rlackore

Yes, the actual plan file. You can zip it first if it's large. Another option is to DropBox it and give us a link.

Does it matter why? We all work differently. We all have weird situations that pop up that require a lot of effort. Rob may have a very good reason to model the soffit framing, and it may require a long, detailed explanation that isn't relevant to the problem. BTW Rob, I trained and served with many Marines off and on over the course of my Army career - you fellas are a breed apart. Thanks for your service, and a happy belated Veterans Day to you.

Please post the plan, it will be much quicker and easier for us to help.

What Tommy said; but be aware that you can only export folders from you're User Library - not individual items (unless they are sitting alone in a folder).

Unfortunately, CA doesn't do networking and collaboration very well. My office has six seats of CA, and the only way for us to share user-created content is to export items from our User Libraries and import the content individually, then delete the old content. Major PITA - it makes standardization of library content very difficult. CA definitely needs the ability to share libraries stored on a network, much like it allows the use of shared pattern files.

I would suggest the Stafford County GIS mapping site. The lot ID is 17 45N, address is: 260 TACKETTS MILL ROAD STAFFORD VA 22556-5925 Two foot topo is available, and the site is pretty clear so the aerial gives you a good view. Do a print screen, overlay it in Chief, and you can get pretty darn close. The GIS measuring tools might help also.

Honestly, I would call Mark L. Perry, L.S., and put the question to him. A land surveyor (or whoever is out in the field working for him), should know enough to shoot both distance and azimuth (or at least bearing) from identified, established points. But, maybe he wasn't being paid to locate the house? In that case, you get what you pay for. Oops, my bad, I just noticed the "House Location Survey" text. I guess whoever paid for this definitely didn't get what they paid for.

This is a screen shot of our setup from your attached layout: Notice the Drawing Margins, Right and Botttom, are set to 6". After you've selected the printer and made any changes you need to to the printer settings, click on the Populate From Printer button. You should now be golden. Bottom line is, the printer margins were FUBAR.

It's very difficult to notice in plan, but if you zoom in/out around the intersection you may eventually notice a very slight misalignment between the two walls: To align them, select the interior wall (or exterior, whichever way you want to go) and drag using the handle where my cursor/cross hairs are in this picture: When you drag, and it doesn't take much, the wall will "snap" into alignment; notice the little red x in this picture which indicates alignment with the interior surfaces of the two walls: ...then release the mouse button, and everything should be aligned.

This is because the north-south exterior wall doesn't align perfectly with the north-south interior wall. Just drag one or the other so the main layers align, and your issue will be fixed.

To fix the half-walls, open the wall dbx and change the railing height to 45", or whatever you want. It's confusing, but the railing height is set in the Newels/Balusters tab.

Yes, I agree. I've done plenty of whipping myself. Again, true - Chief isn't nearly as robust or efficient as ACAD when it comes to 2D CAD. No. I absolutely disagree with this statement. Sure, eventually you can create anything with just a Line Tool, whether you're using Chief or ACAD. But to assert that you can create 2D CAD more efficiently with Chief is absurd. Please don't take this as a personal attack, Jim - it's not - it's just a profound disagreement with your assertion.

Where did those thousands of CAD details come from? Did you create them in Chief? I assert, now having experience in both programs, that if you have to create numerous CAD details you are best served with a dedicated CAD program. I'm not bashing Chief, but I don't see any reason that a program like Chief can't also include better, more robust CAD tools.

We create a new folder and save copies of both the plan and layout, then append the date to the file names. Like you, we save the con docs in the same folder as PDF. This creates a bunch of "archive" subfolders, but it keeps everything nice and chronological. I suppose you could zip everything instead of using folders.

Learning CA will be your biggest challenge. I had twenty years invested in all flavors of AutoDesk products before being forced to switch to CA, and it was an extremely painful and frustrating transition. AutoCAD Architecture was a horrible Frankenstein monster that didn't fulfill its promise; but even the Architecture product had, at it's core, an extremely powerful, polished, and flexible CAD engine. CA treats CAD like an afterthought; but to be fair, you can't evaluate CA against a dedicated CAD program - it's a completely different animal. REVIT certainly has much better CAD capabilities, but it's not a perfect product either. I think the overwhelming benefit you would receive with REVIT is that it will seem much more familiar to your CAD operators, and it will fit into your established workflow much better. Have you clearly defined what you expect the software to do? Before CA, my office treated 3D as an "additional service" - we charged big money for it: we modeled with SketchUp and rendered with Artlantis. All of our production documents were created with AutoCAD Architectural Suite. As we began transitioning to REVIT, my boss abruptly made the switch to Chief Architect. Everyone rebelled. Most of us still aren't happy. Now, we "give away" the 3D - it's included in our basic contract, with no additional fee, under the pretext that CA does it automatically, so why should we charge extra. You can probably tell that I'm not completely on board with this approach. If you have the budget, and you're used to AutoCAD, I'd stick with REVIT. It's much more prevalent within the industry, and the Tech School grads are all learning it (no one learns Chief in school). If you have young CAD operators and you care about their professional development (and future employment), stick with REVIT. If you want the greatest flexibility in collaborating with other firms and government, go with REVIT. If you use AutoLISP and like it, don't expect similar functionality with CA - it simply isn't possible.

Scott, What are you using this web site for? Back country hiking? I can't see any relevance for the construction industry, unless you're laying pipeline or conduit. I'm just curious.

Does the County have a Land Records System / GIS portal? You can usually get 2 and 10 foot LIDAR contours from these sites. Or are you looking for 3D elevation data? That stuff is available here: http://ned.usgs.gov/

If the file isn't too large, don't even zip - just attach the plan file - that's what I do.

Oops. Watching Perry's video what I was doing wrong: I was using a floor camera, not a full camera. With a full camera, I do indeed get the z-fighting. Doing what Perry did eliminated the z-fighting, for whatever reason.

Post the plan, quick!

Well, when I deselect "Use Room Ceiling Finish," I get nothing - the entire roof ceiling plane disappears. Obviously, there something going on - maybe unique to each of our systems, video cards, etc. Someone from Chief needs to jump down the rabbit hole and figure this out.

Opening the Ceiling Plan Specification dbx doesn't fix it for me either. Neither does changing the soffit material back to default. I still don't get any z-fighting. I've even played around with changing the camera settings.

Nope, I haven't heard that name before.

Started a new plan, built a simulacrum of Scott's house, and everything builds fine with default materials correctly assigned. I've concluded that ceiling joists will receive, by default, the default roof rafter material. Scott's issue must be plan specific - maybe there's something corrupt. However, Perry, the ceiling still disappears when I uncheck the "Use Room Ceiling Finish". With check box: Without check box:

Perry, yes in Defaults. Another thing I notice is that if you uncheck "Use Room Ceiling Finish" in the ceiling plan dbx, the ceiling plan completely disappears in 3D, no matter what material you assign to it.