DavidJPotter

It would have to be a corresponding version of Chief Premier which does have the ability to edit plan files and then share with Home Designer Users but the exact VERSION MUST be known beforehand as it is version sensitive.

DJP

Architectural, unlike Home Designer Pro does not allow fine adjustment of floor platform thickness. The only adjustments you can make are in the "Ceiling and floor finish" input boxes but you can make such adjustments and thus emulate thicker floor platform thicknesses by altering those values, just not as finely as in HD Pro or Chief Premier.

DJP

I am sure one of the Knowledge Base Help articles will help you:

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/search/?q=custom+material&submit.x=8&submit.y=5&default_tab=support&site=chief_architect&client=chief_architect&restrict=ChiefArchitect&proxystylesheet=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chiefarchitect.com%2Fsearch%2Fchiefsearch_stylesheet.xslt&output=xml_no_dtd

DJP

You can place a soffit object where you want the wall extension and set the material to whatever you require. Walls are necessary but they do have some built in limitations as you have seen.It is hard to make walls do what they are not programmed to do.

DJP

Here is a hyper-link to the Home Designer Support page-updates where the current updates, per title are listed:

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/updates.html

DJP

It may seem to you that perfection is the goal. I would suggest to you that accuracy is the more important factor and they are NOT the same thing. I am and have been doing remodeling projects professionally for a couple of decades and for remodeling projects where you have an existing structure the key areas that need to be accurate are those directly adjacent to areas where additions and or renovations are to occur.

The rest of the house is merely a "backdrop" for the work area.

In other words, areas that you are not building from scratch merely need to not detract from the communication of what is being changed or added.

A virtual model is vastly different from an existing structure in its basic character   (computers are best at straight lines and angles unlike the "real" world where machine perfection is not a constant by default).

The point of construction documentation, drawings and renderings is to convey what you want done to others. Competent building professionals already know HOW to build, there are existing codes, inspections and procedures to curb a sometime lack of personal ethics or someone's "bad day" at your expense. Plumbers, Electricians and HVAC specialists are also State Licensed so your most important thing to do is to find a General Contractor who has a demonstrated track record of competence and honesty (they are out there along with the ones who give the rest of them a bad name).

Make sure the addition is accurate (it will have to have a foundation designed by a State Licensed Structural Engineer or for smaller room additions a State Licensed Architect will serve) and inaccuracies at that stage of the project can be expensive to repair and cause delays.

If you will give us a little more to work with, in terms of data about your concerns, we are glad to help but we have to understand the  problem to supply useful answers, post a picture or pictures, say what software you are using and its version number.

DJP

Unless you have Home Designer Pro (any version) you will not be easily able to do the roofs on ths house (Pro has manual roof tools that you MUST have to do wll of those in detail), plus of course you would have to learn how to use those manual tools.

What do you have?

DJP

I also submitted a ticket and referenced this thread and attached my simple plan.

DJP

I checked Mick's results (downloaded-installed the update) drew an open below-clerestory room and was unable to get the crown molding showing properly in the open-below area, ( I thought if I could figure out a work-round, I would then make a video of it to share) but no-dice, it is a bug and proper function should be returned by Chief Inc with another patch.

DJP

When Viddi says "look closely" she means zoom rather close to see if any wall connection corners look "funny" and those like that manually reconnect them until they do look right (if no "Room Dialog Box" can be accessed then THAT IS the reason for no floor. The floor material can be set to "zero thickness" (sero thickness + no visual floor)

DJP

Tell us (me) what software you have and its version number please and post a picture of what you are seeing on your computer screen so we (I) can have some orientation as to what you are seeing or not seeing. Define exactly what you mean by "lost my floors".

DJP

Dimensions do ONLY what you set them to do. This software is a mechanical device that runs on settings. If the settings are wrong then the dimensions are wrong ( See Edit - Dimension Defaults  - Locate Objects).

When you create a custom wall type you have to tell the software what is the "Main Layer" and by default it will measure only to you you set as the "Main Layer" (if that is set wrong by you then dimensions are then wrong as well).

You have to do a little study and practice to get the precise results you want (just like your Architect did or anyone else who intends accurate graphic communication from Architectural Software).

That is what is happening (or not happening in this case). I am not being mean or mean spirited but rather just answering your query factually.

