Help! "it" is doing it again!

[Keith_K]

Some of you might remember the topic I started back in February or March on the old forums where I queried why something was changing the default settings on the plan for an office block which I was working on. The issue wasn’t resolved and then I had all the hassle with my computer so when I got the new one I decided to abandon the old plan and start a new one from square one making sure that each and every step was carefully done so that whatever error caused the original problem wouldn’t occur again.

As I was told in no uncertain terms on the original thread that the software doesn’t do things on its own but only follows instructions from me this is the sequence in which I started the new plan:

1. Set defaults for foundations (floor 0)

2. Set defaults for ground floor (floor 1)

3. Set Defaults for first floor (floor 2)

4. Set defaults for second floor (floor 3)

5. Set defaults for doors and windows

6. Draw the exterior walls for ground, first and second floors

7. Adjust foundations to align with ground floor

I have not gone back to those settings and they remain as I initially set them.

I then commenced with drawing in the details of the centre block of 3 towers on the ground floor such as staircases, interior walls, rest rooms, doors and windows and it was when I looked at a 3D doll house view that I noticed that the top of some windows were out of alignment with the others. This is exactly what happened with the earlier plan so I looked at the floor settings and noticed that “something” had changed the default settings...

...and, as previously, wouldn’t allow me to correct them – in particular the floor to SWT height which mysteriously has the default unchecked. If I check the box again it changes the settings to what they should be but if I move off, do something else and then return to check the settings the box has been unchecked again. It becomes a vicious circle.

While the two separate wings will eventually be attached to the main block by means of a linking passageway (if I ever get to the stage that the plan is finished) I am grateful that I haven’t done so yet as I their settings remain as they should be...

...and I am more than confident that, once they are attached to the main block, the settings will also be incorrectly altered by whatever is doing so now.

For some reason I am also getting a warning message about a deck over a non deck room. I do not have a deck anywhere.

Your thoughts please. Also if there is someone with HD Pro 2014 who has the time to have a look at my plan to see whether they can spot the cause of the changes please let me know and I can send a zipped file to them.

A totally exasperated thank you…

[Kbird1]

I have read of issues having multiple separate buildings in one Plan file ,and the advice was always to do a separate plan for each building. I don't know if that is the issue here or not, but generally the HD Titles aren't used for Plans this size, hospital? Office Building?.

 

DJP or Rich might be able to help you out, they have Pro 2014.

 

M.

[DavidJPotter]

Keith, I appreciate the lengths to which you have gone to succinctly state your observations and I understand your frustration. I do not work for Chief Architect Inc though I have in the past as a seminarist. Settings change when other values or settings cause them to. You should be able to make your SWT value stay unchanged by reseting it to your Default when it becomes un-checked.

I too have seen this phenomenon from time to time without noticing how I caused it, so I just check and recheck such settings till they stay put. I think you should submit your concerns as a Tech Support Ticket submission for a termminatedly final solution since you may not want to adopt my "solution" of just insisting that the program comply with my repeated instructions. I have never been unable to make the software do what I want but it is true that sometimes it seems resistant to orders.

 

DJP

[Keith_K]

Mick - I raised the question of size with Support when the issue occurred the last time and they made no comment so I assumed that it wasn't an issue.

 

David - I have tried your suggestion to force the software to accept the defaults to the point where my knuckles ached from pressing the mouse button but it still refuses.

 

Interestingly I remembered something Leanne said on the old support ticket along the lines of having too many round objects in a plan sometimes caused problems.  So I changed the toilets in the men's restroom to a different shape and Lo!  The settings for that room corrected to what they should be.  Suitable encouraged by this I did the same in the ladie's but sadly didn't get the same result and all the other areas also still have the incorrect floor to SWT height.

 

Tech Support will probably weep when they see a ticket from me but... 

[katalyst777]

You're kind of all over the place and the thread is difficult to follow, but I am going to make an attempt.

