Nicinus

I think the idea of Auto dormers is really just to get the walls where you want them, then explode it for further changes. I really just use the auto dormers just for a start, and adjust from there.

Fair enough, I'll do that in the future then.

Well, after continuing to doodle with this my conclusion is that you can't hide the side walls in plan view if you use auto dormers, as A) the walls are on the regular walls layer together with all the rest and B/  I can't select them without exploding them and therefore I can't put them on their own layer. If I explode them I loose the Auto functionality. Needless to say I feel this is deficiency in the program that needs to be corrected. 

For the suggestion box, but I can't see why a wall type can't be assigned to a layer in the defaults? That way I could automatically place all my interior walls on 'Walls, interior' and in this case a dedicated wall type in 'Walls, dormers'. 

I did that but lost the front wall, but that may have been another issue when I was doodling around.

If I do that and move those walls to another layer, can I block it again or the intelligence is lost? I'm still moving it around and tweaking the exact size so I would like to keep them auto for now, and there are three of them.

I don't remember if auto dormers have a wall type spec dbx, but if they do you can copy a wall definition and change its appearance in plan. That is also how I do cheek walls on manual dormers.

They don't seem to, and they are not selectable.

I would suggest you watch my DORMER VIDEOS at CHIEFTUTOR.COM to fully understand all of the possibilities.  

Scott, I love those videos, it's almost like you are experimenting your way to the solution, but you sure hide some of the nuggets. Your series on dormers alone is 10 parts, so I have to save those until I have a bit more time than during the day.

Thanks, very elegant solution.

Amazing how it sometimes locks your thinking when there is a function that you are supposed to use and you try all sorts of ways to get that to work as you want.

I've created a plan footprint with the corresponding command, and would like to place it on my site plan. However, Chief won't let me copy this item? How can I get it into my plan? Only by sending to layout and placing it on top in layout?

I would like to hide these side walls in my plan views for readability, but the walls stay when I disable the auto dormer layer and they can't be selected even though they are on the walls, exterior layer.

The only way I can imagine would be to select all the other walls and put them on another layer so that I can hide this one, but that seems far fetched. There's gotta be another way?

Well, I'm personally pretty convinced they want to stay residential/light commercial, and I'm also very happy they haven't split it up as I'm one of those that likes to get involved in both the landscaping and cabinetry. Not at the fertilizer or fabrication level, but enough to specify the larger scheme of things. The residential market has a very limited scope compared to commercial and one of the main attractions of Chief for me is that it is a very allround package.

My personal hope for Chief is that they strive very high when it comes to the architectural aspect and the condocs, and then continue to branch out with useful tools for MEP and gladly even some structural. I think it would be great to get help dimensioning lvl's etc based on spans and perhaps even shear walls. I'm hoping equally much though that these excursions never take away the focus of the core building design tools.

Don't get me wrong, I also think interoperability is important, but I don't think it key to BIM on the residential level. I want FBX so I can export to 3ds Max, some people perhaps want to export their cabinetry design to 20/20, and some wants dwg to export their site plan to the landscaper. Export formats will take us a long way for some time, but yes, eventually we'll all want IFC. It will take a while before the typical residential landscaper have something in 3D that can be exported back to Chief, but the day will certainly come.

Besides, Chief is almost sold in modules today, right? There is an Interior version, a Lite version, and Premier for those of us that like to dabble in it all.

PS. There is nothing BIM about Sketchup, have you ever tried it? You can't define a wall type or create door schedules. They have components, which is like symbols, but there is no intelligence in it. There are plugins that can make it more automated and a little more intelligent, but there are CAD plugins for Adobe Illustrator and that doesn't make it Autocad.

IMHO you're confusing the concepts. Chief Architect definitely produces a BIM model (yes, I realize that term uses model twice , which I assume we all can agree on. Now, it sure would be better if it had some structural intelligence and MEP, and hopefully/maybe it will come but is still BIM. Revit existed a long time before it got structural and MEP functionality.

