Story Pole, relocating the grade elevation

[cv2702]

I've spent hours trying to make this work: have CA set grade level = terrain level.  I still don't get it 

 

Could one of you pro's volunteer a step by step of what needs to be specified and in what order, please?

[HumbleChief]

2 hours ago, cv2702 said:

I've spent hours trying to make this work:...

I too have spent hours and hours and hours trying to get Chief's 'auto anything' to really help in plan preparation - never had any luck. I just spend the extra 2 - 3 minutes to prepare my elevation heights; plan key notes; and anything else that takes way more time and effort than it has been worth.

[johnny]

20 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

I too have spent hours and hours and hours trying to get Chief's 'auto anything' to really help in plan preparation - never had any luck. I just spend the extra 2 - 3 minutes to prepare my elevation heights; plan key notes; and anything else that takes way more time and effort than it has been worth.

 

Fully agree with Larry here.  It can be more work than its worth.

[dshall]

2 hours ago, johnny said:

 

Fully agree with Larry here.  It can be more work than its worth.

 

I thought the same thing,  but after getting into them,  I love them.  However,  they can be improved  on...  but who cares,  but the time they improve them I will be retired sailing to the south pacific. 

 

I started to do a vid,  but I do not have the energy,  if I ever get the energy I will do a vid.

[glennw]

Part of the problem with discussing this topic is the terminology used.

People use terms like grade level, sea level, terrain level, etc.

It is hard to determine what they actually mean - there is no "sea level" in Chief.

What is "terrain level" on a sloping site?

Then there are the different ways you can set the heights in your building and nominate the terrain heights.

 

So, you need to be very explicit when discussing this topic.

 

Scott,

Can you post a simple plan indicating how you have set up your floor and site levels.

Are you using an actual Terrain Retaing Wall or are you using a normal wall with a Terrain Break?

 

Give me a Skype call if you want to talk for a couple of minutes.

[dshall]

Okay,  I did the video.  Over an hour long.  Skip to the end if you want to see what I would like to see.

 

 

[dshall]

15 hours ago, glennw said:

Part of the problem with discussing this topic is the terminology used.

People use terms like grade level, sea level, terrain level, etc.

It is hard to determine what they actually mean - there is no "sea level" in Chief.

What is "terrain level" on a sloping site?

Then there are the different ways you can set the heights in your building and nominate the terrain heights.

 

So, you need to be very explicit when discussing this topic.

 

Scott,

Can you post a simple plan indicating how you have set up your floor and site levels.

Are you using an actual Terrain Retaing Wall or are you using a normal wall with a Terrain Break?

 

Give me a Skype call if you want to talk for a couple of minutes.

 

Hi Glenn,  I will be in the office until  11:00 PST.  If you are available,  I could do a GTM,  just let me know.

 

I will try to get in office early tomorrow morning,  maybe 4:00 am PST,  that will be 9:00 pm your time,  no guarantees.

[Alaskan_Son]

3 hours ago, dshall said:

Okay,  I did the video.  Over an hour long.  Skip to the end if you want to see what I would like to see.

 

 

 

Scott,

 

To get your elevation markers to show up over on the right, just open that dimension string, click on the Extensions/Markers tab, and check Draw Elevation Marker for each of the desired Extensions. 

[glennw]

Scott,

 

At about 56:40 you try to move a grade marker horizontally and add some text to the marker but you couldn't do it, so you added a standalone market and put some text at 45deg.

No need to do that.

If you select the extension line that is part of the marker - as opposed to the dimension line itself - you can slide the marker horizontally. When you select the extension line, you will see a grip just next to the marker.

Or, if you select the dimension line, you can change to Edit Extensions on the Edit toolbar.

Slide the grip horizontally.

You can then open the Dimension Line Specification dbx, go to the Extensions/Markers panel and insert your desired text in the Elevation Marker Text box.

 

At the end at about 1:13:30 you try and slide a marker horizontally as well and give up - use the same as above.

[dshall]

11 hours ago, glennw said:

Scott,

 

At about 56:40 you try to move a grade marker horizontally and add some text to the marker but you couldn't do it, so you added a standalone market and put some text at 45deg.

No need to do that.

