IvanCyr

Hi again Mark,

I played around with the options.  I placed a full height cabinet in your .plan file.  It seems that you can turn off the call outs for those shelves off easily enough...but in the materials list, the references to the shelves are not "inside" that full height cabinet but are completely separate items (which makes sense in how they are created).  That would get hard to track after small changes over this very large project.

If I can't find a more integrated solution, I think we'll have to consider other options outside of Chief unfortunately or take a pass....

Perhaps I'm missing something.....

Ivan

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your reply.  Probably not interested in Ruby....I can certainly manipulate a spreadsheet to acquire the specific information.  I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to be an option with Chief that goes along with its other great attributes.

Thanks for including the .plan file.  Interesting work around.  It doesn't seem possible to load up say 10 shelves like that into a single full height cabinet....you would end up with 10 call outs all spread out to oblivion!! LOL  Am I wrong here?

I would want one call out to a schedule for one particular type of cabinet with say 5 shelves in it.  I might use that same cabinet 50 times in this project.  The materials list would need to reflect ALL number of shelves and framing components and siding/front components.

Thoughts??

OttawaP...thanks for your comment as well....I might have to investigate other software for this one....or take a pass unfortunately.

Ivan

Hello all,

I've been using Chief for a while...mostly modelling.  Schedules and materials lists I'm new at.  I am trying to acquire an accurate materials list for a large number of shelving and cabinets.  All shelving has a 3/8" specific moulding on the front edge of a different material than the shelf.

While using mostly default Chief components, I've been trying to obtain a materials list for the materials involved for cabinets.  I've been somewhat successful.  One can see specific number for hinges and pulls, doors and drawers, but when it comes to specific "boards" or materials for the cabinet "box", there is really only a general dimension of the "box".  I could not see a single item in the material list detailing shelf surfaces.

Is there a way to have chief build a cabinet (or for myself to build it) and have specific board by board material calculations for specific cabinets??

Thanks to those who can to comment.

Ivan

Hi Scott,

DAE is the preferred for sure.  I often use 3ds format too and use the 8.3 file option.  One thing that often occurs when using a color and not a texture, is that Lumion will paint another texture over the color...yet the material will still be called the color...

So for many colors I'll chose a similar texture color for the export out of Chief.

The external shots of this tour are Lumion renders.

Custom Home Tour

This was using 3ds in a 8.3 export file format.

Hope this helps.

Ivan

Thank you Eric and Lew.  The CAD is not an option in HD or Pro but is in Interiors.  The item in question using Interiors was Premier framing but the CAD works.  Thanks for improving my understanding the 'workflow" between the softwares.

Have a great day gentlemen.

Ivan

Quick question,

I do a fair bit of custom 3D design using CAD and many of my customers are Home Designer and Interiors users.  Using Chief Premier I obviously can select the default plan setting to be backwards compatible in the Home Designer products.  However, CAD work is an exception.  One can not manipulate any Premier CAD creations in Interiors or HD products.

I tried to use "Shapes" from the chief library too and in the HD products, they were not able to manipulate them or open the dbx.

I'm convinced I'm missing something....

Can I be enlightened by some smarter person??....that would be like....like pretty much ALL of you! LOL

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

Hey Buz,

I regularly run into the vertex max issue....first thing after a new release is I try to see if it has been fixed....since X4.  I haven't seen any movement in that area.  Me thinks that the squeaky wheel will get the grease on this and there's simply not enough squealing going on or indeed, it is a difficult issue and the cost to resolve is prohibitive.

As a work around, I usually layer the problem and export as dae into Lumion or vrml into Accutrans3D then convert to xml for use in my workflow.  I save the items in my other software and now simply ignore the modelling in Chief and set the items in my 3rd party software.

It would be REAL nice to have that vertex limit issue solved for sure....I've made numerous personal email attempts to the headshed....but so far to no avail sadly.

I wish I had better news and certainly a better solution for you....

All the best.

Are you needing a full virtual tour of a home in one web based location?  Or how about the requirement to showcase to a client different ideas for a project?  Perhaps a 360 virtual tour will help.  I can take your 360 photos created from Chief Architect and insert them into a single interactive tour where your client can seamlessly flow through a home or any space at their leisure using any web browser on any platform (older smaller Android devices excepted).

Here's 4 different kitchen layouts within a single space:

http://www.inteck3d.com/tour/torontokitchens/index.html

See a home tour here:

http://www.inteck3d.com/tour/moorecustomhomes/index.html

I can place your logo, music, and a even video into the scene.

