KristjanM

Perfect. That does the trick. Thank you.

I don't have any walls in my energy file as I am drawing lines, slabs etc on top of the plan pdf. This gives me plan view areas, volumes and lengths. I use p-lines for things which go around corners (eg. gutter total length which go around a hip roof). I do need to calculate certain area items which I have to do in an elevation view such as the total wall area of the foundation which is above grade. I total these in a schedule. This is all good. What I am trying to achieve is a reduction in the number of items I have to draw on the elevation views. For example - a house with 14 corners which has 8 wall areas which have sloping exterior grade. These areas all have to be drawn on an elevation view. The other areas have consistent depth above grade which if I could get a p-line perimeter multiplied by the area height, this would give me an area to total with fewer items to draw. I could use a rectangle as you suggest but the fewer steps the better. I can give a p-line a height custom field but even if this field is defined as a number, I can't multiply this height by the perimeter and get a number. I have the feeling this isn't possible. Might have to rethink my workflow.

I do something similar for areas which have a sloping grade level but am looking for a way to use a plan view for areas which have a consistent height.

I use Chief for design work principally but also use it to generate data to input to energy modeling software. I use polylines and slabs to generate lengths, areas and volumes drawn over the plan pdf.. This works very nicely. What I would really like to generate is a surface are from a polyline or some other strategy to get a surface area. For example, to get the above ground area of a foundation wall, I could draw a polyline and give it a height thusly generating an area. I could use some version of a pony wall but it gets tedious and I am looking for simplicity. I tried assigning a custom field (defined as a number) and multiplying this by the line perimeter but this doesn't work (for me). Any clever suggestions out there?

Just tried it both ways, object snaps on and off. Wall doesn't snap either way. Curious. Well, the wall does snap but it is very finicky. Works about one in five times. Changed my pixel snap distance to 30 and now the snap shows up. I had it set at 10 which was obviously set too low. My issue is solved I think. Thanks to all for your help.

PS. While construction lines aren't a usual thing in residential drawings, I find them useful (I come from a commercial construction background) and the engineer likes them.

Yes, point to point absolutely works. Thanks. Walls are already set to outside main layer. With bump on, wall snaps to outside of wall, not outside of main layer. With bump off, wall doesn't snap at all. Looks like point to point wins for the moment.

I do like to use construction lines to locate important junctions. The snapping behavior in Chief doesn't seem to help. If I move a wall to align with a construction line, the wall snaps to the outside layer of the wall. I cannot make the wall's main layer align with the construction line which is what I want. Am I missing something here?

Yes, that was it. Print in color was turned off. I never fiddle with that setting so don't know why it was off. Anyway, my gray fill is back. Thanks for the clue.

In my title sheet and view labels, I have a light gray box behind the text. Today, when I export my layout sheets to PDF, the boxes of grey fill only display the outline and don't display any fill. I have used layout to pdf successfully last week in X16. First thought - updated some drivers a few days ago, maybe that's the issue. Doesn't appear to be. Restart the computer. Doesn't help. Try a file in X15. Works perfectly. Install X16 on my laptop which has a different set of drivers. Same missing grey fill. Tried to print with my pdf driver (not the chief one), doesn't work. Stumped at the moment.

Joe, I will try your directions out. Your template will be my homework. Thanks.

Okay, interesting. If I put refenced into the number format macro, it now works in the text box. However, now it doesn't work in the label. Seems like two macros are required for the different uses. Thanks for the help.

I have a rectangle with a label - macro values for perimeter and area plus two macros for perimeter and area using number formatter. All values display correctly. In a text box, I place exactly the same text as in the label. The two built in macros for perimeter and area display but the number format macros don't work. Can this actually work? Different syntax in the text box?

Thanks for your comments. Kind of what I thought but you never know.

Two part question - 1) For an object (a closed polyline for example), the object properties gives several items which are classified as measurements. These items can produce a totals row in a schedule. In my case, my area displayed would be in sq. ft. I also need sq metres which I can get by doing some kind of conversion in a custom field or using a object information field. All is good as I have the two numbers displayed in the schedule. However, the sq m field doesn't total even if I convert it to a float. It seems that only measurement fields will total and there is no way to define a custom field as a number. Correct or not? Is there a way to get a total from custom field? 2) I have total displayed in a schedule. Is there any way to grab this number for use as a variable?

Joe, I know you are a busy guy but did you ever finish up the macro list? I've done some forum searching but can't find anything. I am definitely interested.

Keep in mind that the design has to be signed off from a designer registered in Ontario.

Chopsaw - Yes, that works now. I had played around with leading / trailing zeros but was missing the Decimal_places = 0. Thanks for your help. Eric - A nice neat solution. I had a bit of an issue making this work until I changed the macro Context: to Owner Object. All is good now. Thanks. Not sure why Chief doesn't supply this format natively. I can do this in Autocad, Archicad, Revit, Vectorworks and Softplan out of the box. Chief is really good in so many other ways that I can put up with the few workarounds that present themselves.

Chopsaw - Upon further thought, I realized that manipulating a string value, considering the possibilities, was not really a trivial problem. A number formatting approach might be better. So... your post has provided that. Thanks for that. This method works except in the case where the measurement involves 0 inches as in a door 3-0X6-8. The zero does not display. It shows as 3X6-8. Not good. I can't find anything in the number formatter methods to force the display of a zero value. Still a puzzle. para-CAD - Good suggestion. That method is clear in intent but I've never been a fan of the very small superscript.

Okay, not entirely elegant. If the door width includes inches of 10 or 11, the insert references the wrong placement for the - insert . EG, 2'10" x 6'8". So for this approach, you would need a macro which would test the second and third member of the automatic_label string and see if they were 10 or 11. Then you could apply appropriate insert numbers to get the proper result. A little more figuring to do.

Chopsaw - Figured it out. Plenty elegant for me.

Chopsaw - Yes, that works. I must say that I find nothing recognizable in your macro. Time for more exploration. Thanks. Eric - A valid question but I would say that typically, door or window sizes are listed as nominal. Any fractions involved would be displayed in the object schedule.

When I was using Revit, an available format for a door or window size displayed as 2-8X6-8. I have always found this quite clear. In Chief I can have 28x68 or 2'-8"x6'-8". The first example is clear to the builders I work with but to others, sometimes they think it means 28"x68". Not good. The second example is sometimes too long for my liking. I've spent some significant time trying a number of ruby instructions to get a display like my Revit example but am not successful. Part of the problem is the lack of any comprehensive help about Chief's ruby implementation. Can someone show me the magic macro to duplicate my Revit output?

Embedding the floor joists in the concrete wall is definitely a prairie thing. Never seen it in BC. If nothing else, all this stuff keeps your brain ticking over.

BC also has their own code but I believe the long term goal is to harmonize all the provinces under the NBC. The 2025 NBC (think the year is right) will incorporate a version of the step code with increasing targets for thermal and mechanical effficiency.