Lighthouse

Thanks Lew, that's an interesting method. Makes sense, since the terrain doesn't know what floor level to relate to. I've never made a whole house into a symbol, but I will test that out. I just wonder if CA is the best program to model terrain in. It seems to want to do it's own thing a lot, ideally it would just do what you told it to. But I'm sure I'm using it wrong. For simple stuff I can get it to work, but on complicated plans there is always something that goes haywire and I waste lots of time trying to figure it out. This isn't something I could hire you to do, is it?

Hi, I've got a new project that has a very tough site plan to model, steep hill with various retaining walls. I have the surveryor's CAD drawing with lots of detail. My goal is to have someone deliver the site model to me before I begin design of the house. The site has two existing structures whose foundations I will be using, so those level pads should be in the model as well. I need someone who is waaay better than me to model this because it must be accurate. I don't plan to alter the site plan at all (since I'm using the existing foundations, so it would probably be ok if the site was modeled in a different program, if that was easier, and imported in CA. Anyone interested? Needs to happen within the next 7-10 days at the latest. I've attached the site plan, I will probably take a bunch of photos on the weekend to make it easier to visualize. thx Lunenburg-Sunset Lane-Tousignant.dwg

thanks, I can try that, but I didn't create those before and it worked, just weirdly stopped working. Now all my saved cameras and showing the same layers, which would seem to defeat the purpose. so I tried that and it seems to work, but very cumbersome. I think before (this morning) when I saved the camera view it saved the currently displayed layers, which is much faster and more intuitive.

I had this working, but now I can't figure it out. I want to control the layer display in saved cameras. In the "foundation view" saved camera, I don't want to show joists. In the "framing view" saved camera, I want to show joists. I thought the method was to choose the layers you want displayed, and then save the camera with a unique name. However, whenever I change the layer settings for a camera, it changes them for all the saved cameras. For example, when I have the joists turned off in the "foundation view" saved camera, but then turn them on in the "framing view" camera, it also turns them on in the "foundation view", which I don't want. What am I doing wrong?

In my project browser, under cameras, I have headings "overviews", "foundation", "first floor" "second floor". I am saving cameras showing the floor framing and roof framing for each floor, for example "1st floor roof framing". How do I control which heading the saved camera goes into? There doesn't seem to be a way to move the saved cameras within the project browser. When I save a first floor camera, it goes into "overviews", but I want it in "first floor". It sounds trivial, but I would like to have a lot of saved cameras for this complex plan, and want to be able to organize them in the browser. thanks!

Ah, that would explain it. One thing I'm curious about- how does it treat joists that span across multiple rooms, which would be typical. If a single framing member spans three rooms, and you check "retain floor/ceiling framing" just for one of the three rooms, what happens?

Michael, I don't see "retain floor/ceiling framing" anywhere in the room dbx. I'm using X10, do you know how long that feature has been around? Maybe time to upgrade, as that seems like an important tool. Re placing things manually- that's basically what I've been doing for the last 25 years, and have been making a concerted effort to get away from that. My Holy Grail is actually not to produce any "drawings" at all- I'm trying to create a perfect model that I just give to the contractor, with a bunch of saved cameras and saved plan views. (of course I'll have to produce something for the building dept). But I find on very custom projects that there is a huge number of sections that would be useful, but many are very similar to each other. I think it would be great if the contractor could look at the 3d framing model and see what the intention is. So on this project I'm wasting vast amounts of time trying to perfect the model because I think it will be useful over the course of the job and also to learn what the limitations of CA are.

Mick, Thanks so much for opening the plan and catching that! It makes me very happy when I find the underlying cause of a problem, so I know that CA is not just trying to drive me insane!

