DavidJPotter

Do you have a "Monolithic Slab" in your plan? What command did you use to acquire that result exactly? What program title and its version number are you using? Have you watched the provided tutorial videos about "Materials Lists" that are available on the Home Designer website yet? DJP

I think drawing the dormer manually is your solution. I recommend being happy with a useful result as opposed to "perfection" as such a state is oft times hard to create but a useful result is rather easy. DJP

I think no one has answered your "question" because you already answered it with your attached PDF. Normally, I I make a dormer part of a room, I "explode it" into its individual parts first but that is merely a habit of mine, in order to have a "room" you have to have a space closed with walls, this gives you a room specification dialog box, that is a fundamental requirement. DJP

You should always start with the first floor, then the second floor, if any. Then get the roof system on the structure. When the house is complete, only then would you then start the terrain plane and working out the walk-out basement. The terrain plane was added (1998 0r 1999) as an option after the software had been on the market for several years so it is always added after the structure is in place and is set to the structure (see "building pad" input for Z-axis adjustments of the terrain plane). It took me an entire year to fully learn the software and get certain results and I was using it every day to support my family as a remodeling designer-sales person. I know most persons here are not "Pros" but there is no reason to do anything as an "amatuer" even if you are one. DJP

The remedy is to place symbols where you intend them to be, placing things underground would confuse anyone understandably so. That is something you did and so the remedy is to refrain from doing weird, unexpected things. The software is a mechanical device that follows your orders only, so just make sure you orders make sense as you make them. DJP

What you have is a very tall wall due to the ceiling height of the area it is a part of. What you must do to handle is to make that single wall a pony wall with an exterior wall type on top and an interior 4 wall below adjusting the two resulting wall poly lines so that the exterior portion shows to the outside and the lower portion displays an interior wall to the inside. This can easily be done in Home Designer Pro or Architectural that have the pony wall option. DJP

What application did you use (what title and what version of that title?), How you would work on roofs in Home Designer Pro is radically different from what you would do in any other Home Designer title, what do you have? DJP

I answered your post in general terms based on the language you used to ask the question. On downloading your plan and inspecting it, I now, more clearly understand your complaints. I would say it is my opinion that you would be better served to upgrade to Home Designer Pro due to is superior roof manual tools. Getting this complicated roof done in Suite (any version) would be mere luck whereas it would be comparatively a "snap" to do in Home Designer Pro. It is your choice to make and my opinion to give. DJP

Then you will not be able to use the dormer tool because in order for a dormer object to form, you must NOT cross any other roof planes (the dormer cannot exist between or divided by two roof planes). So what your must then do is to manually create a dormer and manually edit the roof plane edges around the manual dormer. This is of course easier to do in HD Pro or Chief Premier but can be done in Suite. In Suite no manual editing is possible so it would have to be done quite carefully with just the right presettings and drawing of walls. This article may help https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00442/creating-an-automatic-dormer.html but you also need to figure out what your two pitches are to be and calculate at what "Z" axis height they are to make that transition and place those values into the wall dialog box of the front exterior wall. This Knowledge Base Help article will help explain the basis to dual pitch roofs over a single wall https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00127/specifying-roof-pitches.html DJP

What is the size in Mb of your plan file that is slow? When you create an overview,how long does it take to fully initialize? Do you have a large terrain plane with many plant and tree images? It sounds to me like you may have created a highly detailed, large plan file that would slow down any PC or Mac. There is a limit as to how much graphic data can be easily displayed per unit of time. DJP

In most localities in the USA at least, you are better served to just design your plan above ground and then share your plan and elevations as .dxf exports with a State Licensed Structural Engineer and let he or she design the foundation. You can certainly emulate the appearance of any kind of foundation using just the tools provided within Pro, but it is my opinion this sort of thing is best left to those trained and licensed to do it. You can start with the foundation wall tool or automatically generate a foundation and then manually edit it to emulate your image using custom slabs to emulate the piers. DJP

Temporary walls are used to guide the roof generator but when you have acquired the roof you want, then turn off "Auto Rebuild Roofs" in the Build Roof Dialog and then remove the invisible or other temporary roof guiding walls, then move on and do not rebuild roofs again. DJP

