Rich_Winsor

Here you go Robert.

Be advised that reverse engineering my

plans can lead to severe mental anguish.

Culvert-10.plan

Thank you Scott !! I enjoyed that, despite being nobody important. :0

He's a real Nowhere Man

Sitting in his Nowhere Land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

For what its worth I had occasion to revisit this topic

as I needed to model a culvert that was slightly more

sophisticated than just a pipe in the ground. I ran into

the same problem the OP had in that whenever I

lowered the culvert into the terrain it filled the hole in

the culvert. I experimented with Bill’s approach of

putting plugs in the ends of the hole but I couldn’t

make it work. However what did work for me was to

place the culvert into a terrain hole of the identical size.

Anyhoo… this is what I came up with.

You've probably found it by now. Check in "Preferences"

down near the bottom under "Render" you will see the

"Video Card Status".

Well then I guess I'm with Jintu on this one.

"God only knows"   

Look in the lower right hand corner of the post.

Perry, what do you consider "a very large file" to be?

I did a 6 1/2 minute walkthrough of my 2 acre site plan

and the file size was a tidy little 390 MB. Sheesh! If I

continue to flesh out this plan the walkthrough might

not fit on a DVD. I'm a little confused by what you are

calling "screen capture videos". So what you are doing

is piecing together a series of individual screen shots

with a voice over as opposed to an actual animated

(for lack of a better word) video? Care to post a little

sample?

BTW, not to hijack the thread but this was my first foray

into using Dropbox and I must say that I am completely

underwhelmed by the experience. My crappy little 20 

second 4.5 MB fly around file posted above displays

much better (crisp image and smooth as butter rotation)

with the Windows Media Player than it does when displayed 

on the dropbox link. Is this one of those you get what you

pay for deals and since I didn't pay anything (i.e. free

version) I'm getting what I paid for? And oh yeah, that

annoying "sign up for dropbox" window that appears on 

the link, am I right in assuming that it would go away if I

cough up the 10 bucks a month for the pro version?

Hey ARCBC30,

You can have the camera height change during the exterior fly by.

Here is a quickie. One complete 20 second revolution about the

structure starting at ground level (20") and finishing at 40'.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2jlcr0ujddtlfeg/test%20walkthru-22.avi?dl=0

I don't know Glenn, the messed up orientation

doesn't seem to be a problem for me. Maybe

the cat is trying to tell me something. 

I was just messin' with ya Glen. I suspected there

was more to it which is why I put a question mark

after my original reply. The OP mentioned that he

wanted to rotate the plan and the terrain and the

tool in question does do that. Actually I may be the

second person to have actually used the tool. I used

it to rotate a long skinny site plan 90° so it would fit

the shape of my monitor. So far the only drawback 

I have noticed is that I have had to rotate my sun

angle 90° also.

Well see, there you go. I knew it was a trick question.

Why on earth would anybody use the "Rotate Plan View"

tool to rotate the plan view?            

BTW, I strongly advise not using my suggestions too.

Wow, how magnanimous. $200 off on a $14,500 rig

and a two week build time to boot. I won't go a penny

higher than 14K and I want it by Friday. 

Seriously there have been several threads on this topic.

A search of the forums for "upgrades" will lead you to

some of them. This was one of the better ones.

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/504-best-computer-for-running-cheif/?hl=upgrade

Like this?

I think the real problem here is that you are detailing in Solid Works.

This project is a non-denominational interdisciplinary undertaking.

The original concept was conceived with a #2 pencil on a sheet

of 8 1/2 x 11 graph paper. I took that original and deciphered it 

with AutoCAD to get a workable as built and proposed floor plan.

Feeling the need for 3D details I started creating a 3D framing

model with SolidWorks. While this was fine for the type of details

pictured it was a laborious process which had me looking for a 

better solution for producing a complete framing model. This led

to the purchase of Home Designer Pro. Now while Pro was

probably all the program I really needed for this project Chief

kept bombarding me with offers to upgrade to Chief Premier

until finally in a moment of weakness I caved in and bought the

whole enchilada. And that in a nutshell is how I arrived here.

GET BENT

 

Mind you that text looks like it could do with being curved upwards to match the doorway, you could use the "Bend it like Beckham" technique, which is obliviously  too well known to require further explanation.

Beckham? ...... Beckham? Oh yeah, you mean Mr. Posh Spice.

There is another Beckham playing football now and last night he

gave new meaning to "Bend it like Beckham" with a catch that is

being called the greatest of all time by many.

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york-giants/post/_/id/40499/giants-odell-beckham-jr-makes-incredible-one-handed-touchdown-catch

PS. It's worth suffering thru the obligatory ad to see the shots.

Thanks guys, I need to process all that info but

I haven't seen anything yet to dissuade me from

continuing with the I-Beam approach. I figure if

worse comes to worse we can always designate

the great room as a hard hat only area and if the

ceiling does come down we'll just say that it was

San Andreas fault.

