Barton_Brown

Recognize that the hatching is part of the 'room specification' - thus it stops at the wall/doorway because these define the edges of the room. This behavior is what I would expect to happen. Maybe a more experienced CA user has an automatic fix, I do not. If you really want the doorways filled in plan view, you can always draw CAD lines to extend the hatching.

has anyone tried making the symbol "Ceiling Mounted" with "Flush Mounted"?  The z origin might need to be adjusted to mount at the correct height relative to the beam, but it should work.

Joe, works perfectly! Thanks for the tip.

Just bought a license of Chief.

Good choice, congratulations and welcome aboard!

Hi Jenny,

Attached are three images with the three cable light sets in the kitchen. These are 'dark night' images.

The first is a render with shadows,

the second is 'high quality' ray trace with cable lights only,

the third is 'high quality' ray trace with cable lights and three of your non-displaying lights turned on.

I sent you an email containing the zip file of the plan from which these images were made. I adjusted the light data for the cable lights so there are 5 spot lights pointing straight down of '40 watt' intensity each.

Click on the cable light in plan view and save it as a symbol. If you need horizontal cable lights, when you bring them back in from the library, they are horizontal - the slope data is apparently not retained when an object is save as a library object.

Oh, just noticed when looking at the last ray trace, the hood doesn't go completely to the ceiling...

Hope this helps!

If you have questions, PM me or email.

Hi Jenny, the plan you attached had no content. I suspect you compressed it while it was still open in CA. Please close it out in CA, compress and re- attach.

Thanks.

Dropbox has an 'intelligent' update rather than pushing an entire file when a change is made. I have a .plan file that is large (yes, and probably very bloated) of about 90 MB. When I make small changes to that file, it is synced in dropbox in less than 10 seconds! The only way for you to know is to try it - I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

When I downloaded the free version on my machine, I got 8 hours of trial for the Pro version. I barely use it, so I have 7.5 hours left! Maybe that's why I can export to more file formats than you?

Trivial point, but are we talking two different programs here? One is 'always free' non-PRO version, the other being the '8 hours free trial of Pro'? 

I thought that in addition to 'reminding of a change' that CA always creates a *_auto_save_bak.plan file in the archive folder every time the file is closed. Looking through my archive files, it seems like the time stamp on the *_auto_save_bak.plan file is always very close in time to the time stamp of the 'final save' of the file. 

If you forget to 'save', the archive backup file might be a quick recovery approach - although I think CA should also warn you on the next opening of the file that a new one exists... 

[ramble off]

 I would not run a server. The cheapest way is to use the paid version of dropbox. The files are always available and update as they are saved. Synology has a file server that runs cloud station. It is like a personal dropbox service. Much more setup.

 

Ken

I just started using dropbox. As a SINGLE USER the system works great for me. The files (even large libraries) sync as fast or faster than I can do the software activation switch with CA if I switch machines. For a multi-user environment, not sure how dropbox handles file locking but I don't think you would want more than one user actively modifying any project file at once. Library files commonly shared on dropbox might also be an issue with locking as well. 

 

Does the import keep its textures and colors and scale and layers?

Texture, colors, and scale are all imported. Since the model comes in as a symbol, it has only one layer - the one you assign the symbol too. Others can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that none of the SketchUp layers transfer. 

I just got a new laptop and after installing Chief I synced my other computers. Unfortunately, the new laptop user library had a later date than the one on the other computers. So now my user library is empty.

I'm being nosy, was this manual copying or are you using a 'cloud drive' (dropbox in my case) to hold this information? Until now I haven't worried about this type of problem and was feeling 'secure' in knowing that the files also resided on other computers just in case. But I can now envision a situation where a file on 'dropbox' gets wiped-out by a 'newer date file' and this change ripples to all my other computers, as happened to you.

Fortunately, I make daily backups of my desktop PC (which includes 'dropbox) so I do have fallback recovery.

Thanks.

How vs. what is a really poor model. Layers control some of how as well as what.

 

Doug, thank you for clarifying my misunderstanding about the 'how' and 'what' model. I accepted it without truly questioning it.

Try changing the upper wall to a wall type of 'room divider'. That is the upper wall type in the attached image.

When I used a pony wall with the upper wall of 'open', I got a similar view as the one you attached.

   RodCole, I am not sure what you mean by using Turbo Cad for  "the creation of solid models that can be used in CA as symbols. Do you mean for creation of objects that aren't in the CA library or catalogs (like a specific type of furniture, fancy fireplace mantel or range hood, for example) and then importing that into the Chief Architect drawing? Does it only then show up as a 2-D object? Is that why you call it a "symbol"? Please pardon my ignorance!

