Basic shape profiles

[nerdland]

Hello everyone. I've been using Home Designer for a couple of months, but this is my first time posting. Anyway, greetings.

I'm using Home Designer Architectural, so I don't have the ability to make customized moldings and profiles. (as far as I can tell.) This is annoying me quite a bit on railings, because Home Designer doesn't come with VERY basic shape profiles for the railings. Square is generally the default for railings, although this doesn't seem to be consistent. And either way, I don't have a "square" profile to choose from, even though I CAN apply profiles to the railings -- What I mean is that even though square is (usually) the default, I can't seem to change something BACK to square once I've changed it to something else, other than using "Undo."

Are there any resources for Home Designer users to expand their options in this regard?  I got 3 rail profiles with the AZEK catalog from the 3D Library, but that's basically all I have. I really just want some VERY basic railing profiles. Square, round, and maybe like a half-circle. Everything else is obviously intended to be used as a molding, and looks ridiculous on railings.

Also -- is there a way to copy molding/railing profiles I come across, or save them to my library? I can do it with objects and materials, but I don't think I can do this with profiles in Home Designer. This is also annoying, because I've found profiles that I want to steal in example files, but I can't seem to extract them.

[DavidJPotter]

Home Designer Architectural and Home Designer Pro (all HD titles really) have NO sand alone ability to do as you wish. This can be done easily in Chief Architect Premier. You can by learning and using Sketch Up to make such custom objects for import as symbols into HD titles but that is an additional if free program you must download, learn and use for that. Even the inherent tools within Premier must be learned first to be at all useful.

 

DJP

[nerdland]

Thanks, @solver. Yes, I am able to use that "Frieze 7" just fine. Thanks for that! 

I have a bunch of the bonus catalogs. From what I've seen, the only one that includes any railing is the AZEK Building Products one. I did get 3 railings with that. (6 profiles, technically. An upper rail and a lower rail for each set.)  But the support for this in Home Designer seems like almost an afterthought -- or maybe even an accident. I sort of stumbled upon it. I don't see a tool anywhere for applying profiles specifically, but I discovered that if I select a profile in the Library, I get a cursor that allows me to apply it to areas that support it. (Railings, Moldings, etc.)

A few hours ago, however, I had a sudden stroke of genius -- I decided to download the free trial of Chief Architect Premier X9, with the suspicion that I might be able to dig around and find the Core Catalog files it installs. It doesn't let me save a .plan or export my User Library, but I found the .calib files it installs. So I grabbed a bunch of the profiles from there and imported them into my Home Designer library. It didn't let me install everything -- for some reason, "Round Rail" doesn't import, for example, but "Semi Circle Rail," among others, works just fine.

 

The "Round Rail" profile from the Chief Architect core catalog is basically what I was looking for originally. Even though it's not letting me install that one, I'm pretty happy with "Semi Circle Rail" for my particular need at the moment.

[nerdland]

I made a signature, by the way, but I can't tell if I was actually successful. I don't see it anywhere on the posted message. But I'm using Home Designer Architectural 2018

[nerdland]

I just found a good "circle" profile, like I was looking for originally. Even though "Round Rail" doesn't import into Home Designer for me, "Tubing Round" from the "Brackets and Channels" catalog is identical, and it imports just fine.

That's strange, though. I wonder what the difference is. Obviously, I'm using this in a somewhat unapproved manner, so I can't complain too much -- I'm just happy I figured something out -- but it seems odd that certain profiles would import and others wouldn't, since profiles themselves seem to be supported.