Whidbey_Bill

There are a few functions in Home Designer Pro 2018 that I would like to bring up with a programmable keyboard, - specifically the grid, snap increment and dimensioning variables, etc. Some of the gaming keyboards have fully programmable keys that could make those easy shortcuts. Before I invest in a great $100 one, will they work. Anyone use one to recommend? Newegg has a special coming on a Gskill gamer that looks useful. Thanks.

Thanks Eric. I can dig it. The topic discussion brings some 'focus'. I am taxing the video card - its 8 years old and great at the time, but I am using a 32" UHD monitor Samsung 32" WQHD LED Monitor (S32D850T). no doubt it contributes to the issue. Anyway I fixed the menu choice for clip surfaces as suggested to 200" and looks great! I am satisfied so I'l mark it solved. Picture attached. Fastest solution I've ever found and my forum experience alone convinces me I need to upgrade to Pro 2018.

Using HD Pro10 and have dozens of designs but this problem is frustrating. The shingles are nearly transparent (right frame) and depending on the perspective view I can see the outlines of the OSB sheeting, Only shows in perspective view. Left frame is a raised 'full camera' and looks fine. Oh, I know I have a few broken walls under the roof line that are a result of room configurations that was adjusted when the 30 year old house was custom built. Perhaps that 'blows up' the perspective regeneration. Maybe I remember that. But I am not building the house just making a set of drawings for a roof extension for permitting. I have done auto roof rebuild and tried other things including trying to make the shingles "thicker" but it's baffling me. Thanks.

I have had a response from CA that they verified the bug in my HD Pro10 plan. I also found in my testing that if the sloped soffit is placed at a higher elevation, boards have to be wider yet to retain their slope. That is to say, an 8" 45º sloped soffit will flatten on reopening if it has an elevation of say, 180" front and 188" back. Also a narrow slanted board (soffit) of say 3 inches will flatten if created at an elevation above 33" or so. I'll leave it at that. Another user might find this thread and realize it IS a bug in older versions. CA has not said if it exists in versions later than 10 but I am the first to report it, ever.

Hello, David, That is awesome. I was hoping someone would confirm. Very much obliged. Happy Holiday,

Difficulty with Sloped Soffits at different elevations I am designing a privacy screen 6 feet high for a friend using vertical posts and sloped soffits between the posts. I am making the boards (soffits) 4" wide, 1" thick and 36" long. I can make the sloped soffits that when constructed look fine and reproduce OK in rendering until i save the file and the reopen it. After reopening the file, the soffits, that is those above 60" or so, revert to flat soffits though they are otherwise in the right position vertically and horizontally. If I open a camera or elevation view I can click each one and reset the parameters that slope them and they again look fine until i re-save and reopen. I put a room around them instead of placing the assembly along the deck but it made no difference. The four lower ones in the JPEGs retain their parameters, those above the brown one at 60" lose the sloped soffit check box when the file reopens. I saved a camera angle in the plan so the same view is available. It doesn't seem to make any difference how I create the higher elevation soffits, copy, paste, or original. Maybe there is another setting in the defaults that is messed up but I am using a default plan as a starting point. Any one? I had a similar experience some time back but ignored it thinking I'd done something else wrong. Now I can consistently get this to happen in the smallest file. The JPGs I attached show before and after the saving, closing and reopening. This plan is just a test plan to sort out the quirk. I recall once before having to uninstall and reinstall the program (HD Pro10) but want to avoid this since it is way past the support date. All other program features seem fine. Many thanks. Windows 7 always updated , ATI Radeon 3800, Intel LGA775 in ASUS MB, 6 GB Ram, 256GB SSD. Louver_Test.plan

I'll close my issue by saying that i talked to Kelly at CA tech support. He advised thar "attic wall" attribute can be checked off in the pop-up dialogue box which might help. I'll try it but regenerating a roof may switch it back. HD 2015 still has automatic attic wall generation. Rendering with shadows is interesting. There isn't a method for making equal sided hex walls although I succeeded earlier today in making a 6' hexagon in SIP with all sides ± 1/16 th, but resorted to 1/4" snap. good enough for now. No SIP roofs. Kelly at CA suggested that all of my issues are accommodated in CA X6 which can be rented a month at a time. Call sales for more. Bye. .

