I got the off-angle wall-connect blues and can't shake them.

GeneDavis · November 28, 2022

I need to finish this silly plan for a porch addition, and am stumbling. The porch walls arrangement is a combination of wall and post-to-beam railings, the railings are screened panels, and the problem is that what's desired for the view side screened wall is a segmented curve with only about 6.5 degree angle change in the chords as the wall sweeps around.

If any single segment is "on angle" it isn't because I wanted it that way. Most are off. And there is always some joint, where I want a wall to end at a 4x4 post, that I cannot get to close, thus there is no room definition.

Glenn Woodward agreed to a zoom meeting maybe ten days ago, a fun back to the future experience for me with Glenn more than a half day ahead of me, and with the 40 minute free Zoom limit, we exhausted ourselves through three consecutive sessions and almost got it, but not quite the way I wanted.

See the images attached for some views of this in its imperfect state. By that I mean that the walls all close and I could get images to the client for review, but the curve is not the curve I want, and the post spacings are not as equal as I want.

I can build it in Sketchup because SU lets you draw exactly what you want. A view of the SU model is attached here. I use SU for proofing it all and for perfecting the trusses and all the roof build stickwork. Sorry, Chief, but for something like this, you can only do it with a whole lot of manual work by me. SU is simply easier.

My SU model has the posts positioned exactly as I want, and those positions are different than in the imperfect model you see I did in Chief. I tried to edit the model and am failing. I took the SU model and stripped out everything but the posts and a polyline I did for location the framed walls, imported it as a symbol, and those posts can be seen in my Chief plan. I have tried everything I know to force the railing segments to a.) join cleanly, and b.) place posts where I want.

I am close but now I cannot force a wall join where needed so this thing closes up.

How do you work to force these off-angle railings to join like what you want?

GeneDavis · November 28, 2022

And here is a copy of the plan. In the plan you can see two instances of the symbol I imported from my Sketchup model, one positioned in the space to define where I want the posts for the screened wall panels and screened door openings. A screencap is attached here to show all the off angle (and one no-connect) warning messages.

Ranch camp 2 bedroom.zip

robdyck · November 28, 2022

Sorry Gene, but Chief isn't the problem in this case. It appears that you simply haven't planned out the geometry and this looks as though you're just winging it, trying to draw walls at random angles in hoping that it creates your desired appearance. You need to plan the geometry with some sort of logic and then build the model using the geometry for reference.

Plan the overall shape of the arc, figure out the desired # of segments and then use the transform/replicate tool to copy / rotate the objects about the center point. In this case, I cleaned up the geometry to an overall 45 degree segment made up of 6 @ 7.5 degrees.

I drew a cad polyline for the overall segment, cad lines for the dividing segments, and one cad line to help align the first wall segment. I then copied the railing wall as noted above.

I used 1 room divider at the right end to help control the railing-to-wall connection.

GeneDavis · November 28, 2022

@robdyckThanks, Robert. That helped greatly but I still have a problem.

Your solution was to do the entire curved screen wall in six equal segments, but silly me, I want the first segment of the wall, its plan-left one where a screen door goes, to be less wide than it is in your solution. I want a screen door not so wide. So I placed a screen wall there at my preferred length. See image 1 and 2 below.

I then went to CAD and did some test-fitting of circles to get what looked like a reasonable arc for a FIVE-segment screen panel set of walls, and my included angle while not the clean number as yours, is still a number, and I show it and its 1/5 division, the one I used to replicate using trans-rotate. I drew the first segment and rotate-replicated 4 more to get the wall I show.

But I cannot get room definition because something is not closing and I cannot figure where.

Plan file attached. If you solve it, I'd sure appreciate a fixed plan file back.