Cheat siding courses?

[Lighthouse]

Is there a way to get Chief to cheat siding courses?  Good carpenters create a story pole to get siding courses to align with window heads and sills, which often means cheating the interval spacing.  For example, 4" clapboards might be cheated to 4 1/2" in a particular area to make them align.  I know that I could create a material region and assign a different siding with a wider interval.  It would be ideal if I could actually just grab individual pieces of siding and move them.  Any workarounds besides material regions or polyline solids?

 

Similarly, I would like to be able to control the amount the siding overlaps the floor platform.  In some designs, I like to change siding materials at the subfloor level, rather than at the bottom of the floor platform as is Chief's default.  I can adjust the wall manually, but then I'm moving the whole wall, not just the siding.  Ideally I would like a setting the controls the top and bottom of the siding relative to the wall plates.  Does that exist?

 

thanks

[DzinEye]

You could use molding polylines too. 

[AvoyeDesign]

IMO this level of detail amounts to "shop drawings" and isn't something that I consider part of my job.  I'm not sure how you operate, but if this was asked of me I'd have to charge extra for it.  Even then, I wouldn't guarantee anything, as I don't control what happens in the field.

Chief doesn't have any tools for this specific purpose.  My best suggestion would be to use cad polylines in a cross section to lay out the boards and casings and such.  Good luck!

[Mark3D]

Export to cad detail then adjust to suit