Elovia

Hi Susan, The drafting protocol is different from one designer to the next. I don't recommend using the room's area description to reproduce its size; these dimensions may be rounded to the nearest foot or have some other hidden convention applied (e.g., from where to where are the measurements taken? What about non-rectangular rooms?). Instead, I recommend that you layout the floor plan roughly and then adjust each individual room's size to taste. Good luck.

I agree with the posts above. It is possible to model a barrel roof in HDPro, and it can be tedious. That said, depending on the desired finished product, you may be able to take shortcuts using SketchUp. Here is an old post (with image) of mine from the Legacy Hometalk forum that shows it may be achievable using an exploded barrel roof dormer. http://hometalk.homedesignersoftware.com/showthread.php?14994-Barral-Ceiling Good luck.

The menu Eric mentions can be found if you click on the "View New Content" button near the top of the page. Alternately, you can select your user name at the top of the page, and then in the drop down menu choose "My Content". Hope this helps.

Is the room within your deck railing defined as a Deck ... or is it Open Below?

If you need an upclose visual similar to the stones in the second picture of the original post, I suggest creating it as a custom countertop with rounded moldings on the edge and a slate texture applied throughout. Then copy paste and place at desired elevations. Hope this inspires.

Hi Keith, Back when I learned to use this software, we didn't have the fancy new stairs options or tools. Instead, I learned to create manually what I couldn't create automatically. Then again, I first learned 3D modeling back when we only had primitive shapes (i.e., blocks, spheres, cones, etc.) and used boolean logic to create our visions. Fortunately, we still have the choice of automated vs. manual. Attached is an image of a glass panel stair rail that I built manually using sloped soffits for the panel and the handrail (in Pro 8, if I recall correctly). You could do the same for your application, and realize your vision in your model. My panel may be simpler than yours, but if you consider how the panel is to be constructed, then you can use primitive shapes with appropriate textures to create it. Key ingredients are patience and attention to detail. Good luck.

Welcome to the forum, RareBear. Use the menu command: CAD -> Points -> Delete Temporary Points Give that a try and see if it removes the "x" points that you see. Good luck.

Hi Shelby, Welcome to the forum. This task may be accomplished a number of ways depending on which Home Designer software title you have. If you have Home Designer Pro, you can select your highest elevation roof plane, open its specification dialog and note the ridge height. In most of the other Home Designer titles, you can use a back-clipped elevation camera to view through your highest point, and then use the measurement tool to measure the height. If neither of these options are available to you, please let us know which Home Designer software title you have, so more specific help may be suggested. Good luck.

Hi Joe, Welcome to the forum. Have there been any other changes with your computer setup? New operating system? New hardware? Have you attempted to fix the problem by updating your mouse or video drivers? How about a reinstall of the software? If all else fails, you should contact Customer Support so that they can work through the problem with you. Good luck.

Welcome to the forum, ioanwill. Are you looking for tips to create the stairway walls similar to shown in the image below? If so, place an inverted wedge from the shapes library adjacent to where the stair railing otherwise shows, and in the stair's specification dialog check the "open underneath" option on the styles tab. You will need to adjust the wedge to get it to seamlessly fit the stair angle and to be flush with the stair's underneath surface. Hope this helps.

The soffit from the cabinetry menu (or the closed box shape from the library - although, the box has a minimum thickness and may not be appropriate), and the wedge from the shapes library. The isometric wedge (on end) may be used at the peak of the gable.

If the pony wall method David describes doesn't work for you, a thin overlay with soffits and wedges should work ... albeit with a bit more work and attention to detail. Good luck.

Nice video, David. In watching it, I came up with another possible solution. Of course, that's the nice thing about this software; there's often more than one way to achieve a similar result. Draw the interior wall, and break it as shown in the video with an invisible middle section. Break the right-hand section again (with reference to the video), and set the left-most segment of the right-hand visible section (the one closest to the invisible section) to be a solid rail or half-height wall depending on which it is called in Suite. Then also set the left-hand section of visible wall to be a solid rail or half-height wall. Finally, use a soffit for the overhead suspended wall section. This may help with the baseboard molding issue encountered in the video. Hope this helps.

