Keith_K

Your question gave me my answer. Thank you. The material was "air gap". A solution so simple but so elusive.

It never rains but it pours with me on these forums. Because of the unusual thickness of my exterior walls (394mm) I had to create extra thick support walls in certain parts of my plan. From the drawing point of view I simply defined them as a single layer wall to the required thickness. The walls appear on the plan as they should but they don't appear in the dollhouse view. I have checked that they have foundations and stuff but they remain invisible in 3D. Any ideas?

...preferably so that I can create it and save it as an architectural block and stick it in my user library. The way I have done it in the illustrations is by drawing a small room using my internal wall default but it is a bugger to move around as I have to click on all four walls before I can do so. I also need the internal points to be exactly 2400mm from corner to corner and the points to be centred on the air gaps in the walls but whatever I try and do to achieve this results in an absolute abomination. Looking at it I also don't think I have managed to get a perfect 90º of the corners either.

I did a "save as" to get the second copy so I had one named Office Plan and the other Office Layout Plan (in which I was placing workstations and stuff). I have now managed to get them the same. It took about a day of fiddling and it seemed that a method I eventually used of working from the inside of the plans to the outside rather than outside to inside was they key.

Did what David suggested. It looked like a junk furniture store when all my attempts to place chairs were uncovered.

Thanks Mick. I will fiddle with that, maybe changing colours of the main layers so that, for the purposes of carrying on drawing, I can seeing where the layers might possibly be reversed and in future I will try and remember to draw walls in one direction only. Do the <br /><br /> things in your post have any significance?

Without going into semantics... 1. I am working on two copies of the same basic plan using a split screen. 2. There is a difference of 1 millimetre in the dimensions between the exterior walls which I put down to the rounding up/down of the dimensions done by the software 2. The dimensions between interior walls on each used to be exactly the same on both copies. 3. Due to requests from a client the interior walls have been demolished and new interior walls are being drawn. The exterior walls have not been touched. 4. As soon as I complete one operation on one plan I immediately go and do exactly the same on the other. 5. However certain dimensions on a particular part of the plan/s don't match. Some are out by only a few millimetres while others are out by a few hundred millimetres. 6. I am unable to work out as to why this is happening as, given the difference of only 1 millimetre dimensions between the exterior walls on both the plans, any error in the dimensions between whatever I do between said exterior walls should result in only a 1 millimetre difference somewhere on only one of the interior dimensions. 7 If the errors were progressive from one side to the other it would indicate to me that the dimension between the exterior walls was vastly different from one plan to the other. But it isn't. It is the same and the differences are random, not progressive. And I don't know why. Hence my posting. The only thing I can think of trying is to go to each plan and zoom in as far as possible to the dimension pointer on each dimension and check that it is actually measuring exactly from the one wall surface to the other. Despite asking several times for this to be looked at there is still no way to tell the software that I would like the dimensions measured from one side of a room to the other and to be done within that room without going through to the side of the room next door resulting in my having to click on the dimension and drag it back which, if I am working at my usual zoom distance, isn't an exact science. But even so I can't see this inexact science making an error of a couple of hundred millimetres.

Thank you. I will play with this issue once I have overcome the current new one.

Those to whom I submitted my original office block design have decided that rather than departmental managers having their own office they are to be sited in with the hoi polloi and only those staff on the Strategic Management Team and their PAs are to have their own little private domains while everyone else will share large open plan areas. I, personally, detest vast open plan areas, but heigh ho!, the client always knows best especially when they discuss things with you in "corporate speak" which goes straight over my head. So, doing some blue sky thinking outside the box and considering best practice which is supposedly better for their human resources I have been demolishing walls and destroying furniture and doing some wall rearranging to see whether I can come up with something that will fit the client's wishes. Because I will be having two floor plans, one showing dimensions etc. and the other showing the furniture and equipment layouts without the clutter of the dimensions, l have been working simultaneously on both using a split screen. But something has happened which I can't seem to solve. Even after staring at the plans for ages I can't seem to spot what is causing the problem with some of the internal dimensions. While most of them match (as they should) there are five which don't and I am hoping that someone on here will be able to spot what I seem to be missing.