I will provide two basic options.  Basic Tour and Basic Plus.  Customisation is readily available for your specific needs.

Basic Tour:

I will deliver the product within 48 hrs of receipt of panorama pictures.

Left tool bar will have all rooms to view.

Basic Plus

I will deliver the product within 96 hrs of receipt of panorama pictures.

Left tool bar will have all rooms to view.

A overview map to be included.

Links provided to "move" through the space from room to room.

Cost:

Basic $20 plus $7.00 per render photo.

Basic Plus: $20 plus $12.00 per render photo.

Tour will be held on the server at Inteck3d Inc. and will be available for 12 months from the time of upload.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to inquire.

Ivan Cyr

Inteck3d Inc.

514-616-0158

Hey "jonboy112352",

To do the point to point moves, that is a completed outside of Chief.  Sorry I can't help you there.

Hey Basketballman,

I'm running into the same issue....too bad one couldn't create a full virtual tour of a property all linked together...

I have a default parameter for Chief to create these quickly like here:

360 Virtual Tour

You are still limited to "hopping" from one camera point to the next....but at least you don't have to click on a new webpage...all created in Chief.

Hi Will,

I export regularly into 3rd party softwares.  You are definitely correct, often the 3d component is tied together by their material definitions....sometimes no apparent reason or method....very frustrating.

I've had excellent success at exporting out of Chief using the 3ds format.  Some softwares prefer the 8.3 format option that you have when exporting out of Chief.

I do have a name of a 3D guru in Canada who breathes this stuff and might be able to help you.  I won't publish it here but if you PM me, I'll share you my personal email and we can have some discourse on the topic if you would like.

Ivan Cyr

Inteck3d Inc.

I compete in the virtual world on a regular basis.  There's some very fast and cheap rendering solutions out there....quality and communication are normally the issues on the "block" when dealing with "overseas" solutions.  I've done some outsourcing and I've spent days waiting to have someone who could understand English to make the smallest and simple change.

If you are looking for integrated solutions with materials, architectural software, and quick updates then you will pay for that service.  Single renders will generally cost $50 for 1080p each to over $200 for billboard size planar pics and about the same cost per spherical renders to embed into virtual experience softwares.

Chief is well suited to create "linked" creations that can be easily and quickly modified and uploaded into a very high standard virtual 360 tour.  Here's an example below:

Home Tour

On this project, we focused on the kitchen, flyer, mstrbedroom and lanai/pool area and kept the rest to a relative minimum to save cost.  Some of the materials were NOT my favorite but the clients wanted some particular tiles that were rather poor in my opinion for quality and "seamless".

On this next one, we focused on two different kitchen layouts with two different material sets each....the first two we used actual slabs for the countertops; that is, we photographed the slabs at the warehouse, created 3d virtual material, and "made" the countertops.

Kitchen Alternatives

When sharing this product, we often have people believe they are looking at the real thing...which of course, that is what we try to do....create a showhome so you don't have to.  We want to make ALL your product available in each home you build.  The Chief layer sets and default settings allow us to quickly derive entire kitchens differently by cut and paste and with our material links integrated between the architectural software to the rendering software, it makes a seamless transition allowing one on one real time customisation.

Hope this provides some clarification to your query.

Called support...they had me up and running in 5 mins.  Thx for the options gentlemen....much appreciated.

Yup...windows 10....I'll give em a call....

Thx Joe.

Hi,

I searched the forums for how I might be able to do this but to no avail unfortunately.  I have a customer wanting me to use X5.  I do have it installed on my "old" computer but wish to use my much more wizbang one with about 10 bizillion more cores and speeeeeeed.

I have the files which were downloaded from Chief way back when and I've copied them over to my new computer and tried to run the downloader.exe file.  It does "start" the installation and asks me for a file location but once there, it errors out.  The error is, "The server returned an error response. 403 = Forbidden Abort"

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Well, I haven't left yet.....

I received a response from CA technical support.  Their reply is pasted below.  Chopsaw, it looks like you're on the right track....

"Two things come to mind. You can get walls, doors and windows by exporting to a DWG file, then changing plans and importing that DWG file into the other plan. You can use the CAD to walls tool to convert the CAD lines into walls, doors and windows.

The other thing that came to mind regarding the use of the User Catalog, when you place in the new plan, you should be able to use the Explode Block tool to return the items to separate symbols. Normally when items are blocked and added to the library, they can be un-blocked when placed in a plan. That sounds like it should work.