  

You are correct about the use of TC models for use in CA as symbols. However, once imported into CA they are full 3D objects, so this is a way to increase your library of unique symbols. SketchUp is another application that allows for easy creation of symbols that can be imported into CA.

So, to summarize what I think I've learned here - if we view this as a 'control' hierarchy and use Lew's terminology,

Anno-sets (the 'how') CONTROL Layer-sets (the 'what collection') which CONTROL layers (the individual 'what').
Or, stated in the reverse order, the content (the 'what') needs to be formatted (the 'how') to be displayed correctly.
The 'King' of the control hierarchy is the Anno-set.

OTOH, if you don't change Anno-sets, then Layer-sets become the control 'king' over layers.

If you want to take full advantage of all the formatting/display/control capabilities of CA, then you can use Anno-sets for the control/specification of the cad layer, annotation, and active layerset defaults.

At least, that is how I now understand this topic. AND, thank you to Joe Carrick for the pdf file that explained this much better and which started off this discussion.

EDIT: After doing the mental gymnastics to reach my 'understanding' above, I went back an re-read the posts in this thread. Amazing how what first appeared as gibberish now actually reads like an intelligent discussion :-) . 

As to Doug Park's original intended use of anno sets, the unintended consequences of letting users 'have their way' with an application is that a feature takes on a life of its own... And while Doug didn't intend for Anno-sets to be the control 'king', now that I think I understand how I can use them in a manner that makes sense to me, they will become my 'king' in controlling how things are displayed in layout.

Larry, thank you for taking the time to explain your approach!

Larry, I like your approach. It makes sense and provides consistency from plan to plan. 

Regarding Lew's statement of many anno-sets using the same layerset - has this ever been an issue for you? My first reaction is that to avoid surprises if a layerset was changed that I would always want a one-to-one relationship between an anno-set and a layerset, rather than a many-to-one. It would mean more layersets, but I don't think this is a big issue for CA. I'm trying to think of what problems would arise with the 1:1 approach but they haven't occurred to me yet.

Thanks.

Todd, This is question is probably obvious, but just for clarification, the learning time you wish to determine is for someone completely familiar with the design process, nomenclature, the desired contents of CDs, etc? In other words, YOU, not a new hire. Correct?

I think your assessment is fair, given that those that commented started learning CA a number of CA revisions ago. Each revision has added more capability, thus requiring new learning but also simplifying some previously manual steps. I would be curious to hear from CA Marketing/Sales as they would likely have more exposure to the range of learning curves. As you have probably noticed, at the present time there is a relatively small number of active contributors to this forum compared to the total number of CA users and the most active are quite knowledgeable about CA (I'm not in this category). So, your sample size is small and likely not entirely representative of the total CA user population. Have I added enough caveats?     

Perry, your approach is what I think is the straight-forward solution. I'm still trying to understand the benefit of keeping the 'hidden' pages in a project specific layout file when one knows they won't be used...

Thanks Perry! I saw that but thought there was a switch labeled more like 'software control'...

I'm now set up with your settings...

Once you've done what Larry suggested, be sure to turn OFF software control of rendering in CA.  That way the two systems aren't fighting one another.

 

jon

Jon, where might this setting be hiding from me? I thought it would be in CA 'preferences' but can not seem to find it.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Sorry, but another question... clearly I have a lot to learn here...

Let's say you did a single story project - do you use print macros to only print those pages that apply (ie, ignore the second story stuff?). I haven't used print macros so have a lot to learn here.

Thanks.

Bernie, I'm trying to improve my use/efficiency of layout template files so I have an 'education' question for you.

If I am understanding what you are doing correctly, you are creating a TEMPLATE layout file that would contain all your possible layout pages and you are creating a 'table of contents' of your layout template file by using the 'layout page table'. What I don't understand is why you would not want all the layout pages to show in the table of contents? I can understand not using all the layout pages when the template file is applied to a specific project and I would expect those layout pages to be deleted from that specific project's layout file. What am I missing with your approach of 'hiding' specific layout pages? Thanks!

Question for the OP - is this a new problem on your home PC or has it always been slow and jerky and lockups on a regular model?

Yes, that is the one, which obviously is already checked...

My next guess is lighting and viewing angle - I believe that if you say that you have the same color on the ceiling as on the walls, that this is a fact. What is left is how CA displays the colors. Notice that your walls are not all the same color, they vary within the room AND with the amount of light reflected off of them. I suspect that if you had a bright light pointing at the ceiling that it would be much closer to the color of the walls.

You may need to wait until tomorrow when more USA users are awake and can answer your question. 

I rarely rely on render views when evaluating colors - I find that the ray traces from CA are much more consistent with 'real life' so I have not paid much attention to issues like yours because I always evaluate lighting issues using ray traces. Sorry I am not more help at this point in time.