Barton_Brown

Jenny,

If you find this symbol works for you but gets too distorted when stretched, and/or you need more lights, I can make these changes in SketchUp and create a new symbol, or, you could just use multiple copies of the existing symbol linked along the beam. Just a thought...

Hi Jenny,

I also tried Doug's list of actions and was unsuccessful in getting the cable lights to work as desired. Specifically, even though it was 'floor mounted' I could not get it to rotate. The funny thing is that other CA wall mount lights also had this issue when placed in a plan and then changed from wall mount to floor mount. I'm not sure what is going on - could still be user error on my part, but I think it is a CA issue having to do with a symbol starting out as a wall mount symbol and then changing it to floor mount.

Why do I say this? Because I exported the cable light as a .3ds symbol (which required at least one wall be present for the light to show in CA which is a clue that CA still thinks it is a wall mount symbol). Anyway, once imported into SketchUp 8, I exploded the component, deleted the wall elements and saved the cable light only elements as a SketchUp 8 file. I was then able to import this symbol back into CA as a 'floor mounted' light which I can rotate in plan view around the Z axis and from the symbol dbx can rotate about the Y axis. Also, I can stretch the symbol by changing the 'width' in the object dbx. I didn't mess with the actual light data. It has one default light right now. If you stretch the lights, you will need to add lights and manually configure the physical location if you want them to show correctly in a render or ray trace.

Anyway, attached is my version of the CA cable light which might work better for you... Since it is a library object, it is a .calibz file. Download and double-click on it and it should be placed in your user library (where you can delete it if it doesn't meet your needs).

CA cable light.calibz

Jenny,

To get the light symbol to be other than 90 degree (perpendicular) to the wall, I believe you need to change the Z axis rotation (be sure to hit the 'rotation' button for it to take effect). Also, in the 2D block, you will probably want to generate a new 2D block showing the rotation. 

The x and y rotations should allow the lighting to follow the beam to the center (assuming the beam is not horizontal).

As Gerry said, this will take a lot of fiddling...

I'm confused...

The line styles are stored in the library. The 'standard' line styles are part of the CA core library which is a 'locked' library and items in the library can not be deleted. That said, any USER CREATED line style is stored in the 'user library' which is unlocked and any line style there can be edited/modified or removed from the library.

Now, if a line style is 'actively used' in a plan, I can understand where it can not be deleted, just like you can not remove 'active' materials from a plan. However, it would seem that if you knew where the particular user defined line was used, it could be selected and a new line style applied. At that point, the 'old' user line style could be deleted since it is no longer used/active.

It seems like one should always be able to modify/edit/remove user defined line types. What am I missing?

If you made your drive and walkway out of polyline slabs, it probably shows up in 'Exterior Trim' as Mick stated above.

OTOH, f you made your 'Drive' out of a 'road' and your 'walkway' out of a 'sidewalk', I don't think it will show up at all in a material list, at least I can not find either the roadway or sidewalks in the material list for a large parking lot and entrance drive for a commercial remodel I worked on recently. While these layers are marked with an 'M' in the layers list, I don't believe CA calculates these for the material list, just like it doesn't calculate terrain volume.

Of course, road and sidewalk areas and volumes can be found by opening the road or sidewalk object dbx and clicking on the polyline tab. 

Les, I understand the problem you describe and can easily replicate it. 

As you have probably already determined, the problem seems to be with how CA deals with molded polylines (which I think is how they create their window casings). Anyway, you can also duplicate the issue you have by drawing a square 3D molded polyline in elevation view. Applying a brick material to the molded polyline displays similarly to the window casing in 'standard' and vector views. Because of this, I think you may be stuck with using something like a polyline slab to create the horizontal and vertical casing segments. With these you can control the direction of the 'pattern' in the material dbx edit section.

As you are probably already aware, you could convert the polyline slabs into one library symbol which would reduce the tediousness of applying it to all the windows.

