? I wish for the opposite...I'd like Text Notes to completely lose their 3d function, or at least have 2 separate types of text notes.

1 hour ago, natmar2020 said:

is it possible to change the sill / threshold model?

No, with doors it isn't possible. This leaves you with several options if you must change it. Some of those options would be:

• manually draw and place a 3d solid
• use a 3d symbol. If you don't have one from the library, you may need to create one or download one from 3d Warehouse
• use a molding line. Simply search 'Sill' in the library, choose one that best suits your needs and draw the molding line
• you can use a window (in the same location as the door) set as a pass-through to separately define the jamb, casing, and lintel for the opening. This is more complicated and will require some experimentation on your part, but it does work. You'd need to remove those items from the door settings, and possibly choose separate layers and label settings. It may or may not be a good idea!

None of the above options will automatically follow the door, however they will allow you to create a more accurate model.

22 minutes ago, DBCooper said:

Not sure how you got a different sill on the interior and the exterior. 

This follows the casing width. In the example above, the interior casing is 7 1/4" wide which drives the interior sill size.

@luckyudesignI was just going through a few other things and ran across this in help and it made me think of your post. Read the help file for "Lowered Ceilings". It will describe exactly what I suggested and has a similar diagram to your original post to help make it obvious. Quote from help:

You can define a lowered or dropped ceiling in a room without affecting the top height of the walls by specifying the lowered ceiling framing as a layer in the Ceiling Finish Definition

On 7/8/2023 at 10:01 AM, twnctyguy said:

Question:  How do I get rid of the piece of OSB (see pics below)?

That piece of OSB is floor sheathing from the room above. In order to remove it, that upper room would need to be an "Attic" room type which would automatically remove the floor structure. If you don't want to lose the upper room definition, you can draw an invisible wall about 12" in from the lower exterior wall. This will give you a small 'room' that can be defined as an Attic.

The location of this invisible wall can be clearly determined by taking a section view of the building and using some cad tools and/or measuring to find the best location to separate those upper rooms.

49 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

bit like how Chief, when you name a room a Garage it automagically decides for you that you need a Monolithic Slab foundation .....grrrrrrrrr.

The answer to this one is simple...ensure no OOB settings. If you re-define that room type in your template plan, or create and define your own Garage room type, you'll never encounter that issue.

29 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

I just don't think it should be happening in the 1st place ( same as the OP  )

Just curious...how could it not happen? The rooms don't align in plan view so what should Chief automatically adjust? I'm interested to hear suggested corrections for this. Perhaps Chief could have a built-in auto adjustment that pops up with a warning / choice.

• Should Chief automatically move walls for alignment?
• Should Chief automatically increase the depth of the floor platform in a portion of the building?
• Should Chief automatically create a step in the floor platform of the upper room?
• Should Chief automatically add depth to the ceiling platform of the room below?

There are really only 2 options for us to model these conditions. We can use invisible walls to break up rooms and align them in plan view between floor levels with multiple platform definitions, or we can define the platforms to suit our needs for rooms that fall outside of the defaults.

7 hours ago, luckyudesign said:

How do you maintain a 9' porch ceiling in these situations?

You can add a 12" framing layer to the ceiling finish layers for the Porch. In your example, there are overlapping rooms (plan view) at different heights. Something has to give...they can't be the same and different.

3 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

Thanks!  I had no idea there was a Materials List Layer Set.  I though the way what was reported to the ML was via that dialog that has categories.

In previous versions, the Layer Display dialog had an 'M' column that could be checked to include layers in materials lists, but of course those could be altered for every layer set, which increased the chance of user error. This was updated to a single layer set just for controlling materials list reporting. You could make copies of that layer set for specific purposes.

Feel free to mark that post as 'solved'!

11 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

The framing was built auto, then edited.  All the rims got changed because Chief built them a 1.125 engineered lumber.  I edited the joist layout and added the blocking for the railing post anchors.  That's all.

In the plan you made available, the layer I mentioned was not on in the Materials List layer set.

Gene, have you tried turning that layer on for the Materials List Layer set? (Framing, Deck at rear). Give it a shot and see what happens!

Put your mask on page 0 and use the drawing order tool to move it closer to the front than the default drawing order of 21.