rlackore

Glen and Michael, I appreciate the help. It's a clever method, but I'm not sure it's worth having an accurate mullion depth if I lose the frame in both plan and 3D view. Creating symbols out of every window group (again, I have 63), is just too time consuming. I'm going to leave my request in the Suggestion forum because I feel it's an issue that Chief should address. Thank you.

Nope, I didn't. Frame>Fit to Wall doesn't make a difference. Setting the Y Stretch Plane to -1" does. Now the remaining issues are: 1. I don't have control over the interior vs exterior trim materials, or the sill materials. 2. I need to build the actual drywall returns into the symbol to fix crazy z-fighting where the frame doesn't cover the wall depth. 3. Figure out if all this hassle is worth it for the 61 unique windows groups in my project. Thanks for your help, Joe.

I can't get that to work. I created the symbol in a wall with a total depth of 6-1/2". Here's a pic of it inserted into the 6-1/2" wall: When I insert the symbol into a my 11" deep ICF wall, the mullions adjust to that depth: This behavior is easily confirmed by cutting a couple sections: But, maybe I did something wrong. I'm also having a problem with the symbol's CAD block position in plan, but that's a separate issue. windows.plan

Yes - drywall returns.

Those walls are set as Invisible. Uncheck Wall Specification>General>Options>invisible and they will show up. AFAIK, turning on the layer Walls, Invisible doesn't matter in 3D view, only plan.

Essentially, yes.

You inset the windows within the wall. I'm keeping the windows flush with the outside of the ICF form for flashing purposes and to provide a ledge on the interior.

What would be nice is if we could work with window groups in a fashion similar to how we can work with cabinets: divide horizontal, divide vertical, adjust widths and depths until we get the overall divisions correct, then "insert" the actual windows into each division just like adding an appliance. This would work great for storefronts, also. Ideally, the overall opening in the wall would be treated like a punched opening, which would solve my deep interior mullion issue.

Yes, I need the structural mull: Exposure Category C, top of a hill with about 1/3 mile fetch. Regardless, setting the distance between the windows to 0" doesn't remove the deep interior mullion:

Alright, I check the Bucking Window thread. It's really not pertinent to my issue.

Bill, Setting the distance between the windows means I can't control the width required for a structural mull. I check Scott's thread. Thanks.

Bill, I already tried the adjusting frame depth - it doesn't help. Here's a pic with all the windows un-mulled, frame depth at 3", not fit to wall:

Select the Room, open the Room Specification dbx, then go to the Materials tab, select Component>Room>Walls, click on the Select Material button, then in the Select Material dbx click on the Plan Materials tab, scroll all the way up to the top of the Material Name list and select Use Default, then click OK and back out of all the dbxs.

I'm placing large window groups into an ICF wall. As built in the field it's a single punched opening and the depth of the window interior mullions will be set by the structural mull, probably a single 2x4 or 2x6. My problem is that Chief generates the interior mullions the full depth of the wall. I've tried messing around with settings, workarounds, etc., but I can't discover a way to "fix" this issue. If anyone has a solution, I'd appreciate learning about it. windows.plan

Chief should be able to handle modeling the buildings. IF you can accurately model the terrain in Chief, then the sea-level rise can be easily simulated (not animated, though) be creating a 3D plane and adjusting it's elevation - this can be used to illustrate the shoreline encroachment. I think the kicker is the terrain modeling. If you don't need absolute accuracy, or if you have an existing terrain dataset, then Chief should be adequate.

Generic Central Vacuum Power Unit. Hangs on wall. CentralVacPU.calibz

Here's a generic central vac power unit you can hang on your wall. CentralVacPU.calibz

If this is the problem you're referring to: ...just think about it for a moment. Clearly you can't have the loft railing extending beyond the roof line, right? You'll need to stop the railing wall short of the roof plane. There are a lot of other issues that should be cleaned up, such as aligning the second floor walls with those below, closing the second floor by making the north wall a Room Definition wall, etc.

Here are two walls, in plan view, one with framing generated: Turn on your object snaps so you can select the same relative point on both walls. In this example, I'll use Endpoint snaps. Activate the General Framing tool: While holding down the shift key, marquee select around the wall with the framing. This will select only the wall framing. Release the shift key. Now, with the framing still selected, activate the Copy/Paste tool: Now the framing has been copied to the clipboard. Now activate the Point-to-Point Move tool: Click on the endpoint of the wall with the framing: Then click on the same endpoint of the wall without the framing. You've just copied the framing from one wall to the other: Those are the basics. You can adapt this procedure to your specific situation.

I'm glad you answered your own question - sometimes experimenting is the best way to learn. Can you clarify the problem that was introduced by my solution? What was taken from the basement level and put at the foyer level? Here's a shot of my result: Perhaps my explanation was muddled.

I'm on a PC (and X7), but doesn't the Mac version also have the ability to export libraries? On my computer (again, not a Mac), the user library is in the subfolder Database Libraries.

One option is to move the closet to the basement level. 1. Go to the first floor, select this wall, and make it No Room Definition: 2. Go to the basement and extend this wall over to the exterior. This creates the closet: 3. Open the new closet dbx and change the floor level to 1' 6", the Stem Wall to 12' 10", and the Floor Finish and Floor Structure to the appropriate values: These steps will give you a closet at the landing level while preserving the exterior walls:

I'm not a roof guru, but I agree with Eric. Chief can't solve every roof configuration automatically. Turn off automatic rebuild, and it takes about one minute to fix the roof:

Well, good luck getting your request fulfilled - there are several "light commercial" features that just as pressing. If you really want this to happen, you need to post this in the Suggestion Forum.

I think the easiest method is to draw the section as a closed polyline, then convert the polyline to a polyline solid to give it depth. You could also save the closed polyline in your user library and use it as a molding profile. You could also use solid primitives and boolean operations to create the shape, but then you can no longer dynamically change the length of the object.