I don't think having "round" objects would affect what you're talking about at all. I do remember on the old forum that there was an issue with a round sink symbol making plans be slow, if that's what you're thinking about, but as I recall, they fixed the 2D CAD Block associated with it.

If a box is unchecking itself from the default in the Room Specification dialog, it means that there is conflicting information being entered somewhere so it can't use that value.  Maybe from the Floor above/below of the room you are working with?

If the software says you have a deck room, you have a room set as a Deck, but perhaps you've renamed the room name to something else that is displayed in the floor plan view.

[Keith_K]

As I tried to explain thinks as best I could and from the first two responses thought that I had been successful I'm sorry you think that I'm all over the place with this thread. I have checked the room specs above and below floor 1 and now find that the room below (Floor 0) now also has the incorrect floor to SWT default and will also not allow me to correct it. Floors 2 & 3 have the correct defaults.

 

 

 

 

As I don't usually use/set room labels I can't understand why any of them would be called a Deck but I will check them all. Thank you.

[Kbird1]

is the foundation auto built? if you haven't done too much work on it , why not try deleting it and see if all your other defaults are correct.

 

are all the different "wings" of your office block connected to each other? or are they separate buildings ? as noted above this has caused issues in the past. try connecting them with invisible walls , ans see what happens if separate....

 

I think Pro may 'see" porches and decks similarly do you have a porch?

 

M.

[DavidJPotter]

"Interestingly I remembered something Leanne said on the old support ticket along the lines of having too many round objects in a plan sometimes caused problems"

Keith, in this software there are no 3D curves,rather curves are broken down into segments to commnicate the appearance of a curve. Each of those segments creates several "3D Faces" and as the total "Face Count" rises in a plan file, that increases the computation time to locate and create each of those 3D faces per unit of time and thus as they add up it stresses the ability of the usual PC to keep up, causing loss of general eD performance but does not cause any specific problems other than general camera view performance per view.

I had the same exact problem with a plan that I worked on yesterday and I solved the problem, I was in a hurry and do not remember exactly what I did (except what I advised you to do in an earlier post in this thread). It was as Mick said, it was a conflicting setting, I found it and then drove on. I am sorry I did not note what it was, I will try to remember.

DJP

[Keith_K]

I did what Katalyst suggested, checked each room and found a corridor that had been set as a deck.  As I said I don't use that facility so I am at a loss as to understand how it happened.  That problem has now been corrected. 

 

Mick - I think the foundations were auto built, yes, but I had to use the Reference Floor>Reference display thing to drag them into alignment with the walls of the first floor. Regarding the wings - there is one main block of three floors and two side wings of two floors which will eventually be connected to the main block by means of a 5 metre corridor.  The plan size is currently 2.17MB.  (See attachment).  As mentioned I am reluctant to make the connection until such time as the current problem has been solved.

 

David - I opened a ticket with Support on this as you suggested earlier but never got an e-mail as I used to to say that Support had replied.  As they are usually extremely quick with their responses I logged on to Support to see whether my ticket had actually been sent and found that Leanne had actually replied two days ago.  However she doesn't seem to be able to open the link I provided to this thread as she used to be able to do when I linked the old Home Talk topic to a ticket so that everything didn't have to be repeated and I also seemed to have managed to cock up the creation of the attached zipped file.  As is my wont. 

 

So I am trying to send her that info again. 

 

[Kbird1]

You shouldn't need to "align the foundation" after it is created especially if you derived it from the 1st floor when built. If it was Auto generated I'd just deleted it for now ( 2-3 clicks and you can rebuild it no sweat) and see if all your defaults go back to normal.