In a council chamber on my plan I created two areas of public galleries by using the stairs tool i.e. making them wide, with wide treads and10mm risers - the latter to give those sitting behind the first row which is at floor level - a measure of elevation from which to view the goings on of the council. I can place seating on the floor level, as you will see from the attachment, but when I try to place rows of seating on what is effectively the tread of the staircase it will be visible until such time as I click on something else and then it disappears. If I click on the space where it used to be it appears again but then vanishes when I move away. I have tried making adjustmentssing the object dialogue "height above floor" setting but it makes no difference. My thoughts were that using the stair tool would be far easier and quicker than fiddling about with soffits but it seems as if said thoughts were totally wrong. Is there some way that I can get the chairs to stay where I want them?

Tools>Display Settings>Display options Uncheck foundations, footings and anything else you don't want to see. That's what I do.

...and I've just noticed in the 3D view that the left hand connection section is also suffering from the same problem.

I don't know whether there is anyone here on a Sunday but... By some miracle and help from the gods I managed to create a parapet wall some time ago on my office block and it all looked good. Initially I used a brick cavity wall as I didn't want just a single layer because of how I want to "floor" to sit on the walls below. Then only today I noticed that the "floor" of the mock room was showing through the walls in 3D perspective and I realised that this was because some of the walls in the main ground and first floor plans weren't right (their outer walls weren't aligned properly with walls they butted against). I changed all that and the plans of the ground and first floors all looked pretty and neat again and then I went to the parapet wall and changed it to a single 100mm wall and aligned this with the outer edges of the walls below. And the the muck hit the fan. I am now unable to open the parapet "rooms" of the two main wings of the office block but can do this perfectly on both the side wings and the three sections which link the four blocks together. What I now get when I click on the "room" is in the first attachment below I have carefully checked the wall connections and they all seem to be OK. Any ideas as to what I have done wrong would, as always, be greatly appreciated.

Bloody marvellous! Thank you. That is exactly what I wanted. This must be my shortest topic yet.

...so that I can look at two plans at the same time? I know that I seem to do things in a way that is totally different to how others might but that is just me and I seem to, somehow, always get there in the end. I am busy splitting my office block into individual office areas. At the same time I am also labelling the offices and placing desks (370 of them) and things within the offices. BUT I am doing this on two separate plans because the "furniture" plan is for illustration purposes only and I want to keep it totally separate from the main plan. Obviously I am moving internal walls around while doing the office layout and allocation and while I know that I can flip between one plan and the other (which is somewhat laborious and time consuming) I would really prefer it if I could split my screen and have the relevant sections of both plans visible at the same time so that what I do in one split section I can do immediately in the second. Is this possible or am I hoping for too much? Which wouldn't surprise me at all.

Thanks for your input. I got around the problem by deleting several windows and then, when inserting them again, using the temp dimensions that come up to space them correctly. Necessity is the the mother of... ...as they say.

Did you first suggestion but it made no difference. Haven't been near my default settings for quite some time but this is what they show vvv. It's all so frustrating. I was aiming to finish everything on this plan by the end of the week but it seems as if it is just going to drag on and on and on and...

Previously when I was placing windows in my office block it was all so easy. Paste the windows all along the wall and then use the temp dimensions to set the distance between window centres. I have made some dimensional amendments to the length of the building and now need to reset the windows but when I click on them the temporary dimensions are all over the place, missing out windows and even giving the dimension to the centre of walls. Previously the dimensions went from window centre to window centre making moving them a piece of cake. Have I accidentally clicked on some button or the other which has changed the way in which the temp dimensions show thus making it almost impossible to centre the windows now?

Jo-Ann Why, in the space of one afternoon I've even learned how to make architectural blocks and add things to the library. I'm a bit worried that the side desk on the triple workstation seems to be elongated and not of the same proportions as the other two but if my memory serves me correctly I think I read somewhere that this is something to do with the way the software displays things. Would you drag it in to make it look a bit more proportional? I don't like the numbers that automatically appear either but, heigh-ho, who am I to quibble about such a minor thing.

I have searched £D Warehouse and found a couple (see the second attachment) but they are not editable and the one that I really liked is so huge that just using three of them in my plan increases the plan size from 8MB to 14MB. I need something similar to my crude sketch below. Ideally I would be able to edit it so that I can use all three together as in the sketch or split it up so that where I only need two desks I can erase the third. Etc. I know that there are some clever people on here...

And they did work! I got the prints exactly to scale and with enough blank space around them for plenty of scribbling and calculating. When I cut off all the blank space I found that with a bit of experimenting the printer bloke could probably have fitted the plan onto Arch C and still have got the plan to scale. Unless, of course, his printer didn't allow very narrow margins. That's an exercise for the future because it would have been a lot cheaper.

