Smn842

Edit -> Preferences and then the Edit section of that dialog box has the cross hair options

You've got "Rooms" turned off in Tools -> Display Options -> Layer Display Options.

I learnt Home Designer Pro and then Chief Architect Premier as I modelled my house however you have to be careful not to try to get too much done without learning enough. Otherwise you could end up with a lot of re-work as walls and floors can move around and once some items are manually edited/set they are harder to get correct down the line unless you know the product really well. I took the approach of learning the basics of walls and rooms and ignoring almost everything else including doors and windows. That meant I could get core structure correct and once I was happy with than I learnt about doors/windows and roofs and made sure they worked with my walls. I found an issue with the roof generation due to how we construct walls in the UK and how HDP is designed to works with wall layers so I had to edit the layers which moved the walls slightly, but it wasn't hard to fix as my plan was just walls. Every time I need to do something I don't know about I stop, read the help, look at videos and experiment before working on my plan. This has worked well and now I find I am filling in ever smaller gaps in my knowledge and am so glad I didn't speed ahead hoping to fix it all later. There's a lot on you plan and if I were you I would take some time out to learn and then redraw it as that will save time in the long run.

If you post the plan then others can see if they experience similar performance and suggest improvements. Without the plan its just guesswork.

I think you need to clarify your goals. Is it all for fun, or to gain experience with house designing or to learn a specific CAD/Design tool? In my case although I use CA software for non professional purposes, I went with HDP and now Premier because: I wanted to better plan upgrades to my home and use 3D visualisation (ray tracing) to avoid costly mistakes. I needed something that was as productive as possible for my task. I am aware that other products such as the more mainstream Revit may be better in some ways and if I was doing this for professional skills. However Chief Architect products are good for my type of project so that's what I went with even though there are some pain points for European style construction. I do note that there doesn't seem to be a lot of professional tools that have amateur versions, but I think you need to narrow down you aims first. If you're not sure then use what you've got for a while so you know what to look for in another product.

I have been through a similar process this year and ended up starting with Pro in January after considering Architectural. More recently I moved up to Premier X8 despite being a home user just working on my own renovation (I find it fun for some reason ). Chief Architect give fair upgrade prices so you won't lose out starting with Architectural and moving up as required. However I can now say I would have regretted getting a lesser version than Pro to start with as the time to work around limitations is something you don't get back. Now on X8 I am finding myself reworking some areas with the superior features and wishing I had started with it (I never dreamt of spending that amount originally though!). Pro has quite a few more manual tools than Architectural and for me I would have struggled without manual roof control, custom counter tops and some other similar features. So my advice would be if you can afford/don't mind the cost of Pro and want to avoid possibly wasting some time then start there. It will give you a much better and less frustrating experience from the start and if you're doing it partly for interest then that's important. The main reasons that pushed me from Pro to Premier X8 was the ray tracing which has helped with my interior design choices and the ability to build more custom items in CA rather than Sketchup etc. There is a lot more to Premier though than Pro but it still has some annoying limitations especially for European construction (door/window inset, truss design etc) but workarounds are possible. Sadly I found that almost all of the extra catalogs I purchased when using Pro are free with Premier. Hope that helps...

Well after lots of deliberation over CA product limitations relating to UK construction and the challenges with making workarounds in HDP I've upgraded to CA Premier X8. It's a big cost for a single home project especially with current exchange rates so lets hope the time saved is worth it. Given the time I've invested in my plans switching products didn't seem an option. Premier doesn't fix everything but does make workarounds easier. So I'll be complaining about door and window inset control on the chief talk forum soon enough

I was very disappointed today as I finally found time to look at a trial of Chief Architect Premier X8 and it also appears to suffer from the door and window inset and fitting limitations unless I am missing something. Sure it resolves some annoying limitations in HDP but after all the replies to questions on this forum where its stated how easily Premier manages various tasks I had high expectations. It just seems odd to have features such as fine grained wall join control and not be able to put a door at the exact depth in a wall without fiddling with wall types and covering gaps with soffits.

I don't need to save - it's whether I'll get enough return on investment as I am only using it for some minor updates to my own home. I am a software developer hence the comment about modifying symbols as I am always curious to see what file formats applications use. If I get X8 then I'll also end up renewing/upgrading it each year as well so I am trying to exercise some self control .

I would pay for a product version between HDP and X8 (at around double the HDP cost) with some more features but as a user only working on their own home the full X8 is a bit costly. I appreciate the need to keep the two product lines a way apart but though, its just frustrating when you cannot get fundamental items like windows and doors to look like an average house in the UK..

...now if only I could get a standard symbol moved to another layer and exported to calibz which is a compressed Sqlite3 database and then see if I comparing to the original one exported will yield where the flag is in the various CLOB fields given CA originated symbols appear to import to different layers. Seriously though, I've been pondering renting X8 to fix for my numerous imported symbols but not sure if that is hassle for a short time and I would need to do this every six months or so. I wish we had a middle version between the professional and home products but appreciate CA need to keep a number of differences. So for now I'll just keep making copies of plans and deleting things before printing or showing plans to builders and other trades.

I think the key issue is what is a good symbol. Some fail on import for various reasons but many import but can be poor for their given purpose and many are constructed from an extremely high number of polygons. So although on occasion I use a third party symbol as is (usually after rejecting many others) I still find myself editing the source file to resolve issues and reduce polygons on most. I would rather CA spend more time on libraries of their own for sale so they get obvious benefit assuming people purchase. They do have a number but there's a lot not covered - we see requests for various things on the forum including my pet peeve of more European/UK items. Perhaps a survey on what symbols people would like based on a number of categories is a way forward assuming this hasn't already been done

The door and window inset issue issue as well as doors opening through a thicker wall (rather than away from it) has been discussed in a few posts in this forum recently and in the suggestions area so CA should be aware. For users of the professional CA products spending days finding/creating symbols and materials may be fine over a number of projects. However in my case I spent over half the time modelling my house on these limitations and I've not yet finished using soffits to cover cavity gaps around doors and windows. So given for a home owner personal use case its a real pain to spend so much time on these issues and if I had found a less sophisticated product that could get these core details correct I would have gone with it, but I didn't find these problems on a quick trial.