Personally if the east and west wings are to be on the same levels etc I'd join them immediately so you "defaults" are the same for all buildings ....this is why in the past people have built separate building on separate plans so the defaults didn't get messed up between buildings. There are issue sometimes when you shove things over or connect them after, case in point is the Clerestory thread where he shove the second part over after building the 1st part, I discover that the shove over was his issue, it built correctly once you did all your exterior walls as a single outline 1st. All it may take is a single invisible wall to "connect" the 3 buildings ,try that 1st , this is how "open to Below" rooms work in some instances too, they "need" the connection to draw correctly. (don't know why)

File size is fine... my "size" concern was based on the fact that,as mentioned plans with multiple single buildings tend to have issues , especially if they have different heights etc.

M.

[Keith_K]

Interesting. I deleted the foundations as suggested and the problem of the Floor to SWT disappeared.

By doing that deletion I got new Floor 1 defaults but I am happy with them



However I also got new Floor 1 Room Defaults where a wrong check box seems to be checked. This shows when I check the specs for each room but I don't have the time right now to see whether checking what I deem to be the correct box (and please correct me if my assumption is wrong) will be accepted or just revert to the incorrect one when I click out of the room.



Apropos the non-aligned automatic foundations, Mick, this is what they look like. Using the "Align with the floor above" option doesn't work and I have to manually drag the foundations to align them.



Good night. I'm off to bed now.

[Kbird1]

Apropos the non-aligned automatic foundations

 

not to sure what that was meant to say?   

 

I think you have a Wall Layer Issue..........Do your Walls layers agree on what is the main layer ?  ie what is the main layer of your level 1 walls ?  the main layer will align automatically with the stem Wall but I think you have defined it differently or the default is wrong for your Brick Walls. 

 

If the Main Layer is defined as the framing and then you build the foundation the stem wall will line up with the framing not the brick , the brick will actually be out in space hanging free....    let me do a quick drawing and see ....make a pic or two

 

well for me the default brick wall has the main layer set as the framing so in a cross section you will get the brick hanging off the foundation ,(Pic1) if you make the brick the main layer, the brick sits on the foundation (pic2) , however I am unsure if that is the correct way to achieve the alignment as far as Brick walls go , as I don't deal with them.

 

Don't have time to dig deeper now but  hope that helps.....

 

 

Mick.

 

     

[Keith_K]

Good morning.

Apropos... - "By the way, Mick..."

You are no doubt quite correct regarding the wall layer issue causing the non-alignment of the foundations.

I realise that CA products are written around construction methods in the USA where a vast amount of domestic construction is timber frame and different methods elsewhere might, in some instances, not be compatible. This plan uses SIPS walls between brick exterior cladding and pre-stressed concrete walls in the interior. Therefore for reasons of aesthetics I have chosen to have the interior concrete wall as the main layer. In this way my plan looks neat and tidy without all that strange diagonal "bleeding" that doing main layers 'properly' causes**. Therefore I am not complaining that the foundations don't automatically align with the walls and am quite happy to do a bit of dragging.



** Maybe, one day, we will have the "Wall butts different wall" option which is the subject on the Suggestions forum.

[Kbird1]

And here I was thinking I was just here to learn about HD Software   ......Apropos was a new one for me , not often used by us Construction types

There used to be a foundation type called Brick Ledge but at least in HD Pro 10 it is no longer an option, so I don't know if its possible to get the Rebate the brick normally sits into in section views , at least easily/automatically.

Not sure if you made that wall type or not , it isn't available in HD Pro 10, but setting the Main layer to the inside finish will also change all your dimensions as HD will dimension to the main layer usually. If you are doing that strictly for aesthetics ( if I understand correctly), then it would be easier just to change the material type to look like concrete ,eg make the inner wall use the concrete material and have your main layer defined properly so it aligns and dimensions accurately. Been 30 years since I did a pre stressed job but perhaps it is dimensioned correctly in that ,they are stood 1st right? then the SIPS and then the Brick.....

if you do a wall multi select then you can probably align them all at once rather than individually though which will be a good time saver and reduce the chance of missing one..

M.