I seem totally incapable of dragging anything onto the paper. However the printer printed the Arch C PDF I created onto A2 paper (420x594mm) and when I went to collect it yesterday I discovered that the image was exactly half in scale of the 1:100 scale I am used to (i.e. 2.5 centimetres equalled 5 metres) so we decided that he would print it again onto A0 paper (841x1189mm) and double the size of the print so that it should then be exactly the 1:100 scale I am used to working in. This means I can use my scaled ruler on the prints to work out exactly where I want the stud walls to be while being able to so the whole plan and then go to the computerised plan and do the necessary. I'm off to collect the new prints now, full of hope that our calculations worked.

Thank you for your replies. "Deliberate crippling" seems to be a de rigueur tactic by CA in an effort to force people spend more money on "improved" versions, Mick, but as I don't have the money to spend I'll just mutter under my breath about capitalists and stuff and try and make the best out what I've got. The problem I have with the limited page size offered by HD Pro 2014, David, is that in this particular instance it would make the plan illegible because the smaller the size the more the dimensions overlap each other and appear in places where they shouldn't be. While the current sheet size might be suitable for domestic dwellings ,should this particular plan ever come to the stage of having to have proper layout pages with borders and text etc. to satisfy the local authority I will just have to make my own. However, following some of the suggestion proffered by Mick, I downloaded PDF995 and after about two and a half hours of being told that various page sizes were "not supported" and that I HAD to use a certain much smaller page size I managed to persuade it that the Arch C page could actually be supported and have now managed to create a PDF document in that size which I will be taking to the printer tomorrow after which I will hopefully be able to crack on and finally put this plan to bed. The romance has gone out of our relationship and I am becoming quite bored with it now. p.s. RichardPark, I don't come cheap.

Lest I be accused of complaining, as has happened in the past, let me state from the outset that I am not. I am simply totally exasperated. Because I need to see the whole of the plan of my office block in order to adjust the sizes of offices and because my monitor is too small to accomplish this and have it legible I thought that I would send the plan to a layout sheet and get it printed so that I can scrawl all over it and then go back to the file and do what I need to do. I looked for articles in the HD Tech Help website and found KB-00527. Unfortunately this supplied four pages of quite comprehensive instructions which, on reading, applied only to HD Pro 2015 with a reference to scroll to the end of the article for instructions for Pro 2014 and earlier. Those instructions barely covered a single printed page and, for me, are quite useless as they give no real help at all. I have since spent hours with the reference manual flipping backwards and forwards because of the perpetual "see page 123" references and in the end my head exploded. I then thought that I would set the preferences for the layout and drawing sheets and try sending the plan to one or the other and then save it as a PDF. HD doesn't provide an option for A0 paper (1150x1525 cms) so I created a new page with those dimensions naively hoping that this would work. I then created a layout page as per the aforementioned feeble instructions and when I sent the plan to the supposedly pre-preferenced layout I got this: Reference is made in the error message that I should adjust the size with some tool that I cannot find. In this country we use drawing scales such as like 1:100 (1cm = 1m), 1:50 (2cm = 1m) etc. Given what I have read in the user manual I assume that my drawing is in 1:100. I would prefer 1:50 but as this requires a paper size of 60x40 cms and knowing the limitations the software offers I won't even consider going there. So after all that preamble (which I hope is in good enough English to be understood) my questions is: Can someone please direct me to an article/help topic which will give detailed and clear instructions of how I might achieve my objective so that I don't end up in a padded cell trying to find a solution on my own. Thank you.

It's been quite a few months since I started this particular project and, given all the hassles (including a computer crash) that I've been through there were times when I was really on the point of throwing in the towel. But I ploughed on, gaining valuable advice from some of my fellow contributors on this site and learning something new almost every day by convincing myself that a piece of software was not going to get the better of me - especially at the ripe old age of 69 - and I've now managed to reach a milestone as you will see from the attachment. To some who learned to master CAD years ago it might not be perfect but to little old me who only started using the software about a year ago it is a vision to behold. There is still some work to do on the office layout because I only received departmental and staff numbers this morning but I feel it in my waters that I will be able to present the project to the relevant people in a week to ten days. Thank you so much to all who have shared their knowledge with me. It made such a difference to the learning curve that I was experiencing. Now, if you'll all excuse me, I must be off to see if I can master elevations.