Roofs, Show On Floor Below.. Question

[tahoebrian5]

Are roofs the only objects that have the option to "show on floor below"?

Also can roofs be made part of a block?

[Alaskan_Son]

...Also can roofs be made part of a block?

 

Curious...what would you want to do this for?

[tahoebrian5]

I still have t given up on coming up with a way to create objects that show up on all floors. My though was if you could create two tiny roofs, block them together, and have one of them set to show on floor below, then you would have a post representation that would show on two floors.

[Alaskan_Son]

Have you tried messing around with the Reference Floor Display?

[RodCole]

I take it that you are wanting to display roofs live?  If that is the case then that is a tough call with Chief.  When facing the type of situations you are describing, anymore I just export the items in question and place them on separate layers in a program that will not only provide layer control, but also hidden lines as dashed.

 

This is not live, but if this is done late in the design process it is a workable situation.  In order to return the drawings to Chief it generally requires that you be able to either print to PDF in the other program or explode / flatten the drawings and convert to DWG for the return trip to Chief.

 

Some day Chief will probably have the type of capabilities you are after.  If you don't want to wait, then you might want to consider using other tools in concert with Chief.

[DRAWZILLA]

I do it using reference sets and anno-sets all the time.

[RodCole]

What Perry said.

 

I was taking it for granted that the situation was something beyond what Chief could do live using reference sets.  My bad.  The point I was trying to make is that there are a lot of options available in Chief for displaying objects even beyond reference sets, but at some point it gets to be a lot of what I call bookkeeping trying to keep track of all of the work arounds.

 

In those cases I find it easier to use other programs that are well suited to managing layers, regardless of floor or level considerations, and also have a variety of display options that Chief does not currently have.

If I had to choose between Chief's workarounds for 2D, which would not be live, and another app, that was definitely  not live, but better suited to the type of output I was after, I would use the other app and do the req'd conversions.

 

Thanks for catching that Perry.  Curious, when you say anno sets, I take it that you are driving layer sets from anno sets.  I generally drive layer sets from Layout Views, but I think we are talking about the same basic thing.

[tahoebrian5]

I've got the ref set working okay for showing floor 1 posts on the foundation plan (floor0). I'm just exploring other options to see what's possible. Also on multiple story homes the ref set method isn't going to work that well unless all the posts and hold downs live on the same floor. I do keep a copy of autocad LT current which I use for other stuff. I'll probably keep using it for detailing for now and for working with other designed that use autocad. I'd prefer to keep all my framing plans in chief. Despite its short comings I still think it's worth it once I figure out how to work through a few problem areas like this.

Anyway back to post options

1) what about using a "symbol" that contains two or more posts that are on different floors? I just thought of this and it seems like it would work. I recently read a chief tip on how to save an entire house as a symbol and then drop multiple house symbols into one site in order to create a subdivision.

2) I could create an additional level that only contains posts, hold downs, and maybe grids. All the posts regardless of where they are at in the house would be inserted on this level. Then just set this level to be the ref set for all my plans.

[RodCole]

1) Yes symbols may work for what you are after.  The problem with symbols is that the way they are inserted makes it very difficult to maintain the proper alignment between say a group of beams or columns and potentially text or dimensions in 3D.  What I have found is that in order to organize objects on layers you will need to create separate yet correctly oriented symbols.   That can be done, but it requires a bit of preplanning and the use of a set reference point that you can align all of your symbols to.  Also X8 has an improvement that makes the process a bit easier as well for setting the elevation of the inserted symbols.

 

2) Yes, some of us used to do that for remodeling, but the walls work much better now than they used to.  The problem is that you will probably have to relocate everything to the proper elevation after you have placed it.  Which means more time spent on that as well as the extra complication of an additional level to deal with.  You will just have to try it and see if that works for you or not.

 

I get what you are saying about wanting to get things to work in one program, but at some point that becomes a limiting factor to what you can accomplish with your work.  Competitive pricing makes the cost much more affordable, but there is still the learning curve to overcome.  If you can figure a way around that one, please let me know.

[Bill_Emery]

Brian,

Is this what you want to show.

This can be accomplished with filed roof planes that can be manipulated with annotation sets. 

It can also be accomplished with filled cad polylines.

[tahoebrian5]

That's not what I'm getting at Bill, although that is another issue that needs improvement

[Alaskan_Son]

You can also simply use layersets and send multiple overlapped views to layout.  It really doesn't have to be all that complex.  Hide all your layers except the posts, roof planes, or whatever else you want displayed on any given floor and overlay that view onto whichever other floor you want. 

[tahoebrian5]

Interesting thought, I really need to see em while I'm working though. I need to see where post loads are coming down from above to either place footings or head off beams. I'll give the symbol method a try today.

[Alaskan_Son]

I see what you're trying to do now. Sorry, I wasn't fully undestandimg before. I thought you were simply trying to display items on multiple floors for construction documents. If I understand correctly, what you're really after is displaying items on multiple floors for purposes of following load paths? If so, here are a couple other ideas...neither of which are perfect solutions.

1. Consider the possibilities of using cut/copy in conjunction with paste hold position to move items from floor to floor...either the actual posts or just reference points/markers/grid lines of your choosing.

2. Consider using cameras. I messed around with this for a few hours today and there are a number of potential options. The most effective method I've found seems to be as follows...

Create a series of floor cameras with long focal point lines stretched across your plan. Use them to create strategically placed grid lines or criss-cross them to create a specific reference point. Set them to display on all floors and then put them on their own unique layer and save them...possibly lock the layer as well if you want to keep from accidentally moving them. Unfortunately you cannot snap to the focal point lines, however you CAN center to them, align to them, and make parallel/perpendicular to them. Not the most ideal solution, but definitely a usable method to create reference points or grid lines across multiple floors.

Here's a quick sample plan showing what I'm talking about. There's really no rhyme or reason to the design of the structure or to the labels...basically just wanted to demonstrate the "Custom Grid" possibilities.  Cool thing is that you can VERY quickly move one or more of the custom grid lines and have the change reflected across all floors.  This way, you could for example move one of the lines and cycle through multiple floors to see what affect moving one bearing point might have on the rest of the structure.  

Custom grid.plan

[Alaskan_Son]

Spent a little more time today exploring the possibilities of using cameras to create custom guidelines, gridlines, bearing lines, etc.  and made multiple changes to my post above based on my findings.  Figured I should probably stop changing my post though in case anyone following this thinks they already read it. 

 

A few additional details/notes/tips...

 

-The cameras are a little time consuming to set up due to the fact they cannot be copied, so it would definitely be a good idea to place them into your template plan.  Its not a big deal to add one or 2, but creating a whole series of them takes a bit of time.  If you're going to use the technique, it would probably be best to stack a whole bunch of them off to the side and top/bottom of your template plan, that way you can easily drag them over onto the plan as needed. 

 

-By locking the "Custom Grid" layer (or whatever else you call it), you can make it much easier to select objects without accidentally selecting the camera.

 

-By unlocking the "Custom Grid" layer you can easily group select it along with a wall, post, etc.  This could be extremely handy if moving a main bearing wall.  This way your "Bearing Line" (or whatever you want to name it) moves along with it and the change is reflected across all floors.

 

-You can easily group select your custom lines using the match properties tool and either move the entire reference grid or rotate it to a custom angle which is another useful feature altogether (the ability to have grids situated on 2 separate angles). 

 

-You can create multiple layers with grid lines serving different purposes on different layers so you can assign different colors, lock and unlock different groups, and to make it easier to select a specific group using the match properties tool. 

 

You know...maybe I should start a separate thread.