Rich_Winsor

Personally I don't know what the moaning and groaning about the stairs tool is all about. I don't see anything wrong with the stairs. Here is an offering from my impossible construction series of images I like to call "Watch Your Step". This is a 100% genuine non-edited, non-retouched, non-exported for rework Chief generated image.

I found the fittings on 3D Warehouse under pipe fittings. They had several sizes and included alignment marks which they claimed would facilitate making the connections. It all looked good on paper but when I imported the symbols they wouldn't perform as advertised. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears and lots of tweaking X, Y & Z coordinates to line things up. Luckily I only had to do one branch and then mirror it to the other side or I might still be pecking away. I don't know what the deal with 3D Warehouse is. Everybody says go there and every time I do I have some type of problem with the imported symbols. I think it's about time I take the bull by the horns and put some serious study into rolling my own.

And now for something completely different. Kind of like the 3D pipes Windows screensaver.

There is one that is about as simple and generic as you can get in the Library Browser. Of course you will have to get Glenn to show you how to locate it because I am still clueless.

You need to use a different Codec for walkthrough recordings. The ones Chief supplied OOB didn't work for me either. XVID is a good one. Google it and download it (it's free) and then select it in the Codec Options section in Preferences.

Well, I don't know if this thread is closed or not, but I will cast my vote for a decent search feature for the Library Browser. Seriously, I just did a search for a mailbox. How hard can that be? You can enter any combination of the word, upper case or lower case, singular or plural, hyphenated or two word and you will get the same result. Zip, Zilch, Zero, Nada. You can enter simply an "M" and scroll thru the dozens of items listed but you won't find a mailbox. In fact after you enter the first three letters you will get no results to scroll thru at all. Yet they are there. Maybe the question should be just what can you find using the search feature?

Here you go Robert. Be advised that reverse engineering my plans can lead to severe mental anguish. Culvert-10.plan

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?

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.

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.