FlightDeck

Use the Spline Sidewalk tool. Click-drag-release the first segment. Yes it will be straight. From the end of that first segment, click-drag-release again to add a second segment at an angle to the first one. When you release, both segments will be automatically shaped into a smooth (more-or-less) curve. Repeat, etc., to continue your path. Modify any of the control points afterwards to reshape it. Hope that helps!

Thanks Kat, I needed this today after spending bunch of time trying to figure out how to place a railing on top of the half wall of a parapet roof deck!!

Hi Alan, I'm not understanding your situation. The walkway looks curved to me. Can you better explain what you mean? A 3D pic would help a lot too.

Okay thanks Eric. I guess their software isn't parametric. I'll just live with all my elevation values being different from those on the plans. I'm already stuck with them being in different units anyway.

How can I manually change the 1st floor settings? That's why I tried to change its defaults. Changing the elevation of every single room on the first floor individually will probably break the model due to the large change I'm making. So is there a way to change the elevation of the entire 1st floor at once, and have it automatically adjust the elevations of all the floors above? I'm guessing no if I understand you correctly...

I posted a similar question this past week and the workaround that I've been using is to use Room Dividers. In the floor plan view I draw Room Dividers to "box in" the section of wall where I want different mouldings. I then select the virtual invisible "room" that those created and modify the moulding settings in the room's properties.

Lol I actually searched for "change units" before posting and that thread didn't come up. At any rate I guess the short answer is no, it's yet another basic thing that Home Designer doesn't do. I'll just leave the model in ft and do any conversion calculations myself..., which, based on the scribbled notes on the metric blueprints, is exactly what the construction guys did as well. Thanks anyway.

Hi, after creating my model of an existing apt bldg I obtained the official construction drawings that were used when it was built (about 70 sheets of drawings). I'm tweaking my model to better match the dimensions in the construction drawings since my model was built entirely by eyeball and a few rough measurements. The construction drawings have the elevation heights of each floor/ceiling from a specific datum. For convenience I'd like to update my model to use these same absolute values for floor /ceiling heights instead of the arbitrary ones I used. For example the elevation of my 1st floor is at 0 ft. On the construction drawings it's at say 20 feet elevation. So I'd like to change my first floor elevation to 20 ft, and have all floors/ceilings/objects move up 20 ft accordingly. How can I do this? I tried to simply edit the default properties for the 1st floor, however the absolute height for the floor is greyed out (dimension C). Thanks and regards,

Hi, I have a plan in feet/inches. Is it possible to switch to metric (mm) instead? Thanks,

So among all the bad news I got today from CA about Pro and it not doing some of the things expected, I did receive this happy little nugget. In Pro it's possibe to use panels on stair railings, using a roundabout way. Here are the steps: In stairwell properties, turn off the railings Draw straight railings *on* each side of the stairs (or curved railings if curved stairs). Open the properties of the railings and select "Follow Stairs". Changes the Rail Style to panels and then choose a panel from the library. It's obviously got limitations, but this is certainly improved over the Arch version that doesn't allow panels in stair railings at all. Here's a couple examples (straight and curved): This is probably old news to many of you but I'm posting in case it might help other newbs like me! Regarding my original question in this thread, it was due to not being able to use panel railings on stairs that I wanted to know how to control the stair railing shapes. Now that I know I can use panels on stairs (with the Pro version) I have another way to get something closer to the actual stair design. Regards,

Interesting! But possibly tricky like you say. For example if it's an exterior wall... I'll experiment with this option. The "virtual room" workaround I used is sort of okay, however sometimes the mouldings are cut in odd ways. Your suggestions sounds like it might be a little tidier.

None of the images you posted in this thread load, but I can load the images posted by others. Can you view them yourself? ...I just checked some of your other recent posts (a lot about roofs lol) and I can load your images in those posts no problem. They load pretty much instantly, like this one https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/1870-roof-plane-keeps-moving/ But the images in this current thread won't load at all. Maybe the file sizes are too large?

