Nicinus

Improved polyline editing such as working with individual segments without disturbing other parts, deleting anchor points, bezier points.

Maybe it could come a cloud based effort in the future, where people who have applied to be an editor could make changes and update keywords, etc. A bit like wikipedia, which is a too big effort for one company to handle.

++1 This just has to be fixed, it's such a great library so it is so much more the shame that everything is hidden in it. I also want to get rid of the division between core and bonus, as now I have to look in one first and then the other. Chief will just have to find another way to justify its support subscription. And it seems that whenever I search I get 80% colors to scroll through. The filter is not enough, there has to be better categories and please put an intern for a year on tagging keywords to each item.

Are you implying we said nothing of value?

Yesm I've tried both in plan and layout. The dbx settings are identical whatever I change, but it is only reflected in plan. I should mention that the one I'm struggling with now is an elevation, but I'm doing other test changes to geometry at the same time I in this case change the line style for foundation walls, close the plan and get the question whether I want to update layout, click yes, and the geometry changes I've done are reflected but not the line style ones. In plan everything is correct. I think I may need to call tech support on this one.

O'boy, that's quite a glitch. I've redefined my foundation wall layer to a dotted line style, and no matter how I open and close the layer dbx it won't take it.

Personally I hope that your training will be out of business by X7. Well, I don't mean it like that, but using gray scales in the material editor on patterns is in my mind not the way to go and hopefully something that will be changed soon. There should be possibilities to set line weights for patterns, elements in windows, and edge profiles, etc. without resorting to that kind of work arounds.

Not sure what you mean, if I use the same layer set that should carry into Layout, right? Or can you set visibility somewhere else?

It was the one with the check mark, and it seems like a glitch as I was clicking that layer on and off, and suddenly they disappeared. Good to know that it was a glitch and not a systemic issue, thanks!

Thanks Grame, that actually did occur to me and I created the polyline from my foundation level.

Much obliged Graeme, that took care of it.

My plan has already been sent to Layout using the same layerset (not a copy) and updates all changes. However, I've now created a new layer, which is switched off in the layer set, that I've moved some walls to. This walls are not visible in plan, but remains visible in Layout. If I close my plan and reopen the view by double clicking in Layout, everything is again correct in plan but the remain visible in Layout. It's like the correct layer set is called once the view is opened in the plan view, but the Layout part of the program somehow can't see it. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

Why is it that a line style on a wall doesn't seem to apply to the first and last portion of the wall, and can I change the behavior?

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.

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

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.