Lightspeed65

Eric, OK, I will create a simple plan that replicates the issue and post it. Thanks, Dave.

Hey Folks, I am trying to use roof trusses for a flat roof where the ceiling is the underside of the roof structure, thus I only have rafters and no joists. I cant seem to be able to create them as it says it cant find the roof plane, even though I clearly have one shown. Any tutorials on this? Thanks, Dave.

David, thanks for the reply. I hear you on the house rotation, so thanks for emphasizing the importance of that. the .nex seems to simply be a spreadsheet ala excel with the terrain data ordered in an yxz comma delimited format. Not sure why they do yxz, but that's the way they roll. Dave.

I have a dxf file with plot boundary data, and a .nez file with elevation/terrain data. I want to import them and rotate them so that the house sits on the lot properly while also being oriented the correct way (e.g. perpendicular walls are at 0 and 90 degrees to the computer screen.) There are a lot of options for importing this data (e.g. for dxf files, I could select "move drawing to origin" etc.) Should I import it all, then move it to some origin point, or should I simply import both sets of data, rotate it the proper amount, then start building the house? Is there any reference material that can walk me through this? Thanks, Dave.

Got it, thanks very much Eric and David. I deleted them easily now that I know where to look and why. Best, Dave.

Folks, anyone know what a big red "X" or black "X" means in plan view. I attached a couple of pics with the X's circled. Thanks for any feedback you may have. Dave.

OK, thanks very much Eric. I am getting there, with the help of this Forum and yourself in particular. Really appreciate it. Dave.

dang, that's a good idea! So this is an issue that you have yourself sometimes? Or that is common to the software? Thanks again Eric. Dave.

Great suggestions Eric and JoAnn, thank you very much. I did resolve this by creating a 2nd floor and putting the windows in the 2nd floor walls, and having the floor open to below. That definitely gets me the freedom I was looking for, but your comments served to educate me further as I know those issues will come up again. I still have some issues with connecting walls to each other, and walls to celings, as shown below. I cannot figure how to make these look right even if I make the walls go "thru to the end". Is there a "connect wall" feature that makes walls and ceilings come together properly? Best, Dave.

David, my apologies, I mistook your reply for one from Eric from yesterday. Thanks for the response I have just replied with some additional info. Best, Dave.

Eric, thanks as always for your suggestions and coaching. This is the first software I have ever used for designing a home, and its my own home, so iIm learning the software at the same time as designing a home; which is probably a good way to learn! I understand your suggestion to simply create a second floor "open to below" to solve the transom window portion of the question; I will try that. As for the wall type question, I attached a plan that focuses on the problem I was trying to solve. This is very simple plan and I don't see the issue I am having in the project I am working on, but maybe its more clear what I was dealing with. In the attached plan, there is a lower roof room, and a higher roof room. The portion of the common wall that extends beyond the dimensions of the lower roof room is clearly an exterior wall, so no problem giving it the correct wall type assuming it is broken at the intersection of the small room wall. The interior portion of that common wall has a lower part that is interior and an upper part that is exterior. On the wall spec windown, under "roof", I checked the box "lower wall type if split by butting roof" and I got the desired effect in this small plan. But in my current project, I have had trouble making that work. Any insights are of course appreciated. Dave. Wall Type Question.plan

Ok, I added the image and the backup file in zip format. I hope that works for an assessment of the problem. Thanks Eric!

Eric, understood, and will do. Can I reply just to you or do I need to reply to everyone? Dave.

I have a building with two different ceiling heights. At the common wall between these two areas, I am trying to place a clerestory window between the ceiling of the higher wall, and the rooftop of the lower wall. In that common wall are a couple of wall breaks needed to ensure the pony wall and upper wall portions are correct across the full length of the common wall. However, due to these breaks in the common wall, I cannot place a clerestory window where I need to. So it might be a two part question: 1) is there a way to place a window across a wall break? 2) should I create a "2nd floor" for the room having the taller ceiling height so that the wall breaks required can remain on the first floor, and the clean wall (no breaks) can be for the "2nd floor" and thus so the window can be placed in there wherever I want. I would then not use a ceiling for the 1st floor so that the actual ceiling height for the entire room is the 2nd floor ceiling. The attached picture shows the problem area; I want the clerestory window to be continuous, not have a break in it as is shown. Thanks for any guidance or suggestions, Dave. Untitled_1.zip

Here ya go, but I included only the plan to avoid the size of the referenced files. If you need everything let me know. Thanks Eric! 033117_backup_plan_only.zip

Eric, thanks for the assist. I managed to track down the issue a bit: using the layer display options and by process of elimination, the artifact I am seeing is part of the "roof, overhang area." I attached a pic showing the artifact whihc is near the top of the deck chair. When I turn "roof, overhang area" off, it disappears, along with the artifact. However, even when I deleted the roofplane that the overhang area was part of, and recreated it from scratch manually, the artifact appeared in the roof plane exactly as before. Also, I cannot select the roof overhang area by itself, even when I unlock it via display options. Let me know if you still need the file, and how you want it packaged (e.g. zip, backup, etc.?) Thanks very much, Dave. Roof overhang artifact 1.pdf

Has anyone come across ceilings outside of a building that have blank patches like shown in the attachment? What causes them, and how can I get rid of them? I can use the eyedropper and paint them to match, but then the entire ceiling is painted that way, so they must be part of the ceiling but somehow don't realize they are outside of the building. 032517-Missing Materials.pdf

Eric, the edit area produced way better results; no loss of confusion of geometry, most wall materials came with the transformation, but not all. Much better than the way I was doing it. However, I do agree that the drawing geometry should stay in its normal position relative to screen and I should rotate the imported data to suit, so will work on that next. Thanks, Dave.

Eric, OK, thanks again for the much appreciated assistance. I have searched the forum before posting questions but I had not thought to use the target phrase "plot plan." The Edit Area suggestion is new as well, so thanks very much for that! Dave.

When importing dxf files (.dxf file type) or terrain data (.nex file type) should they be rotated to align to the house, or rotate the house to align to the file data? By rotate I mean align the North data sets of both the .plan file and the dxf and/or nex file. I have tried it both ways, and when I rotate the house (including all the objects I can capture with "select objects" it seems to lose material choices, pieces of wall, etc. In other words, I don't trust the idea of rotating the whole house. Similar things happened even when I translated the house, with no rotation. Am I doing something wrong, or am I better leaving the house alone and rotating the imported data?

Understood, which is what I ended up doing. It struck me as odd that a $10 app (Room Planner) has this feature, but the several hundred dollar software does not. I guess the developers from each department don't chat much Thanks David and Eric, I really appreciate the replies and encouragement. Best, Dave.

Eric, not sure I understand. Is there more info you can point me to on this? Thanks, Dave

That's a great idea! I will give it a shot. Thanks much Eric!

Has anyone found a source for exterior decorative panels such as these shown surrounding the square window in the attached figure? I can't find them anywhere in the Home Designer Pro Library or in the online 3D Library. Thanks, Dave.