Invisible Walls

[PitMan71]

For those of you that create porches with Invisible walls. What are some tips you have learned to maximize their use? 

 

Being a newbie, they are powerful and offer flexibility over the rail and newel tool for columns, BUT my experience so far is that they can be troublesome because the invisible wall type is "interior wall" where the base line is 1/2" off the outside of the dashed lines representing the invisible wall. I went round and round with a roof on my latest project because the baseline of the roof was lined up with the drywall edge instead of the base line edge of the invisible wall.

 

Being that the invisible wall is to define a space that doesn't have actual walls it would seem that you could define it more simply to achieve more predictable results. BUT I know there are some physical aspects of the space that are defined by this wall like the floor and the ceiling.

 

My designs include a lot of porches and outdoor spaces so I want to develop the best method for drawing them.

 

Thanks in advance.

[PitMan71]

Here is an example of what I am referring to. The temp dimensions go to the outside of the drywall portion of the invisible wall where everything else like roofs generate off of the base line. Anyway, there may be a reason for this and I am willing to adapt my thinking and approach.

 

I will admit this might work fine for a porch that both edges are in the middle of a wall. It seems that this becomes more of an issue when it lines up with a wall where the roofline is to continue and the turn a corner and you are doing manual roofs.

 

Thanks for your contribution.

[MarkMc]

1 hour ago, PitMan71 said:

troublesome because the invisible wall type is "interior wall"

Mm, not necessarily...

[PitMan71]

interesting.... For some reason mine come in as interior walls. You know that might be because I am using the room divider tool to add them. So, is a better way to do this to draw the walls using the wall type I want and then click the "invisible" box?

 

Thanks

[SNestor]

I've done a series of videos on porches which you can find on my youtube page. Most of the videos are older versions of Chief and there have been a number of great improvements but the concepts presented are still sound. 

 

That said...I hardly ever use invisible walls to create porches. You almost always need a beam...so, using a post to beam railing wall is a good place to start. 

Here is a link to the porch videos on my YouTube;  

 

[PitMan71]

Thanks Steve.

 

i have used that tool and there are several things I am not jazzed about. Now, because i am a newbie there may be ways around the things that annoy me, but I haven't had any luck.

 

Best i could tell....

- You cant select or dimension to the objects in elevation view.

- Also, it seems that the beam height is governed by the ceiling ht of the porch. When i do porch beams i hang the joists off the side of the beam.

- I like the heights of beams to be an even 8', 9', etc. above the porch floor.

 

Generally seemed that there was less flexibility with the porch rail tool. But maybe there is something i am missing.

 

i watched the attached video a couple weeks ago and it was very helpful.

 

Thanks

 

[SNestor]

43 minutes ago, PitMan71 said:

Thanks Steve.

 

i have used that tool and there are several things I am not jazzed about. Now, because i am a newbie there may be ways around the things that annoy me, but I haven't had any luck.

 

Best i could tell....

- You cant select or dimension to the objects in elevation view.

- Also, it seems that the beam height is governed by the ceiling ht of the porch. When i do porch beams i hang the joists off the side of the beam.

- I like the heights of beams to be an even 8', 9', etc. above the porch floor.

 

Generally seemed that there was less flexibility with the porch rail tool. But maybe there is something i am missing.

 

i watched the attached video a couple weeks ago and it was very helpful.

 

Thanks

 

Well...some of the things you describe may need "work arounds"...
Not a problem to do the things they way are doing them...but, when you place newels (post/columns) manually...they don't move. They are like cad object in some ways...so, you need to watch things closely or they may move or possibly the spacing may not be correct. 

 

I do wish we could dimension to the center of a newel in a railing wall...it's been requested as a feature for many years. As such...not holding my breath. 

[PitMan71]

37 minutes ago, SNestor said:

I do wish we could dimension to the center of a newel in a railing wall

I have been able to do that. Its a little tricky, but doable. i used the point to point dimension tool. The dimension line is in the middle of the columns, but once dimensioned i just pull the dim line out. That works fine. BUT the other nuances are enough to make me looney.

 

IF the railing tool was used for railing only, then you would not want dims snapping to it. It would be nice if you could create the elements and then blow them up into individual objects.

 

 

[PitMan71]

Thanks @SNestor ... you always have great insights. I believe all this discussion makes us all better!