KilgoreTrout

You can always set your stair heights manually by turning off auto adjust heights in the stair dialog.

There is a setting for whether or not cameras display when the camera view is open (active). It's in the camera defaults. As for the rounded corners, I don't think they are very noticeable when you actually print only when you zoom in on a computer screen.

You don't need to mess with the heights. When the stairs join, the program should auto adjust the heights to what you want. Joining the stairs can be a little bit tricky. I think you need to have all of the settings match or they won't join. I also found that the snaps didn't work very well so I had to fuss with it a bit to get them lined up. Once they were lined up I pulled the straight section back and then I pulled it out until it snapped to the curved section and they joined. All said, I think you might be better off joining two straight sections and then curving after the fact using the alt drag method.

When I open up the default profile in X6, the origin is always in the lower left corner of my screen. I don't know why it would be different for you unless you changed the profile or it is somehow related to the screen size. I'm also not sure why it matters to anyone. I think the only thing that is important is that your plan is not very far away from the origin. And by very far away, I'm talking miles not inches. Weird things happen if you are way out in the middle of nowhere. I agree with Glenn on this one. What's the big deal? None of this origin stuff has anything to do with the original poster's problem.

I really hope that was a typo. The only reason to turn edit object parts on is because you want to break up a polyline and prevent lines from joining up. If you really do have it turned on, then turn it off and your problem will be solved. If that was a typo, and your lines are all really the same, I can't think of a good reason why they wouldn't join. One trick I like to use to see if my lines are really the same is to group select them open the dialog and see if any settings are "no change". No change means that the settings are different which is one reason they won't join. If it's none of those, post the plan.

You could try playing with the hardware edge smoothing setting. I think this affects some cards more then others. If that doesn't help, you might want to checkout the settings on your card itself. There should be some kind of advanced video card dialog that lets you play with it's settings. Also, I've seen more then one person on this forum discover that they were not actually using their good video card because it was not setup correctly.

You don't need sketchup. Chief will do shadows just fine. If you want them on in your previews, you can setup your preferences to do that.

Which version of Chief are you using? If I remember correctly, there was at least one version of Chief that had a bad symbol in the library where the 3D data did not match up with the plan view. I think you could correct this in the open symbol dialog but since you are a new user I would just recommend using a different symbol.

If you don't have any lights turned on, then the program will automatically create a default light so that your screen isn't black. I'm with Scott on this one. Post a plan. Then someone can show you exactly what you need to do.

I can't understand why making a rotated copy of the material did not work. I haven't had any problems doing this.

If all you want is a pretty picture, use the default sun and adjust as needed to get it to shine in your window. If you want a realistic model of the sun light, you need to use a sun angle. You need to set the correct lat and lon as well as the time and date. You can use several of them if you want to show different times and dates. Also, you will need to setup a north pointer if true north is not straight up in your plan. As far as getting it to actually shine in the windows, the first thing is to make sure it really would shine in the windows. If you turn on the shadow in your plan view, it's pretty easy to see where it is going to shine. As far as the camera views, I don't think it matters what type of camera you are using so you should be able to use a full camera inside your building to see the sun shinning in the window. You will probably want to use the raytrace view to get the best results.

You should watch some of the training videos regarding dimensions. Most of what you are asking is pretty basic stuff. It is easy to add in new dimensions to an existing dimension string. All you need to do is drag the main extension handle to a new location. The main extension handle is the triangle one that appears off the line near where you clicked on it. It is also easy to remove a dimension in a string. All you need to do is drag the extension handle marking the location you don't want off the location. As long as you don't drop it on another location that is valid, it will just go away.

Just to clarify, in the "Send to Layout" dialog, you should have the "Make Copy of Active Layer Set" box unchecked. As long as your view says you are using "Site Plan Layerset" and "Site Plan Anno" when you do the send, then I can't think of why you don't get these when you open up the view from the layout at some later time. You might want to post a plan or contact tech support because I am not seeing this kind of problem.

Are you copying your layer set when you send the view to layout?

Are your windows overlapping? And by overlapping, I don't just mean the obvious cases. Some shaped windows will behave strangely if there are other windows inside the area that they would cover if they were not shaped. I had a plan with 4 triangle windows that I wanted all next to each other and had lots of weird things happen anytime I tried to make simple changes. If this is not your problem, either post a picture or your plan.

I didn't download your plan but I would bet that the problem is that the "follow stair" railing is falling off the end of your stair. If the railing does not start and stop where it is still on the stair, it will fall down to the ground. Try pulling it back an inch or so to see if this solves your problem.

Not that I know of. Once you have a line style in your plan, it's there forever.

X6 works different than X5 did but I have not seen any problems yet. I suspect that the problem is that some people still don't understand how layer sets, active defaults, and annotation sets all work together. When you send a view to a layout, the program remembers what layer set and other defaults were active when you sent the view. It doesn't matter if your active defaults match any of the annotation sets. It doesn't even matter whether your annotation set is setup to use a specific layer set or not. When you open a view from layout, the program restores all of the defaults and the layer set to make them currently active. This may or may not match one of your annotation sets. The key is that the defaults and layer set will match what you had when you sent the view. The thing that might be confusing is if you are making a copy of the layer set when you send the view to layout. When you open the view from layout it will be using the copy and not the original layer set which means it probably doesn't match what your annotation set says. I don't think this is really a problem but it might be confusing if you don't understand what is going on. If this is what is happening, then don't make a copy of the layer set when you send the view.

I would use an arch block. It's trivial to make it have one label and show up in the cabinet schedule and I don't often use the material list. I can then explode it, make changes, and re-block it whenever needed. I have played around with cabinet symbols in the past and found that they are way more work then I want to do. They are also very difficult to setup and unless you do everything just right you will have problems.

Back to your original problem then... It probably has something to do with snapping or layers but I'm not sure what. I would post a simple test plan on this forum and I bet someone could figure it out pretty quick.

I do some custom cabinetry too. Most of the time I can get Chief to show the face frame how I want to build it without having to draw it using the cad tools. I only use cad lines when I actually need to dimension to the face frame. Have you tried turning on the layer for cabinet module lines while in an elevation view?

I have not seen this problem. Why are you drawing your own face frames and not letting Chief do it for you?

On my machine, the list of wall types is alphabetized and I don't know of any way to change this. I suppose you could use a naming convention that puts them in the order you want.

Just to be clear: You can change the text attributes (size, font, etc) using the layer (like Scott said). You can change the format of the length/angle in the general cad defaults (like Perry said).

I don't think any of the home designer versions let you export any 3D models. You probably need Chief premier or Chief interiors.