Richard_Morrison

I'm curious as to what you see as a significant benefit in this feature. We could use an attached text arrow macro with more flexibility in formatting to get essentially the same result for quite awhile now. Now, if we could schedule these polylines, we'd have something. But I haven't been able to figure out how to do this easily.

I think Joe was alluding to this, but it hasn't been made very clear. My experience (and understanding) is the main issue appears when you are printing PDFs of layouts where there are many PDFs that have been placed. PDFs of PDFs is the killer. If you can place PNGs on the layouts, rather than PDFs, it all goes much better. Another possible solution is to print the pages in smaller batches and then reassemble them into a single larger document later. But I agree that PDF printing in Chief is seriously bad.

I just went back to X12 to try this out. Polyline solids are not editable by Boolean operations in a 3D view. Try creating a couple of polyline solids in X12, then go to 3D view and select both of them. I don't get any Boolean operations available at all in 3D, and in X12, if you Union a couple of polyline solids, they don't retain their individual heights.

Yes, compared to X12, X13 is like modeling clay. I admit that fill origin offsets were improved somewhere along the way. It used to be that fill origin offsets acted globally, I believe, somewhere in the distant past, and I just never noticed when they became individually controllable.

Another feature that I think is incredible (but seems to be getting a "meh" reaction) is the ability to do Boolean operations on polyline solids, and then edit the created object (or the original object) in any view, including 3D views. This is getting pretty darn close to Sketchup.

One feature that is HUGE for me is the fill origin offset. This means that tile layouts in CAD elevations can actually be accurate now. In fact, it was sometimes the one feature that would make me do projects in Archicad, rather than keep them in Chief. For interior designers, this is NOT a trivial feature, but I don't see it even listed on the "New Features in X13" page!

In thinking about this some more, I believe that this is a setting that I have not paid enough attention to, and could be the source of these issues. I have always just left this set to "resize about outside of main layer," because it seemed logical to not want to ever expand the footprint of the house, but on the other hand, when all of the existing dimensions have been taken based on interior finish surfaces, this obviously may not be the best choice. Thank you for getting me to think about this!

Okay, see the attached. When I finished the existing plan, both floors were lined up exactly. Now, while doing the final condocs, I see that they are out of alignment.

I have noticed that the fireplace tool is now a "legacy" tool in X13, and you have to know that it's there and that it must be added to your toolbar before you can use it. It is no longer listed in the menus. I have no idea why, because I find it is a very helpful tool in documenting older houses with masonry fireplaces. I use it all the time. I know that this has been discussed before and am aware of Chief's intent to deprecate it, but still find the logic behind that mystifying. Maybe if enough folks complain...

Michael, Interesting theory, but no. Over the past twenty-five (?) years of using this program, I have not used your method #1 even ONCE, except for maybe trying it out in beta. I have always moved walls by selecting the wall to be moved, since that was the only method available originally -- and old habits die hard. The usual placement method for me is by using temporary dimensions initially, and then by explicitly placed dimensions later. I am pretty confident that the initial placement is accurate. Somewhere along the process, dimensional creep sneaks in. However, it does occur to me t

At the outset, let me say that I love working in Chief for its speed. However, today I noticed that the final plan had gotten off from its initial measurements by a number of inches in a number of places, a couple of inches in some places, up to 5 inches in others. I take very detailed measurements at the start, and drew a fully dimensioned plan of the existing conditions. After some scratching of my head when things weren't quite working out after a number of design iterations, I redrew the plan in Archicad because of its renovation filters, using the same measured dimensions. I exported exis

Okay. PERFECTLY.

Thanks, Joe! That actually worked pretty well.

Of the three libraries of garage doors that Chief has, Wayne Dalton is the one that's closet to matching an existing door. However, they are all double wide. Just changing the width to 8' scrunches them up. Is there some easy way to go from double wide to single wide that I am missing? (Single to double is pretty easy, of course, and has been discussed elsewhere on this forum.)

Gene, you should also be aware that the REScheck thermal envelope numbers that Chief spits out are not calculated the way they are supposed to be. Chief uses the inside surface area of walls and floors, rather than the exterior surfaces that are supposed to be used. Therefore, your REScheck thinks it is a significantly smaller building than it actually is, and may fail projects that would otherwise pass with slightly higher square footages. In California, we have the HERS system that requires certified inspectors to come out and certify the energy features. I don't have any informa