In just modelling my house for some alterations I found a number of annoyances and issues using HDP 2017 (not sure if these are applicable to CA premier): No effective door and window inset control and placement as per UK construction. There are workarounds such as changing layers, short wall sections but these bring their own challenges Lack of UK/European symbols/materials even to purchase - yes alternatives can be found elsewhere and created in Sketchup etc, but its very time consuming. I had to make everything from windows to electrical outlets and with HDP that's an issue as all imported items are on one fixtures and fittings layer. Lots of defaults set to US sizes (larger). These can be changed and used to create another template but again its time consuming. Wall types are flexible enough though and cavity isn't an issue - I have 20+ wall types in my design as the house was built and extended over 40 years and its coped fine with the mix of cavity sizes, brick/block types and solid plaster/plasterboard finishes. In various places I could have done with better wall connection control but that's something I believe is available in CA premier. Overall the door and window issue is my biggest complaint as even with very time consuming workarounds and patching over cavity gaps its impossible to get exactly what I need and I haven't got anything out of the ordinary. It's also a little frustrating that the other items above don't need updates to the application itself, just its symbols and setup. I would also happily pay for some UK specific libraries but there's nothing on the site to buy.

Just to be clear - manual roof control is in Home Designer Pro rather than CA Premier. The 'Pro' name is a poor choice in my opinion as the Home Designer range is not the professional range.

Off topic for your question here, but if your looking to see how HD Pro works for UK style construction generally, please have a look at windows and doors as well. There is a lack of inset control and the assumption that casing is the norm. It's possible to cover casing or gaps when using no casing with brick coloured soffits but placing them around every window and door is time consuming. In my efforts to workaround lack of inset control which is a real problem for external/thicker walls and UK door/window placement, I changed my wall layers but then ended up with roof and wall joint issues so had to re-work the whole plan. I considered using different wall types just for the door and window sections but's that just too much work and not without its own issues. I am a fan of HD Pro, but there are a some annoyances for non US style construction.

Thanks - that works really well given there's not too much curve. I've found that replacing the two wedges with soffits also makes the material blend fully. One question - what material did you use for the grey top bricks? I just tried this quickly and couldn't get the mortar joints correct across the top of the wall and from the side at the same time (one or other but not both)

Thanks Elovia. The SketchUp approach would be my preference if it wasn't for the issue of all imported shapes ending up on the interior fixtures layer. I want to be able to toggle some exterior items on and off so it looks like the approach of building the curve out of lots of small pieces it is - this will keep me busy for a while!

It would be sad after modelling a complex house and most of the garden to be finally defeated with HD Pro . If that's the case I better start a campaign for a "Pro Plus" at around $1K as for home projects $2.7K for premier is really too much. I could model something in Sketchup but then I would need lots of pre-sized symbols.

I am trying to replicate the wall as per the image attached and struggling with the curved top (for reference some sections of the wall have thicker sections with the capping stone) I've tried creating this out of a combination of standard walls, slabs or soffits but the key issue is the curved shaping at the top. I can curve a soffit and certain objects in the 2D view by using the change line to arc option but how do I do the same vertically as none of the 3D views seem to offer this on the same objects and if they do it doesn't affect the object vertically?

As a general comment on movement around plans with Home Designer: I originally found movement a little cumbersome even with the keyboard option. However once I upgraded to the 2017 I decided to give a 3DConnexion mouse a go as they're now supported and its awesome. I can now leave all movement both in 2D and 3D views to one hand leaving my dominant hand free to use the mouse and keyboard. It's the first time I've used a 3D mouse but I am never going back to the old approach for CAD software!

I don't have any such issues with that view layout. In fact I often have several main windows for HDP open on separate monitors some with two or more views each and no blanking on any as I switch between them.

In the new features PDF for HDP 2017 it does list: Corner Windows. Bump windows together at wall corners and choose to include or remove the corner post at the sash joint to create a glass corner. So the feature is applicable, although it doesn't say whether its limited to one corner for a single window which seems an odd limitation. If this is by design then that document should be made clearer so people realise the professional products still do more in this area.

Thanks - I appreciate it was a very general question. I didn't post the plans as they don't have any major issues at present and have identical auto dimensions despite using over 20 wall types (house extended several times in the last 40 years) After a few more hours testing I am going with the recommended approach of the main layer being all structural wall layers. This makes wall intersections less troublesome to create and maintain as I plan my renovations. I'll just have to live with the issues that causes with window and door fitting for UK style construction but a few soffits may hide some of the problems.

I started modelling my house as my first use of HDP and due to early problems with inset control for doors adjusted the wall layers to help. The walls are all a layer of block inside with brick/block outside. There are then many variations of plaster/plasterboard internally and tiling on some external walls. Due to the door inset issues I ended up with the outer brick/block in the external layer for the wall definition and the inner block work in the main layer. This worked well enough but as I get to the final stages of the shell and roof I realise that a number of issues with wall intersections that take some fiddling are due to having a structural layer in the external layer which the help recommends against. As a test I've spent some time moving that external brick/block into the main layer so it contains all structural wall parts. This seems to work better for the intersections but I am back to some less than ideal door inset issues. The question is which to proceed with as changing the main layer takes a lot of correction after. Overall I prefer my initial approach but I have a feeling that other issues are ahead if I go against the recommendations so would be grateful for any input.