"Phantom" Ceiling Plane

[coogan]

In the attached JPG (I had to make it smaller in order to attach it), note the gray diagonally-oriented surface. This artifact suddenly appeared as I was editing a plan (changing the default ceiling height of the first floor) and trying to get a skylight dome to appear correctly. At one point I had inserted a custom ceiling plane, but removed it. The rectangular area on the right with the glass block front should be open to below, as should be the square area (bounded by the short walls) to its left.

This artifact is, in fact, a ceiling plane, because when I turn on "Use Above Floor's Platform for Ceiling" in Floor Defaults, it goes away. That may be OK for this small test plan, but I've dealt with this "feature" before, and I can't always just turn off ceilings. It IS annoying, and I don't know how to keep it from happening, or to get rid of it any other way.

The plan file (it's just a test case) is small, so if you'd like to see it, I can send it so you can observe this behavior.

My vital stats: Home Designer 6.0 Pro, version 6.03. Dell P4 2.0GHz, 1GB RAM, NVidia GeForce4 Ti 4200 w/64MB, latest video drivers and OS patches.

Thanks.

[Dan Park]

Please send the plan to ART support via the website.

One quick thing you could try is to hit f12 on the keyboard to rebuild walls floors and ceilings.

Also if you are using custom roof planes make sure that they are not overlapping. Sometimes a roof plane that is not properly drawn will cause ceiling planes to be displayed.

[coogan]

I use F12 regularly (almost as often as I save, which is every minute or so). Makes no difference with this particular problem.

You'll have to explain the "overlapping roof planes; not properly drawn custom roof planes" thing. The now-deleted custom ceiling plane (I guess it's a type of custom roof plane), did have a "hole" in it, and I think the seam where I surrounded the "hole" (since you cannot make holes in custom ceiling planes) may have overlapped.

One more thing. I do remember seeing a warning message at some point about a roof, ceiling, or custom countertop polyline being open and needing a line or arc to make it a closed polyline. This particular warning happens quite regularly (with most plans I do) for reasons I can't fathom, since I never edit the segments of closed polylines separately. When all you do is move line segments, I'm not sure how it would be possible to cause a closed polyline to become open.

I will send the plan file as soon as possible. Thanks.

[Dan Park]

I think the best thing at this point is to get a copy of the plan. We can then analyze it and determine the problem.

[Dan Park]

We got the plan in. It looks like we have a corrupt curved wall over the court in the lower left corner of the screen on the second floor. We found that deleting the wall and recreating it solved the problem.

[coogan]

Is there a clue that I could use to detect this kind of condition? I am working on a plan (of which that "test plan" was a study) that is considerably further along (and more complex). It likewise has an open polyline (I keep getting the warning), but I have no clue where to begin looking in order to fix it. It seems impractical to delete and recreate every wall in the plan, one by one.

By and large, curved walls are the hardest elements to place and size correctly. (They will also lengthen rendering time considerably!)

Thanks for your help.

[Dan Park]

There are a couple of troubleshooting techniques we use that may help you find a problem quicker.

First make a copy of the plan to troubleshoot with since we don't want to mess the plan up.

Second start deleting items using edit area until the problem goes away. At that point revert back and delete smaller areas until the problem is isolated. This can be time consuming but by trying to cut the problem in half you can reduce the amount of time it takes.

[coogan]

Duh! I should have known that.

Thanks for the tip. Yes, that would no doubt find the problem, though in a large plan it could take quite some time, unless you were to get lucky, fairly quickly.

Thanks to both you and Brad. As I told Brad, this is a very good program, even with the occasional glitches. Good luck finding another program with as many capabilities that works as well (without spending a lot more money). I just wish I could afford the full version of Chief Architect.