clearvuedesign

Very cool, Renee. That sounds great, and I already own your Pro plan. I don't use the entire thing; I use maybe about half of it because there are so many things I have for the area that I'm in, and it would be too hard to integrate. I'm pretty old so I'm really used to the old school in a lot of ways. There is one thing: I just looked and you're doing the X18, but something changed between X16 and X17 to X18. Now my icons in my toolbars lose all the information. Some of them will actually fill with the icon, but when you press it, it's empty and it wants me to re-link. It has something to do with them changing something in their coding, and I'm interested if you can give me an update on how much it would cost me. I sent you an email through Discord concerning it because I want to be able to get those things to work correctly now. I think it strictly has to do with it because everything else works, but with the library items, when you place them, it wants to connect to the stuff that I've used from you

Really interesting thread. I've been working on this same problem from a different angle. Instead of trying to make CA handle all the project data internally, I built a web-based project management platform called ClearVue that sits outside of Chief Architect and manages everything — clients, builders, project details, files, billing, communications, building codes, and construction specifications. It's purpose-built for residential architecture. The building code piece is where it gets useful. ClearVue stores verified design criteria per municipality — wind speeds, snow loads, frost depth, seismic category, flood zones — so when I assign a town to a project, the correct values populate automatically. There's also a 70+ field construction specifications checklist that captures every design decision from foundation type to window specs. The integration with CA works through a file-based data bridge. When I open a plan through ClearVue, the current project data is automatically pushed to a location CA can read. I have about 30 text macros that pull from that data — client name, project number, address, building codes, structural loads, specs — so title blocks, structural notes, and labels all populate without any manual entry inside CA. Update something in ClearVue, macros reflect it next time they evaluate. @Renerabbitt — sounds like you built something similar with CSV for X17. I went the same route conceptually but kept the data management entirely outside CA in its own platform. That way the complexity lives in ClearVue, not in the template, so the CA side stays simple.

Hey everyone, does anyone know how to access or get information from a file outside of Chief Architect and have it fill text in Chief Architect? Anything along those lines, like Chief reading something that's not in Chief and then writing text for it?

Most likely this is due to the fact that there is no rim joist for decks in the deck dialogue boxes and what chief seems to be doing is it puts it under the rim joist for the house so you should open deck framing, and make sure your rim joist is on for the main house grab the rim joist for the deck and change the layer to deck framing.

Thank you! I should have read the post better! lol

Looks great! I just don't see where to download the file of it.....

Hi Alll, Is there anyone here or know of anyone who uses Chief and can speak Thai language?? I am trying to help someone here learn the program. Thank you very much!!

Thank you everyone for your help!!!

I am trying to understand the best way to import a location map to a layout... Does anyone do this all the time??

I have all interior doors and openings to use (2) 2x4 headers... I don't care if it frames on the flat or not, I use for the takeoff. Then my material list is correct. I do my valley boards the same way for stick framing over trusses. I lay it flat on across the trusses up the valley when building. But I use it for the takeoff in CA..

This plan has my way of doing the firewalls for duplexes... Look at the setting closely, much of what is happening is in the wall dbx. Have fun! I would love some feedback on my solution.... Duplex Fire separation .plan

I have done a search. But I am not finding anything concerning CA being benchmarked on different computers. I am trying to find the best computer to run CA as fast as possible.

I would like to know if anyone has seen or knows where to find CA being benchmarked on Mac's or PC's. I am ready to upgrade my computer again, and I am using a Mac trash can now. But I need a much faster computer, so I am not waiting for CA to work. I use CA 11 and it is very slow!! My budget is more than $10,00.00..... Model Name: Mac Pro Model Identifier: MacPro6,1 Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 Processor Speed: 3.5 GHz Number of Processors: 1 Total Number of Cores: 6 L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB L3 Cache: 12 MB Memory: 32 GB Boot ROM Version: 132.0.0.0.0 SMC Version (system): 2.20f18 Illumination Version: 1.4a6 Thank you for any help in advance......

After you are done drawing all wall's. Break the exterior wall at the firewall and then extend the fie wall to the frame of the exterior wall. After I di that I will auto frame the walls and then open the firewall and retain framing. I then open the wall framing and extend the studs down the size of the floor system. After that, I use a 3d camera and grab the firewalls on each floor and pull the bottom down the height of the floor system. Also, make sure you have the second-floor ceiling system set to 0" hight so the attic firewall frames correctly. I did a quick layout of this for you. Hope this helps... Fire Duplex.plan