Doug_N

Like a charm, thanks for the link. You know, after reading the dialog in that post, I can't see way CA wouldn't allow "area.to_acre". Let's assume that I make a mistake with the unit conversion. If %area.to_acre% produces an erroneous result so would %area.to_s("acre")% Same output, with a lot less typing. CA lets users put in their own conversion factors, as I have done for Ha, hectare and acre. What is the risk to CA?

If I add a conversion unit via the Preferences DBX can I use that unit in Ruby somehow? For example, I have set acre to be 43570 sq ft, and Ha to be 10000 sq m. I can set 10 to sq ft by %10.to_sq_ft% but not %10.to_Ha% nor %10.to_acre% Is there a way to set that up?

Hi David, I would suggest posting the plan file. It is difficult to diagnose the problem without seeing how you have the room and framing details set up.

I saw that Steve, but as I said in my opening comments, the post was about how CA deals with brick ledges, and not what you said, nor what the original poster said. Sorry if it seemed I was criticizing what you did. That was not my intent.

My post isn't directed to the original poster, and is not in any way a criticism of Steve's post, but rather to point out what I think is some strange behaviour by CA when doing brick ledges. I have noticed that CA doesn't seem to do brick ledges consistently. Here is the model that Steve posted with a section through the wall. Notice that there are actually no brick ledges in the wall cross section. In the plan posted by Steve the brick ledge was set to zero, so of course there would be no brick ledge. So I changed that to 3" as can be seen in the wall DBX Here are the resulting wall cross sections So I wondered if the problem may only be because a pony wall was used, but no, the result was the same Here is where I did the sections, (S1 was Steve's original section and S2 was one that I added. I also broke the wall to get both a pony wall section and a conventional section.) Has anyone else experienced this?

Ryan, I sent Greg a PM to see if I could help him. Doug

Me too, I am in Ontario just east of Toronto, and I have never seen this style of floor except for something like a cottage.

Good news, by doing some judicious shopping and tweaking of items I got everything in the proposed computer to MSI Pro Z690-A WIFI motherboard Corsair Vengance 32 GB DDR5 Intel Core i7-12700K For an increase in cost of $309. Well worth it I think.

For sure, it will appear in my signature! And I will post once I have the build done and tested.

Thanks, I am going to take your advice regarding 12th gen.

Great info guys, you are all advising me to go 12th gen CPU. That means DDR5 memory and 690 mother board as well I think. Anything else. I already have the fastest PCIe ssd This would increase my cost by about $600 think. I really don't think that I will wait for any price drop. Oh and I have changed the power supply from Seasonic to EVGA because of some bad reviews I have seen about Seasonic ripple and unexpected shutdowns in some circumstances.

Thanks for the advice! I am going to think about it.

Didn't I see somewhere that CA does not take advantage of multiple CPU cores?

Yes I am, I have always built my own computers, that way I get to choose the case, always a tower with lots of room, and I/O on the front of the case as well as each component from the mfg that I choose. Plus there is a feeling of accomplishment when it actually works. The SSD are a big thing here as well, so I am going with one 2TB that will be the operating system and program installs, and the other for data. Both of them will be PCIe drives for the highest throughput rates. I am also going to stick with Windows 10 pro for now. It will be enough of a challenge with the upgraded computer without any other variables sneaking into the mix.

That is really impressive. It hardly taxed the 3070 at all. What did it feel like when you were watching it?

That is why. The dealer has a few 3080 Ti in stock but no 3080s. I think he is trying to move them before the price drops any more.

Incredibly the 3080 Ti is almost the same price as the 3080! Also the 3080Ti is in stock, the 3080 would have me on a waiting list. So why not,

The PS is a Seasonic Focus Plus 850W

Mark, I need to do something now, I can't wait until the fall unfortunately. My system bogs down on some of the larger builds that I am working on. The system lags sometimes, dropping mouse drags (really irritating and time wasting.) Next gen cpu means another MB anyway because even to go the an Intel 12700k is almost a grand with only a 12% theoretical performance gain in CPU processing. Since most of CA performance is GPU dependent, I just can't see how spending a another 1k on CPU and motherboard would help. Am I wrong in this reasoning?

Mark, Thanks for catching the motherboard error! Why a 3080 and not a 3080 Ti?

Ok, so based on the experience of other CA users that I have seen discussing computers, here is what I ordered today. MS1 MEG Z590 Unify Motherboard (wifi and bluetooth built in) Intel Core i7 11700K CPU 32 Gig DDR4 memory 2 Corsair Force 2T SSD PCIe SSD MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU MS Windows 10 Pro Plus Tower, DVD drive, 850W Power Supply etc. I have to wait for some of these items to arrive at the store, so if any of you think that I should swap anything for something else, please let me know.

Ben, can you imagine doing that 40 times? One for each page? What I am hoping to find is a path to automating this process. Because each page is handled in an identical way, this is something that should lend itself to the wizards of bits and bytes to concoct a solution. Keeping my fingers crossed Doug

Yes that is what I am looking for. For an entire custom house plan typically, there are around 30 - 40 sheets. Printing the pages one at a time and renaming them all is very time consuming, and prone to errors in naming. For example, here is what would be an acceptable filename. A-5 Gound Floor Plan View.pdf

My projects are increasingly moving into the digital submission world. In digital format, various municipalities are setting up criteria for acceptable submission standards that are divergent. That is to say, each municipality is reinventing the wheel. So far as I can tell, no two municipalities have adopted the same submission standards, and so submission has become a major task up from a simple formality. The Province of Ontaria adopted a standard method for submission of paper documents. 1) Fill out the mandated building permit form (mandated by the Ontario Building Code Act) that all municipalities had to accept. 2) Provide at least 2 copies of the drawings in whatever scale is shown on the drawing. 3) Pay the fee by cash or cheque Simple and pretty much the same everywhere. Electronic Submission Nightmare Easiest. 1) Same as 1 above in PDF 2) Same as 2 above except one PDF file (PDF must not exceed 5meg. Limit for most email servers) 3) Same as 3 above but email Interac transfer 4) Reply to comments from the plan examiner sent by email. Send revised pages to the examiner in PDF Hardest: 1) Create an on-line account with the municipality 2) Fill out an on- line application form 3) Register all parties (Owner and Agent at a minimum) and these people also have to participate in the on-line experience. 4) Create individual PDF files for each drawing page to be submitted a) Each page to have proscribed blank area (2" x 5") for municipal stamps and comments, b) Each page to have a name that corresponds to the title block name c) Each PDF to be in vector format. Raster format is not acceptable. (CA does not support vector PDF) I suspect the vector PDF would be much smaller than a raster PDF) e) Each page has to be a flattened file, no layers d) Each page must not have any security features that would prevent editing or commenting (try to convince an Engineer who has stamped the drawing to do this!) f) PDF file size must not exceed (put in some arbitrary limit here.) 5) Pay the fees as required, usually on line, 6) Try to understand the matrix of comments that contain examiner's comments. 7) Upload revised drawing. 8) Comment on the examiner's matrix table. As a result of all of this I have been experimenting with PDF print drivers, and Winzip PDF Compressor. My hat is off to the programmers at CA! The PDF print driver included with CA out performs all of the other print drivers that I have installed on my computer for file size. Now if only I could automatically print, as a batch, all drawing files with an automatic link to the layout page title and page number or label. That would be amazing. I wonder if some of that might be achieved in Ruby? If CA made a printing template that allowed for individual pages as a batch print?

I agree with Chopsaw here. Viewing the file in autocad, it seems that the NG labels refer to Natural Grade. As an experiment try importing the layer for those points only and see how that works.