I am sorry to say that you will have to upgrade to Home Designer Pro in order to then have that ability after learning how to use its tools. All Home Designer titles other than Pro just do not have the tools necessary to emulate that kind of look. DJP

Is the room programmed to be "Open Below"? Is the attribute unchecked in the Terrain Specification Dialog that states "Hide Terrain Intersected by Building"? Either of the above conditions could cause what you are seeing. DJP

Revit is natively a 3D program like Chief and Home Designer but in terms of 3D their files are not interchangeable except in terms of 2D exports and imports, Revit can import 2D dxf files and like Chief Premier,once imported as 2D data (line entities) you would then have to use either Chief's or Revit's 3D tools to trace over the 2D import to bring it to life as a fully 3D model. I think you would be better served to go with one or the other (Revit or Chief Premier); really learn and master the one you end up with. Nothing is "perfect" in every way but both programs are quite capable in learned hands. DJP

I checked Home Designer Pro 2015 and it will export 3D STL files (I am not sure about Home Designer Pro 2016, it is on my laptop). Chief Architect Premier does export to several popular 3D file formats (colada, 3D dwg, obj, 3DS, stl, skp) but Home Designer Pro is more limited in ranges of choices of export file formats.) What version of Home Designer Pro do you have? DJP

You can remove the floor from a deck room by programming it to be "open Below", that would leave the railing and remove the floor but I do not understand the totality of your purposes? DJP

In Pro, I would place a soffit object, resize it and then control-drag it down to where I needed it assigning its material to be "Insulation". I suppose you need-want that there for "Materials List" purposes or perhaps for a cross section/Wall Typical view. You could also use a custom slab object and assign its material as "Insulation", either method will work. BTW if a wall typ or cross section is your product, HD Pro has a 2D CAD "Insulation Tool" for that purpose (look under the "CAD" menu "Box tools") DJP

Part of the trick of doing niches and med. cabs is to cut a hole in the wall using a "doorway" with the casing turned off. Such an object (doorway with casing off) looks like a hole in the wall. Position the doorway and resize it for your purposes before turning the casings off (a doorway with casings off is almost impossible to select in camera views), the you place your wall niche or medicine cabinet in the provided hole in the wall. Of course such a hole provided for a niche or med cab leaves a hole on the opposite wall side that you fill with a thin soffit object to patch the unwanted hole. Just control-dragging a med. cab into a wall also works and leaves no opposite side wall hole but it does frame properly where the later method does not properly wall frame. DJP

This You Tube video by Dan Baumann addresses "Platforms" in Chief Architect software and may be of help to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWibFFtn9Ik DJP

A dormer is composed of (made up from) two roof planes, three walls, in invisible wall, and a poly-line that cuts a hole in the roof. When you create a dormer object using the dormer tool, it makes a unit that contains these objects by default but when you "explode" that object you break it down to its individual parts as above, so after exploding, any editing must be carefully aware that you are manipulating several individual objects and not just one, just keep that in mind please. DJP

Here is a You Tube video of how you can do this with just soffit objects in either Architectural or Home Designer Pro or Chief Premier: https://youtu.be/wQ9Yy4Nile4 DJP

A key datum the article left out is that in Pro, where you have the ability to create a variable CAD 2D magnetic "North Pointer", with it present the input lines will use whatever orientation you have set with a CAD North Pointer, if one is not created by you then the software considers that directly "up screen" perpendicular is "North" (Architectural and Suite do not have a variable "North Pointer" object available), Pro does. DJP

Anyone who wants to answer your question with certainty needs to know what Home Designer or Chief Premier application and its version number you have. This and this alone will then determine a useful answer (Chief Premier and Home Designer Pro have manual roof tools. other Home Designer titles do not have manual roof tools; it makes an huge difference in capabilities and choices). So, what do you have? DJP PS: The videos you listed are for Chief Architect Premier and Home Designer Pro only.

One or more of these Knowledge Base Help articles may help: https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/search/?q=cape+cod DJP