What Archicad is proposing in the video is that no one has such a developed BIM solution that it does it all, so interactivity is needed. Hence the drive for what they call OpenBIM, which from what I understand really is a drive to get as many as possible to accept IFC (Archicad has decent MEP but for example lacks structural tools). Regardless, the more the core application can do on it's own I would argue the better, at least for our purposes, and by that I mean the residential/light commercial Chief user. Sure I would love to be able to send my model to an engineer and get it back with proper framing, and one day maybe I will, but surely you don't believe something is a BIM tool just because it can export and import? BIMs main feature per definition is the parametric model.

Here, maybe this video will help:

http://videos.autodesk.com/zencoder/content/dam/autodesk/www/solutions/building-information-modeling/overview/what-is-bim-video-896x504.mp4

Lew, the definition of BIM by Bentley Systems who creates Microstation, the today perhaps leading solution at larger Architect firms:

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a way of approaching the design and documentation of building projects – by modeling and managing not just graphics, but also information. This information allows the automatic generation of drawings and reports, design analysis, schedule simulation, facilities management, and more – ultimately enabling the building team to make better-informed decisions and to produce better buildings. Generative design enables architects and engineers to pursue designs and achieve results that were virtually unthinkable before. Using associative parametrics and computational methods, designers can explore a broad range of "what-if" alternatives for even the most complex buildings, quickly and easily.

Admittedly, Chief is no Microstation but the ambition to make house design more explorative while automating many of the basic steps is certainly there.

In my view Chief Architect is perhaps most BIM of of them all , and Sketchup would be at the other end the scale.

To me the promise of BIM is more than a parametric 3D model that can talk to others, it is a tool that actually helps you build and take care of the routine work and maybe even help with design decisions. CA does that way better than Revit and Archicad at the moment, admittedly only for residential, and Sketchup doesn't do it at all. Both Archicad and Revit are getting more and more clever in terms of parts and building components that fit together intelligently but things like for example framing are typically awkvard addons.

Flame retardant suit on, but I think one issue for Chief going forward will be to shake a bit of the 'builder's tool' image and become more attractive to architects in order to be used on a bit more original and contemporary projects than what we typically see. Assuming that is what the management would like obviously, but I just can't stop wondering why the projects they have in their ads are starting to look very different from all the traditional sample plans we've seen so far.

Perhaps the biggest limitation Chief faces is the lack of being able to handle multiple users but it may not be necessary for a while. The fact is, Chief's price point should make it very attractive for most smaller studios, especially now that there is a Mac version. I may be mistaken but from what I can tell you can't buy Revit separately anymore, only as a part of their Building Suite, listed at $6,850. Archicad is $4,250 and although a great tool, not optimized for the residential market and some prefer Chief regardless of price, I know I did.

I do agree though, interoperability such as IFC and gladly FBX is a must.

Good one, that worked great! Thanks!

I made a bit of a mess by copying some roof planes instead of creating new ones from scratch (I wanted to be smart and retain some of the settings), and I now how three base lines in basically the same spot with their roof planes in other locations. Is there a way to figure out which baseline relates to which roof plane, or is there a way to reset the baseplane to wall under?

Maybe check your Display>Color Off settings in PREFERENCES>APPEARANCE. Is it set to Black and White, or Grayscale?

Thanks Robert, that was it!

The layer they are going to once blocked is probably locked in the view where you can't select it.

Thanks Alan, that was embarassing, should have been able to figure that one out.

I'll take a stab at this

in the elevation view, vector view, turn off "pattern 3D views", send to cad drawing, export

 

HTH, Ray C

Thanks Ray, but that only removed the actual pattern in the material, not the gray scale shading.

EDIT: I stand corrected, it came out the way I wanted in Layout, but still looks like a grayscale view in plan? Can anyone explain this to me? What if I wanted it to be a grayscale? Only possible as an image?

