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Ok I understand that. I get the Plan7Architect add every time I go onto facebook lol. I would be interested in your review. I just upgraded to Home Designer Pro 2025 Perpetual and I am happy with it. They say that P7A is for professionals ? I can see way too much work to get plans ready for the local Authorities. Please see this demo from YT. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6bcqrHN0RZc

Hi @ portrait , I have had a look at Arcon and even the Arcon Professional 2024 video demo. Arcon Professional looks quite decent and I even have a very old version of Arcon too. The Plan7Architect looks quite simple in comparison to AP2024 from what I have seen on YT. HDP would be not be a realistic comparison to P7A IMO.

Timed subscriptions are becoming the norm at present and some CAD companies are still transitioning towards them. As someone mentioned above, the market will get saturated at some point with the timed subscription models. I hope this will force the subscription prices down through market competition between CAD software vendors. Time will tell anyway. I don’t believe that subscription models will help CAD companies develop the software any quicker. I feel that some of them could actually become negligent but the competition should drive them to develop the software even more so with potentially more revenue ? I feel like I am forced into playing slot machine CAD .

Hi @Renerabbitt, Were you able to find a way to retrieve your custom sbsar files since this post date ? Looks like the X17 file saving system has caused a big problems for you ? Is it still in your computers cache somewhere still ? Hope CA technical support can help you.

They are sort of allowing us to do that by marking a wall as furred in the DBX so it doesn’t connect to the stem wall. I am assuming that it has to be a square room first before it will obey those rules ? If that’s the case we may have to use invisible walls as well ? I haven’t tested it yet. I have so far found that everything in their videos that I have looked up work fine for me. But I only watch the ones that concern me. I don’t like fighting any CAD software program to get it to model in the manner that is straight forward and logical. It can take more time in other CAD programs to set connection defaults but at least I don’t get as frustrated when fighting the automation of the CA room module control. I know it’s much much better now and if we are doing many non complicated project homes. Chief is the best tool for full construction drawings with framing and a useable ML and including cabinets. The more custom design shape homes we design, the more the need for other CAD solutions. If I wanted my house to be shaped like a stealth bomber I would use a CAD program that models jet planes lol. We all work with Chief according to its automated rules and we all have to be aware of how to get the model to build correctly with it. Chief is quite simple to use in comparison to other CAD/BIM systems out there but along with more complexity comes a steeper learning curve and more time to design a building those models correctly. The more you want your house to be different and customisable the more sophisticated the CAD software needs to become. I agree with your wall connection wishes and keep on making suggestions of how you would like those wishes to be implemented in CA.

I am trying to follow this post and from what I learned in this video below, is that the wall needs to be specifically marked as a furred wall in DBX. That stops it from connecting to the concrete stem wall because it doesn’t create an island room. Is that what is causing the problem above that you have highlighted in red or is it something else in this case ? https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/93/creating-basements-with-furred-walls.html

To be sure, professional users and DIYers have very different needs and earning potential and so do software developers. So I can see where you are coming from. The DIYers have a plethora of Home Design Software to choose from these days. So we will basically end up with a 2D DXF/DWG file to work from, that is if it is actually accurate enough too. Even many of them are becoming subscription only.

I think Chief Architect are being very fair by keeping legacy SSA perpetual going for existing users who continue to pay the yearly fee. Not so with many other major CAD software vendors who have changed to subscription only now. If you have perpetual licensing with others, many of them can no longer be upgraded. If I was living in the US, I would be seriously considering keeping legacy SSA perpetual active so I don’t miss the boat with newer versions. We all get near retirement so it is understandable if we need to stop for those reasons.

All cool ! As long as the video graphics card can handle and future proof you for newer versions of Chief, then all should be ok. GPU capacity is the most important consideration with any CAD software system.

Have you taken a look at the new Mac Studios ? I switched to Mac M1 in 2023 and I am very pleased with the performance of Chief and other CAD software on my Mac. Just my observations. I really had to do a lot of extra work to look after my old PC’s and the same is true of my PC laptop that I have now. They are not as much work as they used to be but I am saving much time with Apple devices these days. They cost a bit more, you can ask other Chief Mac Studio users to chime in.

10 years later lol, I was reading this post because I don’t have X13 to produce automatic purlins. To clarify @DRAWZILLAis correct, we call them under purlins and they can be placed on the angle or vertical and supported with struts, we have pictures of both methods in the Australian Standards AS1684 for timber framing. The other purlins that @Kbird1is referring to, can be timber roof battens fixed on top of the rafters to connect roof tiles to or metal roof sheeting. Thank you for the tips above on how to draw them in versions prior to X13.

It’s alway good to ask the sales team for advice and what older licenses may actually still be transferable ? I wouldn’t hesitate to ask them.

Might be good to ask your question in the Sales Questions part of the forum ?

I haven’t tried this in CA yet but is it possible to draw the profile of the metal standing seam sheet using a 3D molding polyline and then extrude it ? I have drawn corrugated curved roof sheets in CA but I have only used a surface texture to represent the corrugations in the metal. I am sure there are other methods too available in CA right now.

@Renerabbitthad a free wall cut away symbol/tool, that might work for now if it looks right in plan view as well ?

Hi, I am eagerly awaiting for a replay link.

Hey Rob, I am having the same issue on my old HP PC. Do you have the information on how to turn off that setting in windows still ? I would appreciate it if it is still available.

At least until they come up with an un-masking algorithm .

Setting new defaults in accordance with a metric template and Portuguese material defaults can be very beneficial. The builders would certainly appreciate that. Re: An imported imperial DWG could be used as a reference plan for a new one. Of course you would have 50mm walls not 49.xxxxxxxxx mm walls, etc etc. For example: an 8 foot ceiling height would be 2438.4mm approximately but you would set your default in the metric template as 2440mm, rounding to the nearest 10mm. Makes everyone’s job easy. I do all my work in metric in Australia but occasionally I get an old house that was built with imperial units that needs to be remodelled. When I measure up as an as built condition I just round to nearest 10mm where possible. Sometimes I might need to go the nearest 5mm but not less than that. Example. 4 inch stud wall is 100mm. 3 inch 75mm. Etc.

I would consider exporting the imperial floor plan as a DWG and then opening and importing it into a metric template and start modeling over the top of it. That way everything new is metric and it would eliminate many dimensional errors that can occur in transitioning. Another tip is to keep walls and room sizes and other things where possible to nearest 10mm. Check the materials sizes available in Portugal match your elements in your new plan.

I personally wouldn’t drop legacy SSA if I lived in a region where it was affordable like the US. Yeah ! HDP is too limited when you are used to using CA full. So there are still more goodies in X17 ? Come on spill the beans !

It’s certainly not about what other software can and can’t do but what CA can actually improve on. The problem is that you need to have a priority system that indicates how important a request actually is. Yes it will definitely vary from user to user but at least we can indicate on scale of say 1 - 10 how important a request is to us. I think we used to have a rating system in the past and maybe it is time to bring it back again ?

I personally liked the 3D editing tools for the HVAC plumbing pipe. The ability to edit a texture so you can control where it starts and ends including its rotation and its size. I look forward to seeing what other new things have been included in X17.

Hi, Regarding question one about increasing the size of the text inside the schedule boxes without expanding the boxes. Can a schedule be sent as a “view to cad” to explode all the lines that define the boxes ? If it can be done then you would be able edit the text without expanding the boxes. I Haven’t used CA extensively since X10 but others might be able to comment if that is actually possible right now ?

Yeah ! I have been keeping a look out for them too.