DzinEye

Yep... that was a nice feature in AutoCad.

There is another workaround you could try. Put a section of a very thin invisible wall parallel to the porch wall and right up against it, and that should keep the other railing from cutting into it.

Hahaha....ya that helps a bit!

Wow... learning another new thing. Thanks. Even reading that it's at the bottom of the wall definition it's hard to see... I looked 3x and finally found it. Because it's indented from the other options you really don't even notice it... which is probably why I don't know about it. I can think of several times where I would've used this had I known about it.

As an outside reader.... that is exactly how it APPEARED to me as well. Goes to show how email and electronic communication in general can be so easily misinterpreted.

Try grabbing the diamond on one of your railing walls and pulling it over the top of the other walls (basically re-tracing those walls).

If you like hot keys, it's the way to go for this. I have S,W for Select Window (Contained) and S,X for Select Crossing (intersected). Very easy keys to hit without moving your hands. Not sure, but may interfere with other Chief hot keys if you use the OOB hotkeys though.

I should've added; Once you get the auto-dormer set, you can explode it then modify the main roof it's placed in so it doesn't pass in front of the dormer, and then you can stretch the dormer window down into the lower wall.

That is a shed roof dormer. Chief will auto-build that style of dormer if you set up that way. You're saying there's not enough 'real-estate' to fit the auto-dormer, so what you need to do is place an auto-dormer somewhere on the roof where it will fit, double click it to open the floating dormer dbx and change the roof type to shed... make the pitch low, say 3:12 and under the walls part of the dbx set it to be quite narrow... you can adjust it bigger after you place it. Now you can erase the dormer you randomly placed and you should now be able to place a tiny dormer where you want it. Now you can gradually enlarge it as you watch how it's fitting. Once you get a message that it doesn't fit, undo and you'll know you've maximized the size. BTW... The picture you attached almost looks like there's no thickness to the walls of the dormer, so if you need that specific look you'll have to create a thin wall type to assign to your dormer.

Good morning Mark, It sounds like the OP had found the cove profile you shared. It sounds more like he was wondering how to use it.

Okay... just did this exercise. As long as the mullion has zero thickness it will disappear whenever the Inside Depth OR Outside Depth OR total of both exceeds the jamb width. So you could leave one at zero and make the other 6" and it goes away. It worked with large numbers (12") and with negative numbers all it did was move it out into space beyond the door on one side or the other... but still if the total of the negative number plus the other exceeds the jamb width it will disappear.

I was just now playing with this newfound dutch door ability (I'll probably never use one, but it may lead to other discoveries/uses). Anyway, I was confounded by something and was just about to ask how the heck to get rid of that thin bit of frame between the doors and then realized you'd provided a clue here. So, after searching and then reading a previous post about mull depth got it sorted out. Interestingly, in that post Dermot said to set mull depth to "0" to get rid of it, but that didn't work for me. Others in the post had success with setting it to 1"... and another 3". I only had success using 3". What about you? Has anyone figured out what's the magic to this 'mull depth' thing?

Aha!.. interesting. Thanks. I'll have to give it a try.

That makes me feel better! I began with X7... really X8 because it came out shortly after I started and I swear that sometimes I still feel like a beginner. The more I learn the more I realize I don't know. I don't even begin to touch on the capabilities that many of you guys use this for.... framing layouts and material lists, costing etc.. I'm just happy being able to get a 3D model and from that get my basic set of plans done like I used to do with 2D AutoCad.

That's interesting Eric... how'd you get the lower panel to swing on the door handle side instead of the hinge side?

Perfect. That's how it's done. Are you finished? You may want to give your posts and beams some paint rather than pressure treated lumber?

Nice review Eric. There are just SO MANY ways of setting these things up... it does get confusing. I know... I know... some will argue that it's nice to have the flexibility to do things in different ways, but it sure adds a heck of a lot of complication too.

That's pretty slick Gene. It just seems to me like it would take a lot of time to get all those pieces oriented correctly. Do you do these layouts for every project that has plumbing? I too like to have the vents all tied together so there's only one or two roof penetrations... and located on a rear facing roof plane.

Don't worry about this... that is because Eric shows the new roof building into the existing roof rather than over it. You have it right. Leave the cricket roof as you have it, but return the new deck roof to the shape it was before you joined it with the cricket.

I wonder about that too

THIS height...

Also... if you haven't already sorted it out... You can make it easier by converting an elevation view to a cad detail and using a couple of lines and take a measurement to get the needed height exactly right

Adjust the 'height' in the arch setting

Wow...yep... the word crazy is apropos there Gene. Very nice!... but who the heck pays for that kind of detail?

You actually CAN get it to autobuild, but it takes special prep (is that a workaround?). Probably not worth the effort. If you want to try it; 1) Build an invisible wall to form a room on the outside of building where you want said roof to form. 2) Adjust this wall to be your desired overhang distance X - 1" from your exterior wall in the area you want the overhang to form. 3) Select the new room you've created and set the room to Open Below room type. 4) Select the new invisible wall, open the Dbx, select the Roof panel and set the roof pitch to match what you want, and set the overhang to be 1" Now autobuild your roof