I have a model with a lot of edited framing that I don't want to lose. In one area, the sill plates are not appearing (they are turned on in layers). I would like to regenerate the framing for that area, without affecting the rest of the model. I can do that with roof planes, but there doesn't appear to be a way to limit auto framing to one area. Any suggestions? Also, I have a foundation room that is all one room, and the rooms above it are all at the same floor level. The joists are all the same size. Yet when I look at the foundation walls in 3d, some are higher than others even though the bottoms are all in the same plane. What can account for different wall heights within a single room, where the floor above is one level? I have attached the plan, it is the area with a circle around it on floor 0 that is the problem. thanks much for any help, I've spent the whole day on this so far :-( c.zip

I'm still a little perplexed/annoyed the Chief is showing the interior layers when it's not supposed to, but I will add that to my long list of workarounds

Ok, I just tried that in a test plan and the window did frame through both walls, so I guess that is the solution, THANKS!

right, but how do you deal with windows that have to go through both walls? I vaguely remember there is some way for a window to go through two walls, without creating two windows (one in the foundation wall and one in the stud wall)

thanks, tried that but it doesn't change it

I have finished basement walls that I have made by creating a wall that has 10" concrete for the main layer, and fir framing and drywall for the interior layers. In camera views, when I have checked "main layer only", and unchecked "wall layers", the interior layers (the 2x4 wall) still appears. Is it possible to get only the concrete portion to appear? Or do I have to create two separate walls (which I don't want to do because there are a lot of window openings)

got it, thanks very much for your help!

Where is the "ceiling tab". The only place I can see to define ceilings is in the room specification dbx, in the structure tab, there is a ceiling spec where I can define the ceiling structure. I created the ceiling there, but it doesn't seem to build anything when I rebuild floors and ceilings. what am I missing?

you guys are correct, as always! thanks! That is exactly what happened, I manually placed the joists (a while ago, forgot that I did that) and then adjusted the floor level. I just deleted all the joists and regenerated them and it fixed it. So that problem is solved. But just one other question (I'm really trying to learn how to perfect the model and not draw CAD sections)- is ceiling framing only available when you don't have a floor above? For example, let's say you had a 2x10 floor platform but you want to make a hung ceiling below that out of 2x4s. Would you make a lower ceiling height and then use ceiling framing? Or will it not work because it thinks the floor is the ceiling?

I'm trying to understand what CA shows in section. In the attached image, there appear to be two layers at the top of the joist, which I would assume are the subfloor and finish floor. However, one of the layers is below the top of the joist, which doesn't make sense. I also don't understand what all the lines are below the joist. I created a 3/4" space, as can be seen in the dbx, below the joists, because here in New England we run strapping (1x3) perpendicular to the joists, and then hang the blueboard on that. My questions are: -why does the subfloor appear to be flush with top of joist, instead of above? -does CA show the ceiling plane in section (I have it turned on , but is does not have a red mark) -what are the lines below the joist? (I thought they might be top plates, but I have wall framing turned off) thanks for any help!!!!!!

Hi, I started the design on a project in Exeter NH for a very nice couple, but don't have the time to continue on it as it's a long commute from the Boston area where I'm based. It's a renovation/addition on a Lindal Cedar "contemporary" house. The clients are great and have good taste. My fantasy is to find a NH based design build company that wants to take over the design and construction (to be clear, project is just in the planning stages). Anyone interested?

I got excited too soon. Actually, soffits were checked :-(. I tried it with checked and unchecked, rebuilding each time, didn't change anything. Oddly, a few of the roofs on the house do appear as wood, even though they seem to have identical settings to the roofs that appear white

Wow, not something I would have found in a million years! You the man!

Hi, When I generate a roof frame, the rafters appear as a white material, even though my rafter default is set to fir framing. I can't seem to globally select them to change them to fir, the material painter just does one at a time. There are hundreds.... How do I globally select and change material? I tried locking all layers but rafters and selecting them all, but I didn't have the option to change material. thx

hmmm, I never heard of a truss polyline so that's a good tip, I will check it out. I'm curious to see if there is an advantage of creating polyline solids. thx

I'm trying to create rafter tails on the high side of a roof, where I have a cantilevered overhang. I've tried reversing the roof pitch, and spinning the roof around, etc, but Chief always figures out how to put them on the low side where I don't want them. I know I can create individual rafters out of PS, but I'm trying to do things the right way (auto generate framing, instead of stick building the house on the computer). Any ideas much appreciated!