Michael_Gia

Ha Ha. Looks like they could've used a few of those at Woodstock.

It's the first sunny and warm weekend of the year up here, that's why this is happening. The material is attached in my post above. It was a stock material that I had modified quite a while ago. It works great in any render view or raytrace. The problem is only in HD mode in the 3D Viewer.

See image.... 3D viewer model with red question marks .pdf Why is the material missing and replaced with some wall paper with question marks? Here is the offending material that I used. 3D Viewer Material Cardif Texture .calibz

Ok, I guess I thought I had done this in the past - I guess not. However, I wish the error message would perhaps say "hey dummy draw the 2nd p-solid in the same plane as the first one", instead of the ambiguous and lead to nowhere error message that's in place. I will chalk that up to user error regardless. Thanks Glen.

Here's the plan. The offensive p-solid is the the piece I was trying to insert the fire-place into. https://www.dropbox.com/s/w9dat9vfn25pnt8/COOPER PLANS MAY 16.plan?dl=0

I created the first p-solid in plan view by drawing a rectangle on the floor and giving it a height of 200 inches. I then took a wall elevation view of that p-solid. Next I drew another p-solid in the wall elevation view on the surface of the first p-solid. Then when I attempted to convert the second p-solid to a hole I got that error message. Are we not allowed to draw a hold in a different plane from which the first p-solid was drawn? That seems ridiculous. I'm sure I've done this many times before... (sorry for responding late. I posted this question just before going to bed last night)

I tried redrawing it. Definitely a p-solid. On defaullt cad layer.

The outer one is definitely a p-solid. It looks like a giant slab of concrete.

- I placed a polyline solid. - I then placed another polyline solid and tried to make it a hole in said polyline solid. - I get an error "no polyline of the same type found to contain this hole etc..." I know I've done this a million times what am I doing wrong? Please help? ....again

Looks like a paper size issue in your layout page setup. Although this still doesn't explain the ghost images in the background.

Can you explain what the problem in the photo is? Is it the ghost image of an elevation in the background? is it the black bars that frame each image? Your problem is really not clear.

You are playing with FIRE if you move your user library to a location separate from Chief's default location for this folder. Don't do it! I've done it in the past and have had limited success but inevitably things will get very weird. It's a Pandora's box I wish I had never opened. Months later, and even after reverting to original file/folder structure I still get the odd error message of "can't open plan file or find material" etc... We have to wait until Chief offers an online storage solution like, oh...., every other program of this sort on the planet.

... I got all excited thinking it was going to be a free video from your most wonderful website. One of these days I'll sign up.

I'm sorry I don't see the difference with a spreadsheet. I did read up on Kanban as it applies to manufacturing process to regulate quality control and the flow of products through a manufacturing chain but as far as it applies to job tracking as in what we do a spreadsheet seems to be the right type of fly swater. I'm sure I'm missing something though. As a builder my process continues quite a bit farther than yours which seems to end when the plan is complete and you've billed your client. I have to keep track of when I've submitted the plan to the surveyor, submitted to the city, received the permit, sub, mitted to the guarantee and bond company, inspection service, not to mention the actual building and subtrade tacking. I do this all with a spreadsheet in the form of an excel project planner template. There are also milestone planner templates if you prefer. Although I will say I'm a spreadsheet geek, so there's that too. Cheers!

Does anyone else experience text or dimensions randomly jumping to other layers?... (This seems to happen to plans that I open up from several weeks in the past.) That is, when working in a particular anno set where I know that text or dimensions are set to a particular layer they then for some unknown reason jump to another layer. I used to think that I must have made the change by mistake, but it's happened way too often, I now think it's a bug. If you've ever been working in your framing anno set and a dialogue box pops up and asks if you want to turn on the "kitchen and bath" layer set when adding text, you may be experiencing what I'm experiencing. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Ummm.... a spreadsheet saved to the cloud? That's what I've been using for the past two years. I see it on all of my devices.

Hi Kitchen Abode guy. I know you've given out your settings multiple times in the past but could you please list the settings you used for this Raytrace please?

Looks like you're not using photon mapping. You need to for any stainless steel to not appear black. Turn on in the "Advanced" tab of Ray Trace Options. I personally have gone back to render mode only. I love the live view updates of all images in the plan. They update dynamically. I set and forget. They look good enough in a PDF or printed. Of course, as a builder this is good enough for me and my clients.

Ok, so center rather than bottom left as I was doing. That makes sense. That's good insight.

Ok thanks.

When starting a floor plan, is there an ideal location to place the floor plan? I usually try to place the bottom left corner of the building at 0,0 for x,y. (When I remember) Are there do's and don'ts for this? Just wondering if there are any ramifications if the house is placed somewhere random or not snapped to the grid etc...

I get this random color on/off issue as well. It happens only with "Live Views" sent to layout. I have since gone to "plot lines" with color off so that my elevations are monochrome but my cad lines and dimensions are in color. I just don't like the delay I get in generating those plot line views. All that calculating going on. I would prefer a live view as it is instant.

Send an elevation view to layout as plot lines

Share the same dropbox account is the only way I found that works reliably. Even if you have to open a separate dropbox account for each large project this is still a viable option. All it means is that you'll have multiple dropbox drives.

That would be a really great service. Thanks for bringing this up. I'm still hoping that one day Chief can offer its own in-house file sharing service, complete with full collaboration features. Like Archicad and Revit does.