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.

That's nice Rich. I tried to do some mechanical pipes once and found it was difficult to get all the pieces aligned. Where did you get the 90's and T's, and how did you align the pieces?

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

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.