Auto Elevations with Macros

[Leadcarpo]

Hello, As I get more and more into using macros in Chief, I get really excited and really frustrated at the same time. I have recently discovered that elevation markers can be set up to report heights automatically, however, we would like the finish floor to be our 0'-0" number, but it only shows that for the top of subfloor. The only thing that I have been able to adjust is the finish floor height in the room dialog page, but I can't seem to find a way to make it a default so it is set for every plan, moving forward. I don't feel like this is the proper approach and my hope is that I am missing something easy. I also played around with some macros, but couldn't create the proper sequence, any help is appreciated, thanks in advance. Also, I am just a dumb carpenter that happens to love Chief Architect, so I am not the most techy person around, lol.

[robdyck]

All you need to do is open the Story pole Dimension Defaults and adjust the Grade Level Marker setting and make sure the Elevation Reference is Grade Level Marker. 

For Locate Elevations, make sure you're including the floor finish elevation. You will need to manually enter the thickness of the floor finish so if you make changes to this in the plan, you'll have to remember to update this value.

[Leadcarpo]

Thanks, that worked for the auto story pole! Is there a way to adjust it in manual elevation markers?

[robdyck]

18 hours ago, Leadcarpo said:

Thanks, that worked for the auto story pole! Is there a way to adjust it in manual elevation markers?

That would require a macro! I have one that might work but it isn't mine to share. You could also just alter the elevations of each floor in Chief. There's no reason that the subfloor can't be at -3/4" or -1/2" or whatever. That will keep things simpler, no?

I must admit, you've got me curious as to how you're using this on a set of plans:)  I'm wondering...who is going to understand a ceiling height of 8'-0 5/8"...but I'm not trying to 2nd guess what you're doing. We'll assume you have a very good reason and it will all make sense, right?!

[robdyck]

My motto in Chief...build the model exactly how you'd build the structure. If 0'-0" is top of finish floor, then build the model that way in Chief!

[Leadcarpo]

Thanks for the quick responses. We are a remodeling company, and we only use the ceiling marker and it is labeled like this CEILING:~ 8' 1". We have been putting all of this info in manually on every elevation page and we do elevations of every wall in every room we are touching. I am mainly looking for things that we can use to minimize those time suck processes. For instance, I just discovered yesterday that we can use # in our page description label to auto update the page label in our layouts. Up to this point, we have had to make all those page updates manually. Now I am trying to figure out how to make our two scale callouts update automatically when we set the scale of the item on that page. Anyways, figuring this stuff out is really cool and it really shows me just how powerful the software is!

[robdyck]

13 minutes ago, Leadcarpo said:

Thanks for the quick responses. We are a remodeling company, and we only use the ceiling marker and it is labeled like this CEILING:~ 8' 1". We have been putting all of this info in manually on every elevation page and we do elevations of every wall in every room we are touching. I am mainly looking for things that we can use to minimize those time suck processes. For instance, I just discovered yesterday that we can use # in our page description label to auto update the page label in our layouts. Up to this point, we have had to make all those page updates manually. Now I am trying to figure out how to make our two scale callouts update automatically when we set the scale of the item on that page. Anyways, figuring this stuff out is really cool and it really shows me just how powerful the software is!

Maybe send me a PM tomorrow. I think I can help you out a bit more.

[tundra_dweller]

 

3 hours ago, Leadcarpo said:

Now I am trying to figure out how to make our two scale callouts update automatically when we set the scale of the item on that page.

 

Here's an example of how I have doing this for a year or so...not to say this is the best way...I'm certain others out there have better methods, but this has been working for me.

 

Basically I use a callout and out\-of-the-box macros to label my layout boxes in the layout so that they automatically update with any changes to the name of the saved plan view and the scale of the linked view...

 

^This is a zoomed in view of one of my layout pages, the callout at the bottom is my label for this particular layout box.

 

 

^Highlight layout box and ctrl-e, or "open object", under the "Label" tab I have the "Use Callout" radio button selected.

 

^This is where I decide what goes in the callout tag on the left. A combo of text I entered and an ootb macro for the floor number, but it could be anything or nothing.

 

 

^Here's where I choose to show what's in the meat of my layout box label. The top line of text will always update with whatever the name of the saved plan view is. The scale info on the bottom line will always update to whatever the scale of the layout box is.

 

This is the method I use for all of my plan views on layout. I use a very similar setup for my cross section & elevation views, but instead of having "Floor Number" in the callout tag I have it put in the plan display of the callout tag (E1, E2, S1, etc.,.)

 

 

[SHCanada2]

2 hours ago, tundra_dweller said:

Basically I use a callout and out\-of-the-box macros to label my layout boxes in the layout so that they automatically update with any changes to the name of the saved plan view and the scale of the linked view..

if I am reading this correctly, the text you have above the line is "Floor Plan - Main Level", and this a unique SPV?

 

If so, the only downside with this is you need different SPVs for each level (basement, main, second, third) and type (electrical for instance).  so you would potentially need 8 SPVs, where, you likely only need 2 unique ones (other than the floor differences). 

 

The other way to do it, is to have set layout boxes on layout template with named floors, and then link the layout box with the SPV and specific floor. if you do not need the floor you delete the layout page and/or layout box(which is the tradeoff)

 

 

Not to say one is "better" than the other, they both have tradeoffs

 

In my case, I'm lazy and normally only have one floor plan or elevation per sheet, so the top text is just the layout page title. I also do this one per page thing to try and fill the page so if they decide to print on smaller paper, they can still see everything

 

 

this yields

 

[tundra_dweller]

10 minutes ago, SHCanada2 said:

If so, the only downside with this is you need different SPVs for each level (basement, main, second, third) and type (electrical for instance).  so you would potentially need 8 SPVs, where, you likely only need 2 unique ones (other than the floor differences). 

 

That is correct, I do have a fairly ridiculous amount of spv's with my method, I have them saved in my plan template.

 

Thanks for sharing your method, this is the time of the year where it's a little slower and I like to go through and fine tune my templates & methods, so I love to see what others are doing that might make more sense.