If you select the extension line that is part of the marker - as opposed to the dimension line itself - you can slide the marker horizontally. When you select the extension line, you will see a grip just next to the marker.

Or, if you select the dimension line, you can change to Edit Extensions on the Edit toolbar.

Slide the grip horizontally.

You can then open the Dimension Line Specification dbx, go to the Extensions/Markers panel and insert your desired text in the Elevation Marker Text box.

 

At the end at about 1:13:30 you try and slide a marker horizontally as well and give up - use the same as above.

 

Thanks Glen,  very helpful,

[dshall]

19 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

Scott,

 

To get your elevation markers to show up over on the right, just open that dimension string, click on the Extensions/Markers tab, and check Draw Elevation Marker for each of the desired Extensions. 

 

Thanks Michael,  that helped....  but I wish there was a default so I could add the marker to all dimension points.

 

Also,  I just did a GTM with Glenn  (thanks Glenn),  and we discovered that the auto dimension would dimension to the top of WINDOW ROUGH OPENING,  I wish we could auto dimension to the TOP OF WINDOW,  not the HEADER.  

 

Ooops,  another wish is to be able to have a hot key to delete the auto dimensions so I can redo to update.'

 

I also wish I could snap to the auto marker points.

 

I also wish we could have the dimensions reference not only the ABSOLUTE ELEVATION but also THE MEAN SEA LEVEL .  Glenn said he has started relating his bottom floor elevation to mean sea level  (not absolute zero),  the problem with this is if my client raises the house 2',  instead of simply adjusting the terrain,  one must ADJUST everything in the plans.

 

Anyway,  I am a little late to the party,  but I do love the auto story pole dimensions.  It is saving me a lot of time.

 

I will think about this some more and then stick any suggestions in the suggestion box.

[Kbird1]

On 4/29/2018 at 6:37 AM, dshall said:

 

I also wish we could have the dimensions reference not only the ABSOLUTE ELEVATION but also THE MEAN SEA LEVEL .  Glenn said he has started relating his bottom floor elevation to mean sea level  (not absolute zero),  the problem with this is if my client raises the house 2',  instead of simply adjusting the terrain,  one must ADJUST everything in the plans.

 

 

Why would you need to adjust "everything" ?  maybe I am missing something?

 

I was just playing around with this and it is a big mess if you try adjusting things as you start a plan it seems, ie adding a 2nd floor caused it to drop inside the 1st floor etc as it still referenced the Old Heights unless I manually worked out the new absolute heights. I found it is much easier to do the Section and Storey Pole AFTER the drawing is complete , at least that way works for me in a test plan , and you don't need to play with the Terrain height or Level 1 height as essentially you are only changing the Storey pole reference point , not the Level 1 height which is how I think Glenn does it ?

 

I added the Finish Grade Marker manually by clicking on the Outer Dimension Line and dragging the Triangle down to the Terrain (dirt) and then adding the Text via the Dimension segment in the DBX.

 

Maybe I am missing something? and this doesn't work on a Real World Plan ???  but have a look at the attached Plan , I made Notes for myself for future reference as I played in the saved Section View , but if a Client moved the house 2' higher it would be simple enough to change the default heights used eg 700' in my test plan to 702' and the Storey Pole should adjust accordingly with no need to touch anything else.

 

MHD_Setting Sea Level Notes_X11.plan

 

 

 

M.

 

 

Setting Sea Level Notes PDF_1.pdf

[dshall]

7 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

......

 

Maybe I am missing something? and this doesn't work on a Real World Plan ???  .....

 

M.

 

 

 

 

You are missing something,  see pic. 

 

[Kbird1]

4 hours ago, dshall said:

 

 

You are missing something,  see pic. 

 

 

Yes , that is what I was saying , you don't need to do that if doing it this way..... everything is left at Defaults which is much easier to deal with, I found if I changed Floor 1 , then tried adding a floor (or 3) thing soon got very complicated, but perhaps I had it set up wrong ? so I tried it this way and it seems to work but others should have a play with it , and see if it is indeed a viable method.

 

M.

 

 

[Alaskan_Son]

11 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

 

Yes , that is what I was saying , you don't need to do that if doing it this way..... everything is left at Defaults which is much easier to deal with, I found if I changed Floor 1 , then tried adding a floor (or 3) thing soon got very complicated, but perhaps I had it set up wrong ? so I tried it this way and it seems to work but others should have a play with it , and see if it is indeed a viable method.

