Phase 1 - Describing the Vertical Plan

When the user clicks on the HighRise PowerTool icon, the vertical description dialog is invoked:

On the left part of the HighRise dialog box is a cross-section plan of a typical wall of the structure being designed, which will show graphically and in scale the effect of the measurements entered in the controls. It represents a cross section of the typical wall structure of the house. The heavy red line near the bottom, corresponding (usually) with the top of the first floor's floor, will be the Zero Plane. The color of each measurement is keyed to the entry controls which give them their values.

Around the drawing are a number of controls that need to be considered to create a good vertical default plan. These controls include:

• Design intent. The choices here allow the user to plan for either appearance purposes or for functionality. The differences are explained on this page.
• English vs. metric selection. The units of measurement (metric or English) are selected in Punch! itself before calling HighRise. A message at the top left of this window describes the units used throughout the PowerTool: inches for English, millimeters for metric.
• Floor check boxes. Checkoff only the number of floors needed to create the plan. HighRise requires that the floors be used in order, from lowest upwards.
• Names. Name each floor uniquely, up to 30 characters of the user's choosing. These names will identify a particular floor at various places in HighRise, rather than using a level number.
• Ceiling heights. Set these boxes to the measurements of the desired ceilings on each active floor, measured from the top of the floor to the ceiling. You might call this "overhead distance". Again, these are entered in inches or millimeters depending upon the English vs. metric selection.
• AutoFloor thicknesses. Set these values to the thickness of the floor on each level. The thickness is usually measured from the top of the ceiling on the floor below to the walking surface of the floor above, and would normally include the surface finish, subflooring, joist box, and ceiling finish.
• Offsets. These checkboxes allows for planning upper floors which has walls recessed from those of the floor below, and requires roofing over the uncovered part of the building below. It is explained on this page. Note that checking off the box indicates that the current floor is the first floor affected by the offset; it occurs at the bottom of this floor.
• Autofloor. Specify here, for each floor, whether autofloors are in use on that floor or not. If both are used (perhaps manual floors over the automatic for separate texturing purposes), then select "auto". Note that the color of the floor changes with this selection: it matches the wall color if auto is selected, or it is yellow if it is not.
• Basement depth. Explained in detail on the next page.
• Top ceiling thickness. The ceiling of the top floor of the plan has to be a manual floor, since it will not be hosted by a set of walls above. This control should be set to the desired thickness of that manual floor, which corresponds to the thickness of the ceiling finish plus the joist box structure above that. A cathedral ceiling can provided in the plan by setting the Top Ceiling Thickness to zero.
• Roof pitch. The pitch of the roof - how high it rises in inches per foot of run - is required in order to compute the required roof elevation. The pitch and the soffit width below are assumed to be the same for both the main and any offset roofs below. The equivalent angle value (angle is used rather than pitch in metric countries) is displayed immediately below the pitch, and either box may be used to set the roof angle.
• Soffit width. The width of the soffit, or the horizontal extent of the roof eaves, is entered in this space.
• Bias. In general, we recommend (on this page) that the zero plane be setup so that it is the top of the lowest floor in the structure, providing a good reference point for elevation measurements. However, sometimes that needs to be shifted for reasons of practicality. If that is the case, the bias setting will, in effect, shift the zero plane upwards with respect to the structure by setting a positive bias, or downwards with a negative one. Note that a positive bias may keep the Working Elevation of the lowest floor from being set correctly, since Punch! does not allow a negative Working Elevation - for a crawl space this may not be a problem, but for a finished basement, all objects created in it will have to be manually re-elevated after creation.

There may seem to be one value missing - the thickness of the roof rafters is not settable in Punch!. It is fixed at 6 inches (measured vertically), which is a extremely minimum, unrealistic value for most roofs. If more realism in roof thickness is desirable, using two roofs, one for the upper extant and another for the lower (visible ceiling in a cathedral ceiling) will do so, though it will cause problems with the Framer and Estimator PowerTools.

Once these elements have been entered and the graphic seems to represent the desired configuration, the OK button may be clicked on. Clicking Cancel will cause HighRise to exit immediately with no effect on the plan at all.

HighRise and the contents of this help file are
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