Caveat on DWG Exports

[Richard_Morrison]

I exported a plan with 5 1/2" walls to a DWG, and used this for tracing in another CAD program. In Chief, this showed as a 5 1/2" wall, however, it also included a 0" thickness layer of Housewrap. When I exported the file, it actually exported as 5 33/64" thick. Unfortunately, I didn't discover this until after I had traced all of the walls, so many of the rooms are 1/64" off. Not much, of course, but it throws all of the automatic dimensioning off in my other CAD program, and will take some time to fix. When I deleted the housewrap from Chief's wall definition, it exported correctly as 5 1/2". I've reported this to tech support, of course.

 

Hope this saves you folks from some needless agony.

[Chopsaw]

Yes lots of things in Chief that you set to 0" and they are not actually 0".  Thanks for the warning.

 

Would it make sense to export as "Main Layer Only" in your situation Richard ?

[Richard_Morrison]

28 minutes ago, Chopsaw said:

Would it make sense to export as "Main Layer Only" in your situation Richard ?

No, mostly due to the wall definitions in the other program. I was using the wall outlines only for Exporting.

 

EDIT: Heard back from tech support as follows: " The issue you describe is due to the fact that the housewrap layer in wall types that are installed with Chief Architect aren't actually 0" thick. They are reported as such, typically, because the default Number Style in dialogs is Fractional Inches - but if you switch to Decimal Inches, you'll see that the thickness of the housewrap is actually 0.01".

To avoid the unwanted thickness, you can change the housewrap thickness to 0". "

 

So there you go. Start working in decimal inches to avoid errors. And don't forget to change that housewrap thickness from 0" to 0"!

 

[Kbird1]

3 hours ago, Richard_Morrison said:

So there you go. Start working in decimal inches to avoid errors. And don't forget to change that housewrap thickness from 0" to 0"!

 

Hi Richard , can you clarify what the HouseWrap measurement should be please if 0"  isn't correct   ie .... is that 0"."  above correct?   or 0"!

 

Thx.

 

M.

[Richard_Morrison]

Mick,

That was meant mostly in jest. I think what tech support meant was that although 0" is already showing for "normal" people, you need to go in and change 0.01" to 0.00" so it's REALLY 0" and not an approximate 0". I'm not sure how people are supposed to know this except by reading posts like this.  

[Kbird1]

7 minutes ago, Richard_Morrison said:

Mick,

That was meant mostly in jest. I think what tech support meant was that although 0" is already showing for "normal" people, you need to go in and change 0.01" to 0.00" so it's REALLY 0" and not an approximate 0". I'm not sure how people are supposed to know this except by reading posts like this.  

 

Ok ....I didn't pickup on the jesting part   , I know what you mean though, thinking about it now though, I wonder if the 0.01 is needed to get the ML to produce a square footage of House Wrap? will need to try it I suppose....

[glennw]

Mick,

Materials are still counted in the Ml even if they have a 0.00" thickness in the wall definition

I believe that the wall layer thickness has no connection to the materials defined thickness.

 

[tommy1]

18 hours ago, Richard_Morrison said:

I exported a plan with 5 1/2" walls to a DWG, and used this for tracing in another CAD program. In Chief, this showed as a 5 1/2" wall, however, it also included a 0" thickness layer of Housewrap. When I exported the file, it actually exported as 5 33/64" thick. Unfortunately, I didn't discover this until after I had traced all of the walls, so many of the rooms are 1/64" off. Not much, of course, but it throws all of the automatic dimensioning off in my other CAD program, and will take some time to fix. When I deleted the housewrap from Chief's wall definition, it exported correctly as 5 1/2". I've reported this to tech support, of course.

 

Hope this saves you folks from some needless agony.

WOW. Good to know for I make dwgs all the time for engineers. I deleted this layer in the exterior wall types with this layer years ago in my profile plans for I don't use the materials list which is why it's there I believe. Many years ago I had several plans where this was throwing my outside surface dimensioning off by 1/64. I also found that generally it can throw off the thickness on maybe a few walls in a plan and is not consistent. Generally most plans will be okay (in Chief) but then again in some plans you'll see it. Didn't know about the dwg factor though. Thanks for the heads up Richard.

[Kbird1]

6 hours ago, glennw said:

Mick,

Materials are still counted in the Ml even if they have a 0.00" thickness in the wall definition

I believe that the wall layer thickness has no connection to the materials defined thickness.

 

 

Thanks for confirming that Glenn, I had not had a chance to try out my thought yet , I just assumed there must be some reason for the 0.01" measurement , though if it is "needed", I am not sure why they don't use the real thickness.

 

M.

[AvoyeDesign]

I've found that even when I set the housewrap to 0 manually, it still appears as more than a 0 thickness layer in cross section.  In the picture attached, you can actually see that it borrows some of the space from the rainscreen layer, which is supposed to be 1/2" thick.  One of those things that enrages my OCD...