Sorry I'm not much help other than to reinforce the idea that the problem seems to be how CA deals with the pattern file when applied to molded polylines.

oh, and if you haven't already submitted a defect ticket to Tech Support, this issue certainly qualifies...

Is your hardware a MAC or a PC?

In a recent thread, dshall noted that he gets very large pdf files on a MAC (~85 MB) but small pdf files (~4 MB) on a PC. The issue is the MAC pdf printer driver - this is an Apple SW issue, not something the CA can correct.

If your hardware is a MAC, you might look for a different 'pdf printer driver' rather than the standard one. On the PC, there is a nice one called pdf995. It doesn't appear to run on the MAC but there might be something similar. Once installed, it just looks like a printer which you select and it creates the pdf file.

As for the best hardware to speed up building the 3D model, I think the number of cores your machine has can also make a big difference (not just CPU speed and amount of memory).

For now, CA does seem to rebuild the 3D model a number of times, as has been noted.

I believe KT is correct about the impact the CPU technology will have on the rebuild time - your CPU has 2 cores and no advanced technologies (Intel's term) such as Turbo Boost or hyper-threading. OTOH, I too have seen multiple 3D model rebuilds but they take on the order of less than five seconds. My PC CPU has 6 cores with hyper-threading (effectively 12 cores). With almost twice the CPU frequency and a factor of 6 more cores, the rebuild time of 5 seconds vs. 70 seconds scales pretty closely.

Until one of the CA power users is able to comment, I'll offer up one possibility, which in essence you already suggested. It is somewhat of a kludge so you wouldn't want to do this until the house design is 'finished', at least the roof portion. 

1) Take elevation views of areas with issues and create polyline solids by tracing over the existing facias. 

2) rebuild roof with but turn off the 'facia' in the structure dbx.

3) hopefully the polyline solids will now be correctly located (may have to do some adjustment in plan view). 

4) cut off or miter the offending ends of the polyline solids by adding or adjusting polyline solid segments, as you suggested for 'real life'

One thought - from the image I have been assuming that this is a two story house with the second story being being set back from the first floor. I bring this up because on page 69 of the users guide of X6, they discuss building a 'gull wing' roof, which is what this would look like without the 'dormer'. For the 'gull wing' roof, CA correctly builds the facia. I'm not a roof building expert but there might be some tips in how the 'gull wing' roof is built that could apply to your situation.

Thanks Scott.

Do you know if the "PDF printer" is part of CA or part of the MAC OS/drivers? Seems strange that if it were under control of CA that they wouldn't produce identical results.

Not being a MAC user, I'm assuming the 'mac over PC' is not driven by CA MAC functionality v. CA PC functionality (which I assume should be essentially identical) but is the 'MAC v. PC' theological discussion... 

Thanks.

I use a MAC  and I have very few complaints.  But the complaint I do have is big.

Scott, you've got me curious now. Is your complaint documented elsewhere? If so, how might I find it (URL, search topic, etc)?

If not, and at the risk of hijacking this thread, would you elaborate, or start a new thread? 

Thanks!

Jeanette,

Check out CA training tutorials on remodeling (starts at #358) - select the 'remodeling' topic in the 'select a video series' selection area. I think most of your questions will be answered in these videos. #363 addresses your specific questions regarding using layers, I think.

I too use SketchUp (Version 8) for creating custom 3D content for use in CA. Unlike Robert, I just import the .skp Sketchup file into CA. When I need to export a model from CA to Sketchup, I have used both .dwg and .3ds formats, both seem to work fine. 

Hi Jim,

 

Glad you liked it. 

 

The video uses a 3rd party software....and A LOT of computing power.

Ivan, would you be willing to share the name of the 3rd party software?

Thanks.

Sherry, thank you for the insights and how you use guidelines.

FWIW, after watching a few more CA training videos where the multiple copy tool was used, and now being alert to the possible uses of the multiple copy tool, I have become a fan of it as an alternative to an 'offset' tool.

