Dept of Sneaky Tricks

[WendyWelton]

I'm proposing we all add our various unpublished and not-obvious tricks to this thread.

Please title your individual post with your tip. (The Go Advanced button at the bottom will let you do this).

I won't do the word to rich text thing - let somebody who found it do it - but that's exactly the kind of thing I'm picturing. I'll do my sneaky use of the room finish schedule to obtain an area schedule later when I have time to do it properly.

And PLEASE - the intent of this thread is to collect useful stuff that people can cruise through easily. If something here spurs other thoughts, please start a new thread rather than have this one go all off topic.

[WendyWelton]

I'll edit this later to elaborate more, but here's a start:

Start with a Room Finish Schedule

• You can edit the title, make it say "Areas Under Roof" or "Heated Areas" - whatever you want
• The areas columns total
• You can do floor by floor or "all floors"
• You can now add manual room names via the Room dbx. That means you can do something sneaky, like make all the rooms in the existing house "Study" or "Office" as the room type, then name them whatever is appropriate. Then.....
• The Room Finish Schedule let's you choose exactly which room types. So let's assume you make the existing all "Office" room types. You just uncheck "Office" on the schedule and voila - a schedule that shows only your new room types.

Because Chief calculates Standard Room Area to the centerlines of walls, I put a note below that says

KEY
STD. AREA (SQ FT) - Area calculated to the centerlines of walls.
INT. AREA ( SQ FT ) - Area calculated to the interior wall surface.

NOTES

- The Standard Area for this schedule is calculated to the centerlines of walls, including at adjoining garages, porches and decks.

- The Heated Area totals shown below are calculated to the outside face of stud, to more closely follow industry standards.

- Because of this difference in calculation methods, you will see slight differences in the totals.

I sometimes also add to these notes, depending on the stage of design, the client, etc.

[HumbleChief]

Great Thread Idea Wendy. Wish it could get stickied somehow because just when I need a sneaky trick these threads seem to disappear.

Anyway the 'sneaky trick' is how to get Rich Text in X-2 to format numbered lists properly and it seems that if you import a Word Doc with everything the way you like it, Rich Text will wrap and number (bullet) properly.

Once imported into Rich Text The Word doc's formatting seems to stay put and wrap properly through 2 or 3 sub heads. Would be cool to see it work properly in the Rich Text dbx (which it does not) but this is a close second.

And it IS called Rich Text which is Word's native text language. Also once in the Chief's Rich Text dbx it continues to behave properly. Which to me means one could copy and paste that text and have that feature at the ready for any future text. A library item?

Yup, works great.

Hope that helps someone

[HumbleChief]

I'm proposing we all add our various unpublished and not-obvious tricks to this thread.

Please title your individual post with your tip. (The Go Advanced button at the bottom will let you do this).

I won't do the word to rich text thing - let somebody who found it do it - but that's exactly the kind of thing I'm picturing. I'll do my sneaky use of the room finish schedule to obtain an area schedule later when I have time to do it properly.

And PLEASE - the intent of this thread is to collect useful stuff that people can cruise through easily. If something here spurs other thoughts, please start a new thread rather than have this one go all off topic.

Wendy is this thread focused on X2? X1? V10? All of the above?

[WendyWelton]

X2 I was thinking. But, if someone had tips about X1 I don't see any harm. Just make a note of the version.

[sherpa_jones]

My most commonly used trick is to properly show an ICF wall without the interior walls framing through the foam and into the concrete. I have 2 pre defined wall types for the ICF wall; one with the inside layer of foam and drywall, and the other with the concrete, outside layer of foam, and any siding or exposed rock work. I draw them together using the double wall, and I connect them with an invisible wall to avoid having an island room. I center the footing on the main layer (concrete), and all interior walls join to the inside foam layer. One setback is the way the window sills only frame into the concrete, and not the inside foam layer.

[WendyWelton]

Sorry Wendy, I was thinking in general. Maybe this thread should be X2 and start another for general stuff. I will delete my post (and this one too) and maybe wait for another thread.

I agree.

Let's each delete our pieces of this. Maybe we can pursuade someone with such power to rename the thread - "2 Dept of Sneaky Tricks"

Any Chief Dudes checking in here?

[Allen42acj]

This works with all versions.Decks don't need it now because there is a place to add the overhang.

Make a room polyline, convert it to a slab.
Set the height just above the floor,thickness you want, and resize so it is hanging over the edge the amount you want.

[jonathank]

I'm sure everyone knows this, but in X2 when you go to shoot an
elevation, if you right click and drag, that will give you the "rendered
elevation". If you left click and drag it will give you the standard "vector
view elevation".

I just ran in to that, and thought it was kind of neat...it'll save ya a
click or thrice.

[Dan Park]

Someone requested a tape measure tool, well we actually have one in X2.

