DavidJPotter

These should help DJP

This subject has been discussed here many times in the past. The thing about importing Surveyor's Data is that it was generated by a very expensive software application that professional surveyors use. When importing such an object into Home Designer or even Chief Premier tends to generate such an overly complex terrain plane that NO usual PC or Mac can easily parse or display per second on screen. If your terrain is relatively flat, there should not be a problem but if it has lots of highs and lows it can then be problematic for your computer to handle the results. Professionals, like Eric and I avoid anything like that (we have work to do and hate delays). so I do as Eric has suggested. I import a site plan document, make sure it is scaled and then trace over its contours only enough to get the terrain generated, align it to the computer screens North and South. If I want to show magnetic North, I use a graphic North Pointer found under 2D CAD Line tools to indicate, relative to the house. With Terrain, less is more in that too much terrain modulation and it hogs all your PC's hardware abilities to operate. 3D modeling applications display objects using "3D Faces", the more 3D faces there are in a .plan file the longer it takes your computer to generate a visual of it per second. Eric and I suggest you not go in that direction. As veteran end users we know what works and what is a waste of time, or you can believe the hype of the Sales Department and demand performance of your computer that it was not designed to deliver. The choice is yours. DJP

Here is an image of part of what I did for you this evening: Thanks for letting me help you. DJP

Failing or having difficulty is part of anyone's learning curve, just stay at it. DJP

I was speaking of the roof system only, construction documentation lakes more additional time ( I charge by the hour). Any required structural call outs and details must be done by a State Licensed Structural Engineer licensed where you intend to build also, outside of my purview. DJP

Did you pay for or exchange with the original creator of this plan for a full set of construction documents? Or do you just want someone, using what is visible on their website as a guide to finish your 3D model (.plan file)? If you just want the existing plan finished up based on what I can see on their website, I believe that will require about two hours to complete. If you can be more detailed and specific as to your desires, I can then be more specific with my estimate. DJP

The layout is basically your current plan, there is no reason why you could not save copies of it for future use and as Eric said, the boxes are still there, but just visually turned off (unchecked) in Layer Display Options. DJP

Some Chief Architect personnel are assigned to monitor this forum but Tech Support has its own communication lines and procedures as listed on the Home Designer website under "Support". This forum is mainly for our use as end users helping each other. DJP

I would just need to know exactly you want done in detail and then what exactly is the software and its version you are using. It is the sort of thing I do on a regular basis. DJP

Home Designer Architectural retails for about $200.00. Whereas Chief Premier costs around $2,800.00 to buy and about $600.00 to maintain active Tech Support per year which I gladly pay for that support every year since 1995. Home Designer software is supported by built-in "Help Files", an easily accessible "Knowledge Base" of searchable help articles, I use it often when I need help, there is one for Home Designer and one for Chief Premier. Both Chief Premier and all Home Designer titles are supported by free video tutorials on all the tools that are available per title and are also searchable. There are several "YouTube Channels" devoted to Chief Premier, my channel is a little more Home Designer centric. These channels address specifically tendered end-user questions and are again searchable. I am in no position to say with impunity that Chief Architect Software support is the "best" around but it is rather stellar, in my opinion. The main factor is how willing you are to self-study and practice to teach yourself how to master the software and its tools, that is the make-break of competence. DJP

The software us merely a mechanical aid to your drawings and representations. If you want a particular look to your footings, then create one with the tools you have to hand which in Home Designer Pro are numerous. It boils down to learning what tools you have, what they do and how you can use them to represent, graphically what you intend. New users often are found to refer to the software as "it" as if it was an actual intelligence source (It won't do, it won't let me, it doesn't get it right when the actual answer is I have not yet learned how, I haven't learned how to do, etc.) . It is NOT, you provide the intelligence and guidance, not the software. DJP

Each upgrade adds new productivity features and abilities as well as requested refinements. Excitement is something one has or does not have. Improvement is all that is being offered when they choose to offer the next versions, which should be soon. DJP

For Home Designer Pro that IS the ONLY solution that comes with it, as Eric said, an easier solution is built into Chief Premier by its defaults. DJP

How to do a simple Salt Box roof is explained in your software in the "Build Roofs" Dialog-Roof Styles Tab where all basic roof type pre-settings are explained. In terms of your "different height exterior walls" this is controlled by Room Specification dialog box - Structure Tab - Ceiling Height settings input box per room or space. DJP

As Rookie 65 suggested the back-clip crosssection camera is your tool of choice, Where you left-click establishes your camera viewpoint and where you release the mouse determines how far you see from that viewpoint. Try it and see for yourself. DJP

Build the building and find out, I am no carpenter either, read how to do just that via the Roof Types tab of your Build Roof dialog, then measure the results using your dimension tools, that is how I would do it. Be sure and preset the ceiling height before you build the shed roof since that setting determine your ceiling height and the plate height of the roof baseline (the default setting for ceiling height is preset out of the box to 9', I do not know what that is in metric units, sorry. DJP

If you have Suite, Architectural, interiors or Essentials you can use reconfigured cabinet parts to emulate the side parts of the bar in your picture. The bar top can be made from a Shelf or soffit (cabinet tools) and also if you have HD Pro you can use a custom slab or custom countertop tools it has. Just think a little "out of the box" in terms of the tools your software has that you can use to emulate objects. DJP

You might, if you have time, share your plan with Chief Tech Support to see what they might comment on relative to the file size and any other problems you are having with this plan or you can share a copy of the plan with us here by way of Dropbox, One Drive or Google Drive where larger files can then be shared without regard to Home Talk. DJP

To be sure one knows all about the content of a .plan file one would have to go to "Display Options" for plan view, turn on all named layers in Display Options to then see the entirety of object content, visually, what one actually has. Then you can decide what to leave included and what can safely be deleted. Lots of objects can be there in actuality but just temporarily turned off (invisible). DJP

The common denominator of such problems is a failure on your part to first set "Edit - Default Settings-All categories" before starting to draw your plan. Especially in your case, Edit - Default Settings - Floors - Current Floor - Ceiling Height, you are supposed to set that value for the majority of the first floor before actually creating that floor. Once it is created, any necessary changes are then made in a single Room Specification Dialog box. Eric, it is common that new users often concentrate on embellishments to a.plan file like plants, driveways and other brick-a-brack that is easy to add instead of really learning how to use the software to correctly 3D model structures. They often import with wild abandon objects made using Sketch Up. often without regard to how that bloats the size of the plan file. Where I see such bloated files is most usually here in situations similar to this one, (they need help but cannot share their plan due to its size). DJP

and this one. DJP

See if this helps: DJP

You can emulate walls using a reshaped soffit object (cabinet tools). DJP

One of your posted images appears to be close to correct. With Architectural you have only pre-settings to guide the roof generator to an outcome. Relative to the intended dormers in your posted image (first post) you will need to preset your Dormer Defaults so as to be a little smaller than the ones in your image, Dormer objects must fit into the perimeter of its host roof plane and cannot go over the host roof planes edges. After you get one in place you can edit it to emulate the dimensions of the actual dormer then copy paste the second one. Being new to how the dormer objects work, it may well take you a while to get them in place, just do not give up and stay at it. DJP

Not enough information from you to comment other than to say that your answer depends upon what software you are using, and its version number. each Home Designer version contains several different titles and each of those has different tools and capabilities. Relative to roofs, the largest divide is between Home Designer Pro and all the rest. What you have will determine your answer here. DJP