Hi Eric, What you're asking about can be done in Pro using the manual roof tools and auto-rebuild roof option off, but it takes a fair bit of work. You would start with a dormer, as you suggested, then explode and relocate it, then modify the attaching roof plane to fit. I did it once or twice in a project several years ago (Pro 8 or 10) that began with a barrel roof dormer; the finished product ended with limited success. Good luck.

Welcome to the forum. The Chief Architect's Home Designer line of software does not lend itself to this particular design, or at least not without heavy importation of models and surfaces from a 3rd party software like SketchUp or other similar software - or possibly with extremely tedious attention to detail in placing custom planes along the curved surfaces. The Home Designer line of software is designed for the average consumer to quickly and easily create traditional dimensional lumber framing designs, and to visualize those designs in 3D. You may need a more robust, professional grade Architectural and/or CAD software to achieve the design proposed. Good luck.

Welcome to the forum, Anthony. Try building your daylight basement as the first floor level. Hope this helps.

Unfortunately, the plan doesn't seem to be attached. However, take a look at the room specification dialog and ensure that your flooring has a specified thickness. If your floor has a thickness of zero inches, then this may be your problem. Hope this helps.

Another choice would be that you may assign custom labels to the HV or LV components. Good luck.

Perhaps this thread from the old Hometalk forum may be helpful? hometalk.homedesignersoftware.com/showthread.php?18209-Siding-material-choice

Perhaps this thread from the old Hometalk forum might help? hometalk.homedesignersoftware.com/showthread.php?17175-Barn-door-anyone

Even though I use Pro, I use a technique that is certainly achievable in Suite. I place a stone textured soffit of an appropriate thickness on the outside surface of my walls. I also cap them with another soffit. See below for an example past project of mine. Mentioned in the original post was that the stone only came up to the bottom of the windows, and the above technique can do that fairly quickly. If, on the other hand, you need the stone texture partially above the bottom of your windows similar to Eric's example, this can also be done but with extra effort. See the siding below the windows on the front porch in the example below, where I added multiple soffits of varying heights to wrap around the bottom of the windows.

Welcome to the forum. It may help us to know a little about the operating system and/or hardware, and if there are differences between the machine you're attempting to use Pro8 on and the other ones upon which you've successfully used it. Care to elaborate?

Oh sure, you could do it that way ... or if you don't have Pro, you could use an inverted wedge from the library.

Welcome to the forum. Which software title and version are you using? If your software title has the auto-stairwell tool, it should be located in the object tool bar (lower left of screen by default) when the stairs are selected. Hope this helps.

Here is a quick summary of how I reduce the "PITA" factor when placing sloped soffits. The annoyance with them comes from the fact that you have to input precise upper and lower elevations. What I do is use the back-clipped camera to get a view perpendicular to where I want my sloped soffit run. Then, I'll use CAD lines in that camera view to layout the soffit. I first draw a CAD line that matches the slope I intend for my soffit. In the case of a stair hand rail, I'll draw a CAD line along common points on the stairs (e.g., tread nosings or opposite wall handrail) and then translate the CAD line upward as necessary to achieve the required height. I then draw plumb CAD lines (i.e., vertically straight up and down) across the sloped CAD line at the top and bottom of the soffit location. Now I can easily determine the upper and lower elevations to input in the sloped soffit specification dialog from the CAD line specification dialog. Snap the ends of the soffit in the back-clipped camera view to the plumb CAD lines, and input the determined elevations in the sloped soffit specificaiton dialog. Some finish tweaking may be required, but the soffit should be roughed in fairly close (approximately +/- 1/8"). It honestly takes longer to describe than to do. Hope this helps.