Room Object changes self, cannot save corrections

[rvbinder]

I'm using room type "Court" to represent a patio. A day ago, this was completed and correct. Then it started acting strangely as I worked on an adjacent room: although I didn't touch the Patio room, its north wall changed itself from wall type brick to something else as well as its dimensions, and other assorted weirdness. 

 

I corrected that, but then, after making changes to another room, the Patio room changed itself to room type "unspecified" and dropped all the settings I had laboriously input. I entered the settings again to correct that and hit "Ok", but nothing is saved and the room is still type "unspecified" with default settings. This is repeatable - all changes to the "unspecified" room are dropped on clicking Ok.

 

Your tool has also removed about half of the basement plan in the house structure, which was not even connected to the Patio.

 

This is annoying to say the least.
 

As the plan file is 39.7 MB, I cannot upload it.

 

How can I recover the many hours of work that were lost and prevent such data corruption from recurring?

 

[DavidJPotter]

You can share your plan no matter its size by using Dropbox, One Drive or Google Drive and then share the link to that file for download here.

 

DJP

[rvbinder]

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sn4pmv0vydc7g4k/AADFhRQahqbWPoLUPW34bl_Za?dl=0

 

[Jo_Ann]

The problems in your plan would be clearer, if you used red text and arrow lines (on the 2d plan), pointing out what changes, and what it is supposed to be.

I suspect the problems might be terrain elevation related.

 

[rvbinder]

Select the room as shown in the attached screenshot, which was changed to "unspecified" (not by me.) Open the object to edit it, change any attribute of the room.  Click Ok.  Reopen the room, and NONE of those changes are saved.

 

[DavidJPotter]

It took me too long to make a video but it boils down to too much guessing and not enough study of your users guide and Reference Manual. Basically, I reprogrammed the walls that surround the "Court" that was the source of trouble. I also manually reattached all of your invisible walls, and I changed the programming of a wall common to the court by the garage and its doorway. Until the room started responding to my changes and they stayed changed thereafter. The fact that I used Chief Premier X9 to edit makes no difference at all, the settings and programmings are the same in Pro as in Chief Premier.

I controlled the height of the walls of the court areas using the ceiling height setting instead of using guess walls that you originally used. The edited file is attached.

PATIO.zip

[Jo_Ann]

FIRST...Open default settings > Camera > 3D Views: Put a check in the box for "auto rebuild terrain".  Very annoying to constantly have to select "Build Terrain" on the edit tool bar.

 

YOU somehow changed the floor C elevation for the Recreation room in the basement.  Change it back to the default and the basement wall will reappear.

 

The north patio wall that you attached to the neighbor garage is causing your patio problem.
Add new invisible walls to the patio in that area, and then separate the patio wall from the garage wall (by joining it to the new invisible walls).

 

[rvbinder]

@Jo_AnnThanks for the suggestions. 

 

I did not edit any of the interior structures, including the basement walls when this problem occurred - they disappeared as a result of some other change I made trying to correct the exterior room problems.

 

@DavidJPotter

Thank your for the revisions.

 

I suppose it might be possible to untangle the thicket of invisible dependencies and non-intuitive behavior of your system with further study, but I don't plan to make a career of its use. I have RTM quite a bit. I rarely find any useful guidance in it about how to represent the complex structures I'm interested in and avoid the pitfalls that seemingly obvious actions entail. I guess I'm just too simple minded - I learned to draw with pencil, paper, and a T-square, so I my mental model is that when I put a line down, it stays there until I explicitly erase it. 

 

[DavidJPotter]

1 hour ago, rvbinder said:

I suppose it might be possible to untangle the thicket of invisible dependencies and non-intuitive behavior of your system with further study, but I don't plan to make a career of its use. I have RTM quite a bit. I rarely find any useful guidance in it about how to represent the complex structures I'm interested in and avoid the pitfalls that seemingly obvious actions entail. I guess I'm just too simple minded - I learned to draw with pencil, paper, and a T-square, so I my mental model is that when I put a line down, it stays there until I explicitly erase it. 

 

I went from drawing board to Chief V4 on Windows 3.1 in 1994, so I understand. The trick is to when you come across a particular problem, is to find the section of the Reference Manual that covers the area of trouble, carefully read the section with particular attention to any words or symbols that are not fully understood (get those understood by finding the definition that is intended and cleared up) then apply what you have learned by using the software with your new understanding and competence. It takes time but the demonstrated competence and ability gained are worth the effort.

 

DJP

[rvbinder]

One more thing ...  In the file you updated, all of the plants show on the floor plan view, but are not rendered in the 3D view.  There is no hide/show function for all plants in 3D I can find.  How can I re-enable display of the plants in 3D?

 

[DavidJPotter]

To make the plan easier to edit and sort things out in floor and camera views, I turned some layers on and off. Most new users do not yet understand that there is more than only one "Display Options" dialog (one for plan views only, another for each different Camera view type, one for the Reference Display). So you can have plants on or off in plan view; on in a Full overview camera and off in a full camera view etc. That is what you are seeing, so when a layer of objects is missing, check the Layer Display Dialog for the view type you are in and you will most likely see it unchecked aka turned off.

 

DJP