skearney00

 

It's been hot up here in Heber/Overgaard, would hate to be in the valley.

Was out golfing in it last Saturday like an idiot

Thanks Elovia and David for the discussion!  

I'm just a homeowner looking to take more control over various improvement projects. My goal is just to get an accurate 3D model of the home and landscape so I can visualize/test my projects. I'm not necessarily needing accurate construction/materials plans, etc. 

So, what I believe I need is a masonry fence that has a constant top height regardless of terrain elevation.  Is there a simple way to do this?  It seems like this would be a pretty common thing--I know just about every home in the city of Phoenix has a CMU/Stucco fence.

Elovia, I see what you mean WRT to the backclipped view and editing the dimension.  This seems like maybe the quickest (if not correct) way to get this done- just need to extend the dimension down to the lowest terrain elevation for each segment.

One thing a "solid" fence doesn't reflect is the masonry support columns/pilasters.  I guess I may need to build something custom to accurately represent this.  I'm willing to devote the time and to RTFM if someone can start me in the right direction.

Thanks!

3206-Landscape-5.plan

Many ways to do this ... but you were on the right track at one point.  Draw the CMU rails around the perimeter as you've done before, and then open all of the rail's specification dialogs (or shift-select them all as a group and open the group specification dialog); on the General tab, select the checkbox for "no room definition".  You will no longer get a room where you didn't want one, and you should be able to drop in a gate in the rail.

 

Good luck.

I got rid of the room definition... thanks!  

So, it appears I want to create a half-wall or "solid" rail which then allows me to specify the wall height.  However, this creates the wall at the floor height and not on the terrain and I can't seem to reposition the wall up/down in 3D view.  A solid rail type disables "follow terrain"

If I just make it a standard wall, I can resize the height and position on the terrain--but this seems completely imprecise.

How do I precisely position a wall on the terrain and at a specific top height?

I'm trying to understand the correct way to create a CMU fence around the backyard.  

At first, I created a straight fence, but setting the material to CMU didn't do anything until I unchecked 'railing'.  However, once I enclosed the backyard, it created a 'room'

Next I tried a terrain wall, but I don't appear to be able to drop a gate into it.

What's the correct way to do this and maintain the enclosed area as 'terrain'?

Sometimes, you need to take an elevation view, select a wall and drag its edge into position.

 

skea.jpg

 

FixedFoundation2-2ndFloorTest (eric).plan

Thank you!!! Looks good.  

What was wrong with the plan that I uploaded? It was built according to pics you uploaded, There was no need to make changes, that's why your having

problems.

Thanks Eric and LawB10 for the help.  I've made some very good progress, but I'm stuck on a couple of things on the porch.  

 

1. The ceiling on the porch is higher than the rest of the first floor at 126".  When I change the ceiling height for that room, the whole first floor height seems to change with it.  How do I make it so that only the porch ceiling changes?

 

I've tried so many different ways to get this to come out right--but can't.  Doesn't seem to matter whether I raise the ceiling from below or raise the floor from above, the exterior wall surface of the 2nd floor is cut by the framing/studs of the perpendicular walls

I seem to need to be able to 'break' the exterior wall where it meets the porch divider, that allows the porch portion of the exterior wall to extend to the elevated ceiling height.  However, I only seem to be able to break the wall at the midpoint of the porch wall, so I'm still left with a small gap.

Attach render with and without wall break.

Getting oh so close!  Everything is looking pretty good except for some "clipping" areas that I can't figure out.  I used the align wall below tool.

I copied the 1st floor over to a new plan with a mono slab and removed the column and soffits to better see the problem area.

FixedFoundation2-2ndFloorTest.plan

Really appreciate the help, but I'm just missing something.  Open below the 2nd story room blows a whole through my ceiling.  But maybe I just need to fully draw out the interior.  Let me finish the plan with out the 2nd story and come back to this.

Thanks for the quick reply.  I'm not quite getting it however.  I think I left out a key detail though.  That "room" over the porch is attic space.  It's a dummy window/dormer.

Still, if I set the floor of the 2nd story room to 126", it raises all the exterior walls.

Before and after shots

Thanks Eric and LawB10 for the help.  I've made some very good progress, but I'm stuck on a couple of things on the porch.  

1. The ceiling on the porch is higher than the rest of the first floor at 126".  When I change the ceiling height for that room, the whole first floor height seems to change with it.  How do I make it so that only the porch ceiling changes?

2. Having difficulty getting the walls/column on the porch to match up flush with the 2nd floor walls.

In the attached plan the column is in the correct location and correct height. I need help making the ceiling, soffits on both sides and 2nd floor walls all match up flush.

Shawn-PorchCeilingHelp.plan

Here's what I came up with.

 

 

Thanks, LawB10.  I'll take a look.  Haven't had much time this week to work on it.

Thanks.  I'll give it a go!

Looking for some guidance on how to best draw up the front porch/entry and patio area of my home.   I have Home Designer Pro 2017 and I'm fairly new to the software.

For the patio, I was thinking to define the section with the roof/cover using the room divider, add the column, and then add soffits to create the stucco structure under the roof.

The front porch--I'm not really sure.  At first I tried creating a really tall room, but the structure needs to comes up over the garage roof plane.  A dormer doesn't seem like quite the right option either.

I've attached pics of both areas for reference.  Appreciate any advice on how to tackle these areas!

Thanks!

ShawnHome.plan