Hi Mike, I think nearly every single plan I've done has had a flat roof, so I've gotten the hang of modelling them. I don't know what software/version you're using, but I've been able to do them equally well in Arch 2015 and Pro 2016. There are articles in the Knowledge Base (search for "parapet roof"), but here are the basic steps: You won't actually be modelling the roof with the default roof function. Add a blank second floor on top of your main level. Add half walls (railings) around the perimeter on the 2nd floor. These are your parapet walls. Change the properties for the "room" on the 2nd floor to have no roof / ceiling overhead. Often I just set it to the Balcony room type and it does all this for me. Make the parapet walls the same thickness as the exterior walls on the 1st floor, and align them to the walls below with the Align Below function. Set the height of the parapet walls as desired. Apply appropriate materials as desired to the roof surface, parapet walls, and caps. Here's a design I'm working on for an apt with 2 flat / parapet roofs: Hope that helps!

Lol sorry today I'm buying neither upgrades nor philosophy. Thanks though!

Cool idea, thanks Eric!

I think that sums everything up right there. A main reason I wanted to use this is for performance improvement. Working on the model when it's full of furniture, etc., is really pokey. I wanted to toggle off those objects to speed up updates and renderining, and then turn them on again only when needed. Also I wanted to do similar to you where I could quickly show views of different options, including bare walls.

...my current workaround is using Room Dividers to create "virtual rooms" along the walls in question and then deleting the mouldings from the definitions of those virtual rooms. Was worried it would create strange geometries at the wall corners where baseboard meets no-baseboard, but so far it seems to look okay: Is there a more preferred way to do this though?

Seriously?? For pete's sake, really disliking CA's licensing schemes... Thanks anyway, Eric.

Hi, how can I disable mouldings on individual walls in a room? For example if one of the walls in a room is brick and the rest are drywall, how do I get baseboards on the drywall walls (default) but NOT on the brick wall? Thanks and regards,

Hi, when working with stair railings, landing railings, and placed railings, I cannot figure out how to change the type of handrail section that is used. In my current model it is using some fancy shaped handrail section and I want a simple 2x6 rail (standing on edge). I can see options to change newels and ballusters, but not the handrail section, only its width. For all railings except stair railings I can select panels and maybe find something in there, but it seems I can't use that for stair railings. How do I select a different handrail section? (without silly gimmicks like manually placed soffits or mouldings) Thanks and regards,

Aw geez I wish I had known this... I just bought Pro specifically so I could make winders. I didn't know that the landings could be reshaped in Arch version and their railings turned off/on on any side to make winders without the Pro version.

Alan, I've had similar results (with Arch version) of different exterior finishes not aligning well between floors. I have noticed that depending on how closely aligned the walls of the two floors are before I click on the Align button, there can be more than one position that it can snap to. For conceptual models I just sort of ignore this and move on. Sometimes to limit the issue I'll modify the wall thicknesses to match better. Not technically correct, but it lets me continue. I hope with Pro there are ways to better control this somehow. BTW I could get any of the pics you posted here to open. It just sits there forever trying to load them. What format did you post? Regards,

Thanks, Eric. I'd say the verdict is still out on the Pro version. I'm convinced the sweet spot for home use is still the Arch version. For me the price/benefit ratio of Pro is very steep. And that brings me to... One of the features I thought I was getting with Pro was the ability to control object visibility through layers. I expected this meant the ability to create my own layers and add objects to them, like most other CAD/graphics software. That's not the case? Everything is already preassigned to default layers based on the object's "type" and I can't control it? When I toggle the Fixtures Interior layer, yes it turns off the models I imported but it also blanks all the appliances, tubs, etc. in the entire model. So it's a useless option in this case. Is there another way I can toggle/hide a group of objects? Thanks,

Hi folks, What layer holds the objects I add from the User Catalog? I'd like to toggle their display on/off and can't figure out which layer they're on (if any). These are objects that were originally imported from 3D models and then added to the User Catalog. Thanks and regards,