rlackore

I'm not running interiors, but it should be there? Otherwise, shoot an elevation, draw the shape with a polyline rectangle or CAD box, then select the shape and use Convert Polyline>Convert To>Material Region.

IF you don't have any openings to deal with (windows, niches, doors), using a molding polyline can work: The advantages: 1) each tile section is a separate molding, and the tile pattern will behave; 2) it's easy to control the height and placement of each molding; 3) molding polylines can sometimes be easier to work with than material regions; 4) it's easy to wrap around corners and to copy/paste between rooms. The disadvantages: 2) it's more difficult to make work with openings.

Eric, thanks for posting an X9 plan. Your less aggressive sill slope (7 degrees) and fatter wall (4" masonry cavity) results in a less noticeable bottom gap in the wall opening. For the OP's wall - an IRL brick sill slope of 15 degrees and a 1" to 2" EIFS thickness - I believe a molding polyline is a better solution if accuracy in Cross-Section and Ortho/3D views are important.

Oh, placed in plan. Obviously, that's what confused me about your post. Since I can't open X10, I can't see the profile.

Can you clarify? 1. You can change the materials in the dialog boxes, but the changes you make don't appear in an 3D view, or 2. The program won't open the Select Material dialog box. In other words, is the program not providing you the opportunity to make material selections, or are the material selections you are making not appearing/applying?

Yes,. apron is unchecked.

Eric, I can't open X10. But, I'm confused - in this post: you imply that you're not using a molding polyline, but in your second post you state "I placed the profile just in front of the window". Which is it: a molding polyline with a profile, or a profile specified in the window dbx?

Eric, that doesn't look like any sill I have in my default Library: The problem I can't solve with Chief's sill is that if I use a profile for a brick sill as built IRL (15 degree angle), I get a gap in the wall beneath the sill (presumably because Chief uses the profile's bounding box to calculate the opening, not the actual cross-section depth of the profile where it intersects the wall): Have you found a way to overcome this?

Chief won't do this for you - their window sill functionality is woefully inadequate for cases like this. If it's important enough, you can use a Molding Polyline. The added difficulty with an angled sill is that as you raise it into position you have to account for the bottom edge of the wall opening poking through: ...and when you raise it enough to obscure the wall edge, it will intrude on the bottom of the window jamb, so if you really want it to look nice, you need to thicken the bottom jamb so everything appears even all the way around the window: Good luck.

I think the best solution is for Chief to modify the Wall Definition dbx to allow us to define multiple sheathing layers, then we can have both the osb and the rigid treated identically. Also, the soffit should stop at the sheathing layer, not the main layer.

In X9 I get the sheathing stopping at the soffit: ...but, maybe there's a checkbox or other setting I'm missing.

This isn't a fancy fuselage shape like Michael gives you, but it is a cylinder, and it does give you a floor to set things on: submarine.plan The fuselage is made of curved roofs. The room is defined with invisible walls. There are several compromises with this approach (I can't get the floor to show up so I drew in a polyline solid), but there are advantages also (a floor to set things on, for example).

I used to define it in my wall layers as a gap, like this: Now I don't bother with separate exterior wall layers; instead I define a single-thickness exterior wall layer (includes sheathing, cladding, etc.) and use a "wall key" with details to illustrate the various exterior assemblies. This keeps my floor plans a bit more readable, and I've found it easier to change the detail when the project conditions change rather than mess with changing the wall definitions.

I realize my answer didn't actually help you solve your problem. Here are a couple symbols that may help. Lithonia SSS square straight steel pole with 4" shaft: Lithonia SSS.calibz. The symbol is a 10' pole, but the stretch plane is set up to allow any height. Lithonia KAD-LED area luminaire: Lithonia KAD-LED.calibz. The symbol is the head only - you have to insert it and position it to the pole (offset from the pole base to the pole shaft is 2-1/2"). Lights are included to approximate a Type III distribution, 4000K color temperature. You'll have to adjust the light lumens depending on the mounting height to approximate your desired footcandles at the ground. FYI, 250 watts worth of LEDs is about 20,000 lumens (my picture approximates 35 watts and 4200 lumens). Good luck.

Chief is ill-suited to accurately representing lighting. If the township needs a visual photometric plan, most manufacturers provide IES files and other resources, but obviously you need to lock in the manufacturer, lamp type, output, spacing, mounting height, distribution, etc. Chief won't do any of this for you - you either need specialty software (some manufacturers provide this), or you need to hand-jamb it the old-fashioned way with isoplots. Does the township have a dark sky ordinance? What is the allowable footcandle intrusion on adjacent properties? What is the minimum required illumination on the ground? These are all questions that need answering before you can begin developing the photometric plan.

It's personal preference, but I always place the first story(in your case the ground floor/basement) on Chief's Floor 1. I reserve Floor 0 strictly for the foundation that is below the first story (stem walls, footings, pads, etc.).

Changing the roof shingle thickness to 1/4" fixes the problem for me. Keep in mind that you have to make the change manually for each roof plane, or use the Edit All Roof Planes tool; making the change in the Defaults will not modify existing roofs.

Can you use the Walls options in the Dimension Defaults?

This would be a good Suggestion (it should work for CAD Boxes also).

Certain color ranges will print as black (when printing color to b&w), while others will print as white. I once adjusted all my color fills to print as white when printed to b&w, but when we changed printers that effort was wasted, because as Michael observed, different printers will print differently.

You can save yourself a bit of work by replacing identical objects per floor. For instance, if you have five identical toilets on a floor, select one of them and adjust the fill as desired, then save it to your library. Next, select the toilet (in the plan), and use the Replace From Library tool. It's not a global solution, but AFAIK it's the best Chief offers.

If you can't post the plan, at least post a screen shot or an image of the printed output.

You haven't specified exactly which materials are a mystery, but looking down the list you posted, I quickly found the following: 602 Greentea Concrete 2980 North Cove - 520 Italian Stucco 2713 Bona Vista - B37 Concrete 2091 Soiree - 701 Iron Horse They can all be discovered if you follow the advice of my first reply to your post. Yes, you have to dig a bit, but none of them are a mystery.

I've never exported elevations. Plan views do require clean-up. Most of my exports are used by subs (MEP, civil, etc.) who don't really care how pretty the linework is - they use them as a background to lay out their own work. If you're exporting to folks who need to manipulate your work, or if you need to manipulate it before passing it on, then I feel your pain. Writing a LISP routine should be quick and help automate the process - the real work is in setting up Chief to provide the export in a format that works for your process.

There is no easy way to accomplish what you want. When I export to AutoCAD, I don't normally use the Split Wall Assemblies Into Layers option - as you've observed, it provides far too many layers with unhelpful names. There is a painful workaround: 1. Set up you wall definitions to use a unique color for each "component" of the wall assembly (or as many of the components as matter to you): 2. Export to AutoCAD, and don't split the wall assemblies. You'll get something like this: 3. In AutoCAD, create and set up your layers as you like: 4. Then use CHPROP with a color filter to select the components and assign them to the appropriate Layer and the color to BYLAYER: 5. This series of operations gives you what you want, albeit it requires some setup in Chief that may, or may not, be worth your time: I think I'll request a solution to this in the Suggestion Forum. Good luck.