 

M.

 

 

 

That is the method Scott was using in the first post.  The problem with that one (and what triggered this thread in the first place) was that he couldn't get the Grade Level Marker to automatically generate up higher.  

[parkwest]

Would it be easier to leave the story pole alone and just add a note referencing the elevation of the first floor in relation to a control point, ie one of your survey corner markers, and note the elevation of the CP above MSL?

 

When building a house in the mts at 7,000 msl, that story pole could get out of hand.

[Alaskan_Son]

5 minutes ago, parkwest said:

Would it be easier to leave the story pole alone and just add a note referencing the elevation of the first floor in relation to a control point, ie one of your survey corner markers, and note the elevation of the CP above MSL?

 

When building a house in the mts at 7,000 msl, that story pole could get out of hand.

 

I think the type of functionality we're discussing here in this thread is really most important to people who are building at or near sea level and close to the ocean.  I still say its easy enough to manually drag off a new marker to get what Scott was originally after.  The conversation and general requirements seemed to have morphed a bit though.

[Alaskan_Son]

By the way, based on my experience, I don't think there is any way the Auto Story Pole system is ever going to work completely right for more than about 3 people.  Some people need 2 or more different groups of dimensions that reference entirely different elevation datums, some people need to reference finish grade (which can obviously vary around a single lot), some people need to reference sea level, some people need o reference a high water mark or flood plane, some people actually change their base marker from one floor to the next for certain items, some people want to measure to the bottom of header while others want to measure to the top of glass, etc. etc. 

 

I personally just wish we were given x and y locations as Ruby attributes for Markers (and other CAD based objects) so I could use macros to address some of these variable needs. 

[dshall]

A final note,  thanks to all that helped me get through this.  In the end,  it can do what I want it to do  with one exception,  I wish we could had a toggle so we could ref mean sea level and then toggle to ref absolute zero in plan.  I think that would make all  happy.

[HumbleChief]

Good thread and I finally figured it out - I am both jealous and envious of my fellow designers who have enough spare time to mess with such things. My plans seldom require such detailed information and if they do I just drag out a few markers with the proper data and am done with it. Seriously admire everyone's tenacity and input, it doesn't go unnoticed and will probably come in handy at some point in the future.  

[glennw]

7 hours ago, dshall said:

 In the end,  it can do what I want it to do  with one exception,  I wish we could had a toggle so we could ref mean sea level and then toggle to ref absolute zero in plan

 

Scott,

 

If you go into Auto Storey Pole Dimension Defaults and change Elevation reference to 1st Floor Subfloor, doesn't that do what you want?

That should place your Grade marker at any height you want, and then reference all the platforms to Chiefs level 1 zero height.  

 

[dshall]

No,  because the house is 150’ above sea level and the finished floor will not read 150’ abs.

 

i had tried that.  

 

 

[dshall]

I know,  I am still not being clear.

 

MSL should read 0.0,  grade should real 150’,  finished floor should read 152’.

 

the more I think about it,  the more I think it is as good as they can get it for my purposes.

 

 

[Kbird1]

 

On 5/1/2018 at 12:10 AM, dshall said:

I know,  I am still not being clear.

 

MSL should read 0.0,  grade should real 150’,  finished floor should read 152’.

 

the more I think about it,  the more I think it is as good as they can get it for my purposes.

 

 

 

I guess  I still don't get what you want to see because by changing the MSL reference to 152 feet in my plan ( posted above ) it seems to show what you are asking for... admittedly the Finished Grade marker was done Manually as mentioned, though I am not sure why on a Storey Pole, Finished Grade (Terrain ) would not / is not, an Auto Option to Add or Remove depending on the need.

 

It would be nice to be able to "shorten" the Segment / put a breakline in it , that goes down to MSL too.

 

 

[glennw]

Mick,

I am not 100% sure what Scott wants, but it could be he wants the level 1 sub floor to read as a real world level (ie, above sea level), and then I think he wants any levels above that to relate to level 1 subfloor. 

 

I am not expecting that my guess above is what Scott wants though.