DJP

I commonly move the main roof plan on which the dormers will rest up a floor and only then place the dormer objects, so they do not clutter up the main floor.

DJP

No but if it persists,contact Tech Support for help.

DJP

make the treads of soffits or custom slabs (depending upon which software title you have) and then manually place them in a camera view. 
The had rail can be a sloped soffit if your software title has that tool.

DJP

To back up Mick's rather through answer, I observed that you set your scale in "File - Print - Page Set UP" to a scale that is larger than your drawing sheet is set to. That is why it looks the way it does in your posted image. You use the tools available to find a scale which will fit on your maximum paper size (18" x 24" in your case), print it to PDF, Then take the results to a printer service and have them double the paper size, thus 18" x 24" can be blown up to 36" x 48" (Architectural "E") which is quite large whether in Imperial or Metric units. The presettings have to be in accord with each other in order to gain a useful product.

Developing your own competence is often a frustrating job, I understand, I have spent many a failure filled hour until success was gained.

DJP

I generally do not recommend creating a terrain plane with GPS data from a surveyor, not because the software cannot do this job, it can. But often what is then created cannot be then parsed per unit of time in terms of camera views afterwards. Most Surveyor's use specialized expensive software to create topography objects and they do not model them in 3D but only in 2D for site plans-plot plans. When you add the third dimension the amount of computer power rises exponentially and overwhelms most average PC's ability to create the tens of thousands of 3D faces that can make up a non-symmetric object like a terrain plane.

When you convert basically 2D data into a modulated 3D terrain object it helps to "keep it as simple" as possible so your PC or Mac can then create camera views that can be quickly created and viewed per unit of time ( something so complex that you cannot even look at it is rather worthless).

What I do is import a 2D image of a site plan or topo map, scale it and then trace over its elevation lines usually every ten feet or so and that will produce a terrain object that can be worked with without using all your computing power up just on the terrain.

You will find that a house model with terrain tends to become slower and slower (harder to work on) the more complex it becomes and it is not hard to find the barrier past which your computer cannot go. This is a limitation of your hardware and not a limitation of Home Designer Software, to consistently acquire top performance you must have the limits removed that hardware inherently has by having better hardware.

DJP

I suppose that you have the 2014 version (they discontinued it at that time)?

It is not impossible, just difficult (I opened my copy of L & D 2014 and using the  provided spline sidewalk or spline road tools, I  was able to get some complicated curves and angles created using the "CTRL" or Control key to overcome the default tendency to snap along allowed angles. 

This sort of thing is easier to do in Pro due to the fact that you have more native CAD tools to make that job easier but you CAN do it in what you have.

Impossible is only a barrier you have personally placed there where a little more persistence will get a usable product.

DJP

Read and practice with one or more of these Knowledge Database Help articles.

DJP

I disagree with Mick to the extent that if you cannot get your desired product after studying the offered Knowledge Base article and then implementing it afterwards.

If you cannot get the expected results then there is something in the Knowledge Base article you have not yet fully understood. Go back and study it again until you get understood what you missed the first time (it is usually a word or symbol that you do not fully understand that perhaps you have one or two actual definitions for it but are missing the definition that applies the way the author intended in order to convey the correct understanding).

That article IS how to do what you want to do.

DJP

It sounds like you imported it as a custom material which is the wrong way to go, a satellite image should be imported simply as an image, then scaled to match as closely as possible the size of the terrain plane.

You import the image, scale it using the provided scaling tools (select the image while in plan view and those tools will only appear in the "Edit Toolbar" while the image is selected).

I am not saying this is a Science, it is not due the fact that Google supplies a "Graphic Scale" for getting the scale close in HD (the native scale in HD is 1' =1' or Real World scale),

I have done the same as you many times and what I describe has work-ability, applying to the terrain plane as a custom material does not in terms of scaling.

DJP

 

 

Has anyone else encountered this issue?

I am a twenty year user and no, never heard of such a problem.

DJP

No Chief Architect or Home Designer title imports "Zip files" (compressed archives), you first decompress or un-zip the downloaded files and then IF those files are in a file format that the software does import you can then import and use those symbols (check the " File - Import Symbol" dialog for which files are acceptable.

DJP

There us no "option" there is merely setting a rooms ceiling height and then the walls will build to that height, so set by you.

DJP

The "Ceiling Height" setting controls wall heights per room dialog box.

DJP