In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans,

but for me this project has consumed my every waking moment for

the last 18 months. So here is the deal. To get any kind of a workable

floor plan in my farmhouse remodel project I need to replace a load

bearing wall with couple of steel I-Beams. What I’d like to know is

how I-Beams are customarily tied into a typical wall framed with 2x6

studs? In my situation I am dealing with an 8’ ceiling with a span of

about 18’ between 2 walls which are framed with 2x6 lumber. I’m

guessing that some sort of steel tubing with flanges welded on the

ends are customarily used to support the I-Beam but I see no reason

why a 4 x 6 wood beam wouldn’t do the trick. The I-Beams only weigh

12.5 lbs per foot as opposed to about 10 lbs per foot for a Douglas Fir

4 x 12. My plan is to jack the I-Beams up underneath the existing ceiling

joists and then support them with the 4x6 posts to carry the load to the

foundation. I have come up with a design which I think should do the

trick but I would be interested in feedback from anybody who might

have first-hand experience installing I-Beams. Because the ceiling is

relatively low (and I am relatively high, 6’ 6”) it is imperative that the

beams protrude down into the room as little as possible. This is why I

have decided on the steel I-Beam approach as opposed to a 4 x header

or some type of structural composite lumber beam. If I can pull it off I

should be able to encase the I-Beams in a soffit and have myself a poor

mans coffered ceiling.

Kindly peruse the attached thumbnails and let me know what you think.

Phew! Glad you got that sorted out CADman.

I imagine having your danglers clipped can be

a serious (and potentially painful) problem.

Don't get me started Curt. You can throw the bankers

in there with the politicians. They are all thick as thieves,

that bunch. My wonderful financial institution recently

tried to stick a $20 service charge on my "high yield"

savings account. I had to explain to the bank manager

in a voice that everybody in the establishment could

hear, that if I allowed them to take that money out of my

account it would mean that I would have been better off

financially if I had kept the money in my mattress because

the annual percentage yield earned on that savings

account is 0.08. That's right, were not talking a meager

8 tenths of a percent, we're talking 8 hundredths of a

percent.

BTW, I went back about a week later and withdrew all

my funds from that bank and deposited them in the bank

across the street. When they asked why I was closing

my accounts I told them it was because I don't like

having an adversarial relationship with the people I'm

entrusting my money to. Of course I'm not getting a better

deal across the street but it still makes me feel better.

Chief now has spiral ducting you can download in the 3D Library.

Sheesh! The things you learn. So it turns out

that there are four ways to exit Chief. You can

hit Alt+F4, You can hit the File drop down menu

and then hit Exit, you can hit the Chief Architect

Premier X6 icon in the upper left hand corner and

then hit Close or you can hit the X in the upper right

hand corner. No matter which method you select

you will get a reminder to save your work if you

have a plan open. So I guess the point is that

Chief recommends that you save your plan first

and then exit the program by whatever method

you choose as opposed to exiting the program

and then saving your work when prompted to do

so. I still don't see what the difference is.

And while I'm thinking about it why on earth is

Windows still using a 3 1/2" floppy disc as an

icon for saving your work? There is probably

a whole generation using computers now who

have never seen a 3 1/2" floppy disc. Here is

my suggestion for a new Save icon.

No, no, no, don't get your hopes up. Not me but the program.

I'm sure this is a no brainer for the majority of you but it came

as news to me. In a moment of weakness as I was reading the 

reference manual I came across the procedure for exiting the

program. I mean when faced with over a thousand pages of

reference material how many people take the time to read the

part about exiting the program? Well, I did and it turns out that

there is a preferred method to exit the program. There have

been many times that I have closed Chief with a plan still open.

No biggie right, the program simply asks you if you want to

save the current plan or not. It turns out that this is not the

preferred method. The manual doesn't say why but it does say:

"Select File> Exit to exit the program. If you have not saved any

open plans, you are reminded to do so. It is better to save your

work before exiting than to save on exit".

I can't for the life of me see how this would make any difference.

A little like closing the barn door after the horses are gone,

but check out this link to the Corsair website. You can test

your power supply with literally nothing more than a paper

clip. I had a rig that became increasingly unstable finally to

the point of being unbootable. While in it's death throws it

manifested numerous symptoms; memory error beep codes,

video driver error messages, a totally unresponsive mouse

and others I am probably forgetting. I troubleshot everything

from the video and mouse drivers to swapping out memory

chips to by passing the case power switch to testing the

power supply and lord know what else before I came to the

grim realization that the culprit was the motherboard itself.

This pissed me off to no end since it was a very pricy top

of the line MB and of course you have to tear your rig

completely down to replace it.

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/support/faqs/power-supplies

Drat! Someone's on to me.

So last Saturday night I sat down at the keyboard at

11:00 PM and worked on my site plan until 3:00AM

at which time I reset all my clocks back one hour and

went to bed. Does this mean that I only spent 3 hours

on the drawing?