Fixing Jagged or Off-Angle Walls and Lines

QUESTION

When I draw a straight wall or CAD line, it doesn't look right on my screen.  The line appears jagged, or off-angle, as shown in the image below.



What is causing this, and how can I stop it from occurring? 

ANSWER

It is often important that objects be drawn at exact angles. This can be accomplished using Angle Snaps, which allow you to draw lines, walls, and other objects at specified Allowed Angles. Angle Snaps also affect the way objects rotate, the radius of arcs, and a variety of other operations.

If you have turned off Angle Snaps, your walls may appear jagged in floor plan view. Also, you may notice the Angle Snap Indicator attached to your cursor indicating that angle snaps are turned off.

This can ultimately lead to room definition issues or problems with dimensioning, so it is best to correct the file as soon as you notice the behavior.

There are a number of ways to turn Angle Snaps on or off:

To turn Angle Snaps on or off

• Temporarily disable all snaps by holding down the Ctrl key, if you are on a PC, while you click and drag to either draw or edit an object.
  On a Mac, the Command key is used instead of Ctr.
  
  
  
• Click the Angle Snaps toggle button on the Toggle Modes toolbar.
  
  
  
  

  This toolbar is docked to the right side of the program window if you are using the standard default toolbar configuration.
  It will display a blue border around it along with a small check mark near the lower right of the icon when this tool is enabled.

  
  
  
• Select Edit> Snap Settings> Angle Snaps from the menu.
  
  
  
• Press the F10 key on your keyboard. This is the default keyboard shortcut hotkey for toggling Angle Snap on and off.
  
  
  
• Select Edit> Preferences  from the menu on a PC, and turn the feature on or off on the Snap Properties panel of the Preferences dialog.
  If you are using a Mac, from the menu select Chief Architect> Preferences to open the Preferences dialog.
  
    

Once you have toggled Angle Snaps back on, you will still need to correct any walls or lines which have been drawn incorrectly by specifying a valid angle for the object.

To specify the angle of a wall

1. Using the Select Objects  tool, click to select the off-angle object.
   
   

2. Select the Open Object  edit button to display the object's Specification dialog.
   
   

3. For walls, on the General panel, change the Wall Angle value so that it accurately represents what you want to have displayed.
   
   

• In this example, we will change the Wall Angle value to -180 degrees.
  
  
• Depending on the orientation of the wall, the Wall Angle value may be a positive number or a negative number.
  
  
  

• For lines, set the Angle on the Line panel of the Line Specification dialog.
  
  
  
  
  
• Click OK, and repeat the process for any remaining off-angle walls and/or lines in the plan that were drawn when Angle Snaps was toggled off.