Hi Kbird. The Cupola is to be erected by the home owner and the SIP wall assembly with roof attached is to be lifted by crane into position after the sub floor and needed floor joists are in place. The owner expects to notch the pre-assembled cupola around the 28" diameter ridge pole so that's already understood. the cupola floor will be separated (elevated) from the second floor ceilings by about four or five feet and that where the issues arise, i conceed. A ladder from a nearby ceiling pushed through a floor hatch is the method for access. I may be doing the best job possible with the programs constraints. If, before I build the NEW third floor, I PULL DOWN the offending attic walls to just an inch or so, I can manage to build a pretty close model as you can see in the JPG. But rebuilding the roof and framing to accommodate the inserted cupola intiates the unwanted distortions. Trying to correct them leads to other problems. I've had five years with Pro10 so I can handle most of the features but this job has a special set of circumstances, as you can see. The cupola height inside is restricted, of course, for several reasons. The owner doesn't want his open ceiling to be significantly "messed-up" with a lot of framing hanging down. He's comfortable with low headroom just so he and his spouse have a viewpoint above the tree line. The cupola inside has just 5' 6" max headroom and the floor is to be flush with the bottom of the ridge pole. He cannot cut the 4' spaced 4X12 rafters, of course, so they will protrude into the cupola space as shown. There is a height restriction of 35' from the county, and we're adding the cupola to a house that is already 30 ft 6 in. at the peak. Yeah, a lot of constraints. And rebuilding, or resizing the design to make it fit the existing structure is very challenging. etc, My profession is aerospace test engineering and product design including spacecraft, so I am no stranger to CAD. Thanks for reviewing. If 2015 has a few augmented features the $300 upgrade would be worth it to save time and angst. Bill

This kinda on topic so forgive me if I expose too much of my naivete. I thought I posted this a few days ago but I can't find it. I have HDPro10 and used it successfully to design and implement a major remodel of a spec house. I have also over the past 3-4 years or so designed several models of walkout basement homes and made good use of the miriad features in HD Pro10. Recently a contractor friend asked me to undertake a design to add a cupola to his two-story log home. I have found (and not just recently) that certain automatic functions of Pro10 are both frustrating and time-consuming when trying work-arounds. The issues become time wasters as I've been at this for days without being able to make a complete presentation. As an example I attached an illustration of the design that has multiple flaws and is incomplete at this time. SIPs have been chosen for the hexagon cupola as it is to be added to an existing home in a high wind environment. The cupola is to be mounted upon (straddling somewhat) the massive log ridge-pole and tied also to the associated 4X12 rafters at the apex of the roof. The floor will be suspended from the ridgepole & rafters and stabilized with joists to nearby attic walls. A) The automatic attic walls are my biggest impediment in this design case. Seems it cannot be disabled and the close ones snap to the new cupola walls and make for regeneration errors. I cannot make all of the sides of the 6 ft-on-a-side Hexagon absolutely the same dimension, even though the 120º angle is achieved. C) Since the floor of the cupola is to be elevated above the second floor ceilings, I cannot prevent the attic walls from distorting the module and/or changing the characteristics of the SIP walls. D) The roof of the cupola is to be 3/12 because of height restriction, while the existing house is 5.5/12 pitch. There is no option for a SIP roof in Pro 10, so I have to manually revise the cupola roof; Owner doesn't want framing under it. E) the plans ultimately would have to be reviewed by the county so flaws are problematic. 1) So I come to the question, have I overlooked a useful feature in Pro10 to resolve any or most of these issues? i.e.: a) auto attic walls on-off; SIP roof option; c) Better object generation (like a hex room). -OR- 2) Would Pro2015 provide improvements in flexibility to help me though this and other projects like this? I might add this particular project is pro bono but it could lead to a few paying jobs if I could be more efficient. LOL. Much Obliged Whidbey_Bill Home Designer Pro10 & 8 Windows 7 Pro. Intel Quad 3 GHz, 6 GB Ram Samsung 240 HDD, One TB file storage 25" Samsung T260 SyncMaster LCD, AMD Radeon 3800 Video.