[Keith_K]

In this country they seem to do the SIPS first then the brick.  My idea is to do the SIPS and the pre-stressed concrete walls (tied as per regulations) and floor right up to the roof.  Then by adding the concrete roof and the windows and doors to make it weatherproof work can carry on full steam ahead on the inside of the building without having to wait for bricklayers to do the skin.  It will save a heck of a lot of time and money.  Well, I think so anyway. 

 

I had an interesting reply from Anne in Support last night:  "I see the issue with the non-default Floor to Stem Wall Top height in the middle building, and I think that the issue is how you set up your Floor 1 Defaults. Specifically, one of your images shows that you checked "Floor Supplied by the Foundation Room Below" in your Floor 1 Defaults dialog. 

Although they are available in Floor 1 Defaults, the "Floor Supplied by..." and "Monolithic Slab Foundation" checkboxes should NEVER be checked by the user. If you specify and then generate a Monolithic Slab Foundation, they will become checked by the program - but that's different. Leave those boxes unchecked and let the program do it."

 

I only saw it late and had a query regarding her mention of the Monolothic Slab foundation because I didn't have that but specified a stem wall with footings.  I have just logged in and found her reply to my query and this is her suggestion of what I should try:  "To get the type of foundation that you want, build a Stem Wall foundation with Slab at Top of Stem Wall.  So, delete your foundation, uncheck the "Floor Supplied by..." checkbox in Floor 1 Defaults, press F12 a few times (the shortcut for Rebuild Walls, Floors, Ceilings), and then rebuild your Stem Wall foundation - this time, check "Slab at Top of Stem Wall" in the Build Foundation dialog."

 

So I am now off to give it a try.  Hope springs eternal, as they say.  

[Kbird1]

Good news finally some feedback ...

 

Like you I was not aware of the "Don't touch those buttons" advice ....you would think they would grey them out then....

 

I guess if the Sips are waterproof? they are foam and skinned with what?  ,should be no reason I guess your Idea shouldn't work, and having worked in London for 3yrs and seeing the Bricklayers work you maybe waiting a while to do it the other way on a building that size

 

M.

[Kbird1]

Forgot to mention that  "walls butts other walls"  option may have been removed from HDPro as it was causing issues , I have never had it "on" in Pro 10 but after reading your thread decided to try it and it did clean up those 45° angles BUT about an hr later while still working in Pro , it crashed HARD , 1st and only time ever since I've been using it . the .plan seemed to have multiple issues after a reboot , luckily there was an archived copy ,so I only lost a few hours work....

 

Be careful what you wish for     I'd hate to have to redo a project the size of yours .....

 

M.

[Keith_K]

Well, I was on the point of leaping out of my chair and shouting "O, JOY!", "O, RAPTURE" after doing what Anne said but decided to do a 3D persepective first to further excite me but ended up ever so slightly deflated. While the diagrams in Floor and Room default/specs show the floor level with the top of the stem wall as it should be the 3D perspective seems to show the floor rising up and shoving the walls up off the top of the stem wall. Dunno why.

 

 

 

 

Size?  Some say that it does matter but in this instance and as an aside, sometimes you've just got to laugh.  Really.  You've just got to laugh.  Last night I was thinking about size issues and when I pondered the end use of the building I couldn't understand why it was so big.  A phone call first thing this morning brought forth the fact that the figure of 7500 square metres mentioned in the e-mail which set this whole process off of was a tiny little typo.  It should have read 3500 square metres!   So you can guess what I have spent most of my Saturday doing (apart from giggling every now and again).

 

Someone is quite lucky that I am not charging for my time.  

[Keith_K]

I now know why.

 

It would have been better if I had done all the corrective steps including the final "rebuild foundation" one.  Some people can be plain stupid.  

[Kbird1]

well glad it is finally sorted .... I use the delete and rebuild to "cure issues" all the time, there are just too many check boxes and sometimes in 3 different DBX's to get everything right, esp. if you have "played around" trying to fix stuff ,as once to modify a wall or something it is taken out of the auto-rebuild cycle even if you rebuild or reset the Defaults, it still "assumes" you want it "custom".

M.