Deck Planking Missing

[Esthefany]

Deck Planking Missing in 3D – Chief Architect X18

Hi everyone,

I’m having an issue with a deck in Chief Architect X18. In the 3D view, the deck planking is missing from a large section of the deck, even though the framing, railings, posts, and other deck components are displaying correctly.

The unusual part is that some sections of the same deck do show the planking, while the large main section does not.

I have already tried:

• Regenerating/building the deck framing

• Checking Automatically Regenerate Deck Framing

• Checking the floor structure settings

• Confirming that the planking layer is set to Deck Planking

• Confirming the planking material, thickness, and width

My current floor structure shows:

• Layer 1: Mahogany, 1 1/8", Role: Framing, Construction: Deck Planking

• Layer 2: CA-B Pressure Treated, 7 1/4", Role: Framing

• Plank width: 5 1/2"

• Total thickness: 8 3/8"

Despite these settings, the planks are still not appearing in the 3D view.

Does anyone know what could cause the planking to disappear from only part of a deck like this? Is there another setting or deck-room configuration I should check?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Rookie65]

Don't have your layer 1  "framing" checked. That's why it's showing at 1-1/2" wide

[mLongChief]

1 hour ago, Esthefany said:

I have already tried:

• Regenerating/building the deck framing

• Checking Automatically Regenerate Deck Framing

• Checking the floor structure settings

• Confirming that the planking layer is set to Deck Planking

• Confirming the planking material, thickness, and width

My current floor structure shows:

• Layer 1: Mahogany, 1 1/8", Role: Framing, Construction: Deck Planking

• Layer 2: CA-B Pressure Treated, 7 1/4", Role: Framing

• Plank width: 5 1/2"

• Total thickness: 8 3/8"

Despite these settings, the planks are still not appearing in the 3D view.

From just the settings, it sounds like the planks should be there. Since part of the deck's plank generate, sounds like the deck properly sees the planking layer and is trying to frame it, but something is preventing those sections from placing the planks. Could you post your plan file by chance? Without it, would just be taking guesses as to what could've caused this situation.

[Esthefany]

@mLongChief

 

Thanks for replaying. Attached below is the plan file. I created the deck planking by copying the one that was already there. However, after I deleted a portion to see if “Build Deck Framing” would regenerate it, it didn’t.

On the other hand, the angled landing on the left works fine when I use “Build Deck Framing.”

 

 

Plan File.zip

[mLongChief]

21 minutes ago, Esthefany said:

@mLongChief

 

Thanks for replaying. Attached below is the plan file. I created the deck planking by copying the one that was already there. However, after I deleted a portion to see if “Build Deck Framing” would regenerate it, it didn’t.

On the other hand, the angled landing on the left works fine when I use “Build Deck Framing.

 

Thanks for sending the plan! it looks like the planks within that deck are all manually created. I was able to figure that out by selecting one of the planks in the deck and opened its specification dialog. In X18, a new checkbox has been added to this dialog, Automatically Generated Framing. In this case, it was turned off and disabled, meaning the program sees this as a manually drawn deck plank.

 

Knowing that, my guess is when the deck goes to make some automatic planks, it sees the manual ones and thinks it doesn't need to make one since the manual plank is already there. To fix this, you got two options that I can think of:

1. Manually create the rest of the planks. Using the Multiple Copy tool, it should be pretty quick to place some more manual planks into the missing areas at the same rollout as the other sections.
2. Delete the manual planks. You can quickly select all the manual planks by using the Match Properties tool when one of them is selected (I used the Role and Is Manual Framing properties to match them). Deleting all these planks let the deck build its own as expected. However, this would remove the parting boards you have in there, so you'd still need to turn the automatic deck framing off to place those boards into the deck again.

Hopefully that helps!