Lighthouse

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!

shoot, I should have figured out file associations. that worked, thanks

I have x10 and Viewer installed. I have the viewer so I can see the interface that my clients see when they view the plan, so I can walk them though how to use the viewer. However, since I installed Viewer, when I download a bonus library catalog and click to open it, it opens in viewer and does not appear in x10. I have checked "associate program with whatever" (the box that appears when you start CA). I have placed the downloaded content next to other libraries in the x10 folder, but it still does not appear in x10?

After feedback from the forum (thanks to Tommy and Solver), I think Saved Plan Views would be better than annotation sets for my workflow. I like the ability to have multiple plan views open in tabs, and to have external reference files. I have many questions about actually creating and implementing these. Does anyone have time to work with me on this today? I'm happy to pay for the consult. Thanks!

I'm wasting a lot of time in producing drawing sets because I have not set up annotation sets. I've watched the videos but it looks labor-intensive to do, and I know many of you have already done it. I would like to pay someone to walk me through it, or better yet just let me copy theirs and show me how to modify. I'm better at designing than producing drawings, so I think someone else's defaults (in terms of font size, dimension defaults, etc) would work fine for me. I mostly do modern work, like to show details in 1 1/2" and 3" scale. Ideally would do this in the very near future. Thanks, David Hornstein light-house-design.com davidhornstein@verizon.net

Hi Steve, thanks for the reply. It's not working for me. I have the 1/4" scale default set to a new layer called "framing text". I have verified that the annotation set is using the 1/4" scale default, and that the default is set to "framing text". However, when I draw a text arrow, it is on the "text" layer, not the "framing text" layer. It appears that there is no way to set the default layer for the text arrow. You are saying that the text arrow uses the text default layer. But that is not what is happening for me

I'm sure there's an easy answer I'm missing... I've put text on my framing plan on a separate layer called "framing text", so it doesn't show in the default floor plan. However, I cannot get the text arrow to default to that "framing text" layer, it wants to stay on the "text" layer. There does not seem to be a way to set the default layer for the text arrow, and even though my text is set on the "text framing" layer, the arrow is still on the "text" layer. The same is true for text leader lines. How do I get my arrows and leader lines to default to my "framing text" layer? Thanks!!

it's an interesting phenomenon. When I have "reach" set to 6", it easily finds the line my cursor is on, but when reach is set to 36", it finds a line further away. So I guess my understanding of 36" reach was "reach anything within 36", starting with the closest thing", but CA's version is "look for something 36" away to snap to". Good to know, and thanks again

Robert, I'm a complete idiot! I saw "reach", and confused it with the extensions to and from object. So that solves it. But the odd thing is that it still doesn't explain why it would initially choose a line further away than choosing the line I put the cursor on.

Sorry, to clarify, this is in CAD detail, not elevation or section. I was referring to an elevation in a cad detail

How do I control what line in a cad detail the dimension snaps to? I often have a problem in cad details that the dimension snaps to part of the drawing much further away than the thing I'm trying to measure. For example, I have an elevation of a house in a cad detail. I draw two cad lines (on the cad default layer) 10' from the house to show the height of a porch roof. I pull a dimension from one cad line to another. Instead of snapping to those lines, it snaps to a point on the elevation instead. When I click on the dimension line to change the snap point, it doesn't recognize the line as something to snap to. In the dimension dbx, I have "cad objects, lines/sides" checked. It seems like there should be a way to control have far the dimension tool "reaches" for an object to measure. Thanks!

Is there a way to globally explode cad blocks in a cad detail? I have a problem where some of the line weights of the cad details that I send to layout are too heavy. On the layout page, when the show line weights is toggled off, everything looks fine. However, when I print to pdf, I see the heavier line weights. I have tried selecting all the elements on the cad detail and globally changing the line weights, but it doesn't change the lines that are in cad blocks (there are lots of cad blocks). I can explode each cad block individually and change the line weights, but that's going to take a very long time. So I wondering if there is a way to: 1) get the pdf print to look like the layout page when show lines weights is toggled off 0r 2) globally explode all cad blocks, or somehow change the line weight of cad blocks without exploding them or 3) some other method thanks!!!!!!!!

right, that's what I did, but as I tried to show in the image, the size of the hashmarks in the 5" dimension line (which is using the arrow dimension default) is smaller than the temp dimension arrow

How do I control the size of temporary dimensions? I know I can toggle them on and off, but I don't see where I can control the size. When I'm working on a CAD detail, the temporary dimension appear very large (particularly the hash marks) and obscure what I'm working on. I would think they would match the size of the dimension default, but they don't. See the 7/16" temp dimension in the attached pdf. The hash marks are larger than on the 5" dimension. thanks! temp dimension.pdf

Michael, thanks much for looking into that, I'm actually on Windows 10 so I will check it out.

yes, but I need to jump all around the project, so it would be lots of screenshots. Also, sometimes I want to zoom in, and without the context of where I started to zoom, the screenshot would be hard to understand. I'm kind of surprised there isn't something that just lets you draw on the "screen", regardless of what program you are in.