Go to 'Edit', then click on 'Default Settings', then select 'Camera' then 'General Camera'.  There needs to be a check mark in the box next to "Show lower floors in Floor Overviews".  If that box is checked, then post the plan, and I'm sure we can figure it out for you.

Jeff, I think this box only applies to OVERVIEW cameras. The OP said he was using the 'standard' camera, which I interpret to mean the 'Full' camera. The 'open below' area should show with the 'Full' camera.

I do not do much Cad work either but find I use guidelines from the cad tools to set things accurately. An offset tool really speeds up productivity.

Sherry, would you mind elaborating on the specifics of how you locate and then use the guidelines? I haven't used guidelines very often and I'm always willing to learn new productivity techniques. After you explain how you use them, it may become apparent that there is a way to accomplish this in CA just as easily, even without the offset tool.

Thanks.

Do you mind posting the plan? What you are doing seems like it should work so there may be a plan specific issue.

I will really miss the Offset tool in VW. You can select an item of any size,shape or angle and input a dimension in the offset tool, click on the side you want it to offset or duplicate and it precisely offset parallel by that distance. If there is something the same in Chief please let me know because I use this a lot and haven't found it yet.

Sherry,

Thank you for your responses - they certainly help me understand how one could get frustrated by 'wasting time'.

At the risk of repeating something you are already familiar with, and while it is not technically an 'offset' tool, were you aware that if you 'dimension' an object, click on the side you want to move, move the cursor over the dimension until it turns into a 'finger pointing hand', click the dimension value, that the new value you enter will resize the object to the new size. There are three icons on the dimension that allow you to selct which side, or both sides, should move. Again, not an 'offset tool' directly but might produce similar results.

While I don't like comparing softwares it is sometimes useful. In this case Softplan has figured out how to give you the ability to insert, cutting the hole in the wall, a niche of any size you want, set it however high off the floor, radius the top and/ or put trim around it. Same thing with a pass thru opening. 

I see no problem comparing program features. If CA can leverage the best of what the competition offers we obviously get the best of what is available. Sometimes it is necessary to help CA understand what the users think is important. I suspect that most of the CA developers are 'heads down' implementing an already long list of user requests. As users, it is our responsibility to help CA constantly review the priorities of what is on the list or to add additional items high on the list. If CA learns about great features available in other programs from users that have experience with these programs the more likely they are to take the requests seriously. [rant off]  

You don't have to be a programmer to be able to specify a feature requirement. It is up to the developers to figure out HOW. As an aside, sometimes it is better that the user NOT tell the developers HOW to implement, just WHAT is desired. Telling someone HOW to do something sometimes narrows or limits the scope of what is truly possible. Just a thought...

'Country',

Would you mind taking a little time elaborating on the specifics of where VW fails in 'productivity' - even a short list would be helpful. I'm familiar with what I feel are great productivity features of CA but have no experience with other programs. My request is so I can 'hone my promotion' to an architect friend on ACAD that I'm having trouble convincing he should switch.

Thanks! 

I was presently surprised by Dropbox. I was expecting to pay $10/month to get 100 GB of storage (first 2 GB is free). After installing Dropbox on three PC's and two Android devices, I was awarded with 50 GB of FREE storage for 24 months! More than enough for my CA needs!

Thanks Richard! 

Since my last post I installed Dropbox and have been enjoying the amazing speed of the file syncing. I made changes to the user_library on one computer and the sync had completed before I was able to get my CA license deactivated/activated on another computer!

Thanks for posting to this thread - this is exactly the performance I wanted and was pretty bummed by the poor sync performance of OneDrive.

Found this on Wikipedia about Dropbox:

The version history is paired with the use of delta encoding technology. When a file in a user's Dropbox folder is changed, Dropbox only uploads the pieces of the file that are changed when synchronizing, when possible.

Given this intelligent approach, and since I would expect that for a lot of edit situations in CA that while the user_library is 'touched' but not 'altered', the use of Dropbox could be extremely quick and effective.

Time to get an account and give it a try!