Select the point to point dimension tool and as you drag it out you will see the distance displayed. Once you see the dimension you want hit the other mouse button or the esc. key on the keyboard and it goes away. If you have snapping on you will get an accurate dimension string.

(I wish I knew how to rename the thread but haven't found a way yet)

[sherpa_jones]

The attached plan file includes details on how to create a ramp using terrain tools. I cannot take credit for most of the ideas here, as I watched them on someone else's training videos, but I can't remember who. It was created in X2, but the same steps work for X1 and probably V10, but I cannot confirm.

For those of you who cannot open the file to see the graphics, here are the steps:

HOW TO CREATE A RAMP:
1. DRAW A RECTANGULAR POLINE, 48" X 16'. THE TOTAL RUN WILL BE 8' WITH A 4' LANDING ON EACH END.
2. CONVERT TO TERRAIN PERIMITER. SET THE SKIRT TO FOLLOW TERRAIN AND SET THE THICKNESS TO REPRESENT YOUR JOISTS AND SHEATHING. I WILL USE 8" FOR 2x8 JOISTS AND 3/4" SUBFLOOR.
3. CHANGE THE MATERIALS TO SHOW FINISH FLOOR. YOU MAY NEED TO ROTATE THE TEXTURE/PATTERN.
4. ADD TERRAIN ELEVATION LINES TO DEFINE THE 4'x4' LANDINGS ON EACH END. ADJUST THE HEIGHT OF THE HIGH END TO 36". NOTICE I PLACED ELEVATION LINES (RED) ON THE ENDS AS WELL.
5. TO MAKE THE LANDINGS FLAT, ADD A FLAT REGION (CUT/FILL) TO EACH LANDING.
6. TO MAKE THE RAMP FLAT, ADD TERRAIN BREAK LINES AT WHERE THE LANDINGS MEET THE RAMP. ALSO ADD TERRAIN ELEVATION LINES ALONG THE RAMP, EQUALLY SPACED AND SET THEIR PROPER ELEVATIONS. THIS SOMEHOW GIVES A BETTER RESULT. SOME ADJUSTMENTS STILL MAY NEED TO BE MADE TO OBTAIN THE DESIRED RESULTS.
7. ADD A RAILING TO EACH EDGE AND DESIGNATE 'FOLLOW TERRAIN' IN THE DBX. USE THE BREAK WALL TOOL TO BREAK THE RAILING AT EACH LANDING. NOTE THAT THE RAILING IS NOW ON THE 'FENCE' LAYER.
8. MAKE ANY AND ALL ADJUSTMENTS YOU NEED TO THE RAILINGS NOW. THE NEXT STEP IS TO EXPORT TO 3DS. THEN YOU CAN IMPORT BACK INTO YOUR MODEL AND YOU ARE DONE.

Disclaimer: I have never done any code research for ramps, so please do not depend on my specifications to be code compliant.

Allan sent me the link to his previous posts about ramps:

http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?p=257966&highlight=ramps#post257966

[Dan Park]

Here's an article on ramps that has some similar steps. It's kind of an ugly hack but the results are pretty good.

http://www.chiefarchitect.com/suppor...?faqNumber=762

[sherpa_jones]

For anyone who wants to create a deck with framing that goes past the railing (16" to 2'), here is a way to do it:

1. Begin by drawing your deck railing. Specify each railing as 'no room definition.'
2. Create a wall type and name it 'deck boundary' or something similar. Make it any thickness that works for you, and set the outer line style as dashed or solid, and the inner line style as none. Copy the material 'air gap' and adjust the transparency to full. Set this as your wall material.
3. Draw this wall around your deck, spacing it as appropriate, and connect it to the exterior walls. This should create a room definition to your new boundary wall. Specify it as 'deck.'
4. Draw your stairs down from the boundary wall. Using a poline, draw a landing between the stairs and the railing, and remove the railing at the landing edge that meets the railing. Change the landing thickness to 0, and use the new air gap material you created earlier.
5. Break the railing at each end of the landing and make it invisible. Now your railings shoudl be continuous. Some minor work may be needed to make everything line up, but you should be 99.99% there.
6. Auto frame the deck and you are done.

In my photos here, I drew in my own posts and beam for the roof, as well as all my deck framing, except for the planking which I used from the auto framing. Now the beam supporting the deck is right under the posts and beam supporting the roof, and I the deck is framed 12" past. Thanks to Allen Colburn for suggesting this to me.

[Allen42acj]

http://chieftalk.com/showthread.php?t=26332
Dashed lines below grade tip..

I just tried this by turning off the terrain and drawing a closed spline where the terrain is..

[Dan Park]

Ever wonder what a tool does and the popup tooltip just does not quite help?

If you hover your mouse over a tool and hit F1 on the keyboard you will get contextual help on that item.