The general answer I get when I ask about converting a metric plan to imperial or visa versa is that it is usually easier to re-draw the plan."

Back to dreaming of dates....

Hey Chopsaw,

I talked to tech a couple days ago and I don't actually think they understood the issue....they pointed me to item I mentioned in my first post; item 00024 regarding metric and imperial dimensions in plans.

Perhaps I'll have to discuss the issue again and ensure we understand each other....I get back to the forum with an answer.  Might be a while....gotta hot date booked for a week!

Hi Chopsaw....you're from the "Great White North"....are you further north than Edmonton?  I now reside near Montreal....great weather....bad taxes...

"Set in stone" library items would simply be, for example, a 3ds or dae export into a file and then an import back into the library.  You scale them once when importing them into the library.  They then can be used in either metric or imperial plans.  You can scale them to what you want to "fit" but the individual items will no longer be editable.

So, in review, the item( s) originate as CA, but when you import it back into the library, it really becomes like any other object you might import.  I hope this clarifies the work flow and sheds some light into your request above.

I would love to get some help and solve this issue and learn at the same time!!

Hey Lew,

Well, I'm glad you liked it.  With the quality of my work people kept asking me if I could create one of those animated changes like they do on TV....I said sure but it would take a bit of work.  These TV guys have million dollar budgets and have huge render farms to produce the product....so I just settled in to create a 15 second virtual kitchen swap for a FB ad campaign.

Sheesh,....after two weeks, I had to turn it off....I had WAY too many calls come in.  Had I taken all the work, I could farm out the work and put every one on the forum here into overtime!! LOL

Those actual tiles were just beautiful....over a ton each, and to capture the essence of the material in high definition and render it in animation was very successful....even the manager of the warehouse was speechless....he had no idea one could do that.

Well there it is....2.54.  There are 2.54cm in one inch.

The issue isn't the dimensioning...I already have both displayed.  This issue is that I created a timber frame home using a metric template because the interior decorator provided me that.  She wasn't comfortable creating it.  She created, in an imperial plan, a close facsimile of the interior.  Now we have two plans....one accurate one in metric, and one pretty close one in imperial (but fine to import TVs, tables, and knives and forks and million other things....)

I just want to import her imperial plan decor into my metric plan house....

As Chopsaw mentioned, you can place the item into the library and it maintains its proper size regardless of initial conditions and you can import it back in to either plan....however, it now becomes "set in stone" and will no longer be editable.

Yeah....high hopes for transform replicate by layer....but NOPE.....I was only offered to translate the entire selection.

Back to the drawing board....

Lew, I like your idea....one click.  Just tell me WHERE!!

Lew, you were a great inspiration to me a few years ago when I got started in all this.  Take a moment and check out where I'm at today.  You'll need this code to access the page "769" .... but if you're interested click on the link below, the tours and the videos near the bottom are all modelled in chief.  The material mapping is also defined in chief and then "improved" but it all starts there.

http://www.inteck3d.com/dialogdesign

I am going to try to see if I could at least import the entire information by layer and then floor and resize....a ton of work but faster than redoing everything....

Ok...that is obvious for one object.  I've got a couple thousand or more....transform replicate will only offer move those items.

I'm thinking of an export import, or copy paste in place idea.  The copy paste and place and move to a known point works but the scale is completely out....likely 2.54 for cm per inch.

Any other ideas??

Hi Scott,

It will all depend on the time and quality for the product. Once I have the lighting set up and materials linked with a contractor or a chief architect user utilizing similar materials over and over again, I can produce these in about 7.5 minutes (with dual GTX 970s). The 4 kitchen options found in the link below can be created, "toured", and uploaded for viewing in about 40 minutes. Most people are not aware this quality is available in rendering...I've yet to have a contractor think he wasn't looking at the real thing.

http://www.inteck3d.com/tour/marketing_kitchen

Clicking the small icons on the upper left allow you to cycle through the four options.

The 3 keys are lighting, material definition, and rendering quality and speed.

I look forward to what CA can produce.

Ivan

Good day,

I received a plan set  in metric while working with an interior decorator.  I completed the plan in Metric.  The decorator started her work using an imperial plan.  I would like to import her information into my metric plan (or even the other way around if I have to).  Can this be done?

I looked up CA help file 00024 "Displaying Metric and Imperial Units on a Single Dimension Line" but this doesn't help when the file imports at what looks to be 2.54 times the size.

Any workarounds avail from the gurus??

Thanks,

Ivan