This is a possible suggestion (but also quite likely a misunderstanding on my part) but I can't seem to select an architectural block in elevation/cross section?

I have a block of cabinets in a bathroom interior elevation that is unselectable. If I open the block in plan everything works as expected again in the elevation and I can manipulate the individual elements. I can multiselect cabinets and block them, but as soon as I block it I can't select it anymore. This to me appears inconsistent and in my mind it does not seem logical that I can't select blocks and move them and unblock them in elevations.

Side question, how I can I export an elevation as a pure black and white line drawing without materials in grayscale?

Yes, so just got of the phone with tech support and I had definitely misunderstood the way it worked. There are two parts to it.

Autosave:

I was under the assumption that it saved every 5 minutes and then a number of files back until it eventually erased the oldest ones depending on a setting somewhere. This is the way it for example works in software like 3ds Max where you set interval in minutes and number of files to keep. However, in Chief it does not, it only saves the last file that is five minutes old (or whatever you set) and then overwrites that file. The problem with this is that if you are unknowingly starting to create a corrupt file but the program sort of still works (like it did for me when I was trying to figure out my sloping polysolid) or if you step back to think about what is going on for five minutes, you will also corrupt the autosave file. Since this is the only autosave file you have it this is something to keep in mind.

Autoarchive:

This is the next level of protection and it didn't quite work as I personally was expecting either. I had my setting on Daily, but contrary to what I would have found intuitive, that it would save a backup once a day the computer is on at a certain time or something, it only do so at the moment you save the file yourself. So if I saved last Friday I would get a file in my archive with that date, and if I then never bothered to save since I was only doing minor tweaks here and there during the day until today there would be no archived file during this period. Finally if I then work very hard today Tuesday and save more or less continously there will only be one file auto archived for the whole day, the last one saved, and in my case the one that turned out to be corrupt. If I had had it set to hourly instead I would have had a file that was at least an hour old or so assuming I had saved it then. Like in the daily example, if you would have confined your work to do a lot within the same hour you would only have one archive, the last one.

In my case I lost all work since last Friday, and I guess the moral of the story is to use the Save button often while having Autoarchive set on 'Previous Save', which will give you an autoarchive file every time you save.

(PS. If anyone ever ends up in the same situation there is possible hope if Chief crashed hard and didn't have a chance to erase all the temporary undo files. These are full plan files and Chief ironically adds another file sequentially instead of overwriting the last one in this case, so you can theoretically back trace until you find a file that is sound. However, these are all erased if Chief is closed normally) 

were you goofing around w/ tilted solids? I crashed a couple x's yesterday when they got pretty irregular shaped while editing them in a camera.

Indeed I was. 

I was messing around with a sloped patio I had created in an elevation and extruded, when Chief suddenly said I had a SEH serious error something. After restarting Chief it turns out my last saved file is corrupt, but so is the auto_save_bak plan, it's identical in size so somehow it appears to have written over itself while trying to save.

Now, I have been doing minor work on this file the whole weekend, small adjustments here and there, and it has definitely been open on the computer. However, when I look in the archive folder in Documents/Chief Architect Premier X6 Data/Archives the folder has the name_2014_11_18 plan file as well as the autosave from today (identical in size and corrupt) but the next archived file isn't until the 14th (last Friday). There is no file from the weekend and nothing from yesterday? Looking in Preferences I have autosave on 5 minutes and auto archive on Daily?

I will call technical support but thought I would check first if anyone here knows what is going on, or if I'm missing something?

Another way would be to implement improved poly line tools that can manipulate individual vertices and anchor points, this would enhance 2D cad as well as 3D modeling.

Who started this dang thread.....  this is going to cost me a lot of money and time figuring out this mess........

Ouch. 

When I click on the object in plan it jumps?

I however is as confused as ever.     Thanks for all the suggestions guys, will eventually figure it out I hope. I downloaded the plan and it becomes somewhat easier to grasp if looking in plan and elevation at the same time in two windows.