I've run a design/build business and then design only business for the last 40 years in MA. I do all the design and have a structural engineer stamp the structural plans. For a simple addition it costs about $500, for a complicated house it could run a couple thousand. Very few architects I know stamp their own plans around here, they all hire engineers. In some cases, the building inspector will require an engineer even if the Architect stamps the drawings. It's good to understand loads, so you can design stuff that is easily engineered. For example, it's good to be able to read span tables to figure out how deep your joists should be, so you can set your floor levels correctly and not have to go back and change stuff if the engineer says you need deeper joists, etc. CA is just a tool, so knowing the program doesn't mean that you will be able to design houses that work on a functional and aesthetic level. For example, knowing how to use a table saw does not make you a cabinetmaker. So while it's good to think about what tools you want to use, I would really focus on how you are going to learn how to design.

I use Skype etc. for screen-sharing collaboration with remote partners. I need to be able to freehand draw on the screen, add notes, circle things, etc very quickly. I don't think the text and drawing tools in CA are quick enough for this kind of thing. I bought a Wacom tablet thinking I could just draw over CA, but just realized it doesn't work that way, it has to draw in a program that supports it. (I could use it in CA, but CA doesn't have a freehand drawing mode that I'm aware of). Does anyone know how to do this kind of marking up a screen share, where you have pretty accurate control with the drawing? (sometimes I need to make small, careful corrections for the other person to see). Actually I may have just found the answer here: http://www.goldgingko.com/screen-marker/

Thanks for the replies. Alaskan Son gave me great pointers and it came out pretty good. A couple points for anyone interested: 1- despite the naysayers, the direct mitering of gutters into rakes was standard practice on many homes before 1950 or so. Special rake profiles were developed to match standared wood gutter profiles. However, these are not to be confused with the flat bottom wood gutters that exist today. The old gutters had much more ogee on them. see woodgutters.net. So to be clear, you do not have to put a little flat return before going up the rake if you use the proper profiles and know the miter angles (sort of a lost art, but it's a beautiful detail) 2) I created the gutter and rake profiles in cad on an elevation view. I made them into polyline solids, gave them some length, then converted to solids. I rotated them in elevation views and used my xyz coordinates to move them into place. Now, the tricky part. I wanted them to miter at the corner, but because they are different profiles (and hollow) the solid subtraction tool would not work. I made another solid which was a 45 degree slicing blade that I used solid subtraction on to cut each of the moldings individually, then I moved them until the aligned. Obviously and absurd amount of work, but kind of satisfying

hmmm, nice pic. John Moriarty is actually my partner on this, that's his wood mock up in the photo. I've created a new product called Duragutter that is a heavy duty aluminum version of a traditional wood gutter, which is designed to miter into John's wood rakes. Shoot, the plan is in X11 and I've got X10. How did you make the gutter? I do need to be able to show at different pitches

This is an invitation to CA power users to see my posting under services needed. I have a tricky question and I don't feel right asking someone to answer for free, so I posted it there (but I don't know if anyone really checks that, so I posted here also :-))

I'm creating some technical literature and need to model some molding intersections. It may be possible in CA, but I don't think so (unless maybe with symbol overlap subtraction). A friend tried it for me in sketchup but also couldn't quite get it to work. I need a perfect model, with no faking, that I can get photorealistic renders from. The job is to model a variety of molding intersections. The first one I need is kind of a lost traditional detail- it's the intersection of a wood gutter to a wood rake molding. Many Victorian houses had this detail, but as the rake rotted away, or the gutter was replaced with aluminum, the detail was lost. (btw, I know there are other ways to detail this intersection, but I'm not interested in them in this case). Please see the attached photos- one shows a real world condition, and the other shows a shop mock-up. I will provide the exact profile for the gutter and the rake, I just need help in accurately creating the intersection. Note I have tried shadow board, molding polylines, etc but none make a perfect mitre. If you think you can do this, let's discuss compensation.

ahhh, finally got it!! thanks!! I didn't realize that baseline angle is in the "z" direction, I thought it was "x" or "y".