Richard_Morrison

While moving the floor down should logically push down the ceiling below, the corollary is not true. If I have a consistent 2nd floor height, and I want to lower the first floor laundry room ceiling height down by 6", say, it will bring some or all of the second floor down with it. (And it's hard to predict how much of the second floor will come down.) I seldom want to do this. I want a false ceiling in that one room. Floors may be able to control ceilings as far as calculating a new ceiling height, but ceiling heights should NEVER control/override floor heights. Saying, "Well, you just need to know how Chief handles floor heights" is not a good answer. I KNOW how Chief handles floor heights, and it is non-intuitive, illogical, and in some cases, just plain stupid.

Sorry, but for claims involving design negligence, corporate entities offer no liability protection.

Do you believe than an oncologist should have had some sort of cancer to know what their patients are going through? And do you believe that anyone offering design services should also have some formal design training in addition to field experience? I think that anyone offering design services should have enough real-world experience to understand the ramifications of their design decisions. Yes, someone has to put it together, but I'm not sure that the ability to use a framing square or frame a hog valley is essential.

Using plans simply as a tool to "get a permit" is not the same as what they will be held to be in a court of law (if it ever comes to that), i.e. a set of contract documents between the builder and the customer, and probably more important than any actual paper named a "contract" that they sign. Just like a contract prepared by an attorney, if the documents are sloppily drafted with major omissions, it is the drafter who may ultimately suffer.

No evidence he graduated is not the same as "didn't graduate." Especially, considering that he was then allowed to enroll in college.

Correctamundo! (I'll give you point for that...)

You are mistaken. In addition to two years of college (engineering), he also apprenticed to other architects for an additional six years.

If someone buys a product based on some expectation of the future, whose fault is that? In Chief's case, you are given a very generous trial period to see if the software meets your needs RIGHT NOW. Have you ever been given a promise of future features, or been led to believe that Chief will produce something that you need? I don't think so. There is a difference between ILLEGAL conduct (which you've cited examples of) and poor business practices. However, I have yet to see anything that remotely constitutes poor business practices on Chief Architect's part. I have been disappointed that some features haven't been added, that they sometimes seem to be catering to a different market than I am in, and that there are a number of things still to be fixed, but over the past twenty years that I've been using this product, the general direction has been positive. I don't think anyone is shy about making their opinions known, and I am clear that the company is listening, perhaps better than most of its competitors. While they have fixed many bugs I've reported and even added some of the things I've requested, the company does not report to me. Your attitude sounds like a little boy who didn't get everything he wanted for Christmas, and demands an explanation from his parents as to why he didn't get more.

I'm not sure why you are of the opinion that Chief Architect OWES you anything at all, including an explanation. (Unless you are a shareholder, of course.) This is a simple business transaction. You are getting a license to use software for a stipulated price. If you think it's not worth it and some other program will do what you need/want at a better value, vote with your wallet. If some muckety-mucks at CA want to spend the entire development budget on hookers and lavish parties, and they have the right to do so, they may not get many upgrade orders, but so what? That is their own business decision. Personally, I may not think it's wise, but it's not my business to say. The value of the software is continuously being evaluated by its users, so they get pretty immediate feedback as to its worth. If X9 personally isn't worth the money to you, then stay with X8.

Scott, I appreciate you doing the video, but I guess I wasn't very clear on my point. A slab floor can "push down" a footing (increase the stem wall height) or can be raised and leave the stem wall in place. Nothing has changed there. BUT, if you decrease the stem wall height to less than the slab height -- NOW -- it will bring the floor slab with it. It didn't used to. This is the problem. If you watch Dan's video, he sets the stem wall height to 0", but the footing only goes up as far as the slab - leaving the slab in place at the original elevation. Now -- setting the stem wall to 0" totally messes up the floor height. Hope that's more clear.

Michael, This WAS a good video, but floors no longer work this way. If you watch the video at about 9:00, the discussion about stem wall heights show that you can't reduce the stem wall past the basement floor. This was fine. Now, stem wall heights move the floors, too. I don't know how long it's been since you've used ArchiCAD, but I've been using it continuously since the late 1990's (as I have with Chief), and it works NOTHING like you describe. Trust me, I DO want to work the way that ArchiCAD actually works.

I'm resurrecting this thread because I've just wasted WAY too much time dealing with ceilings and floors and stem walls going up and down and changing other floors. This whole structure tab is really the pits, and it USED to be better before Chief turned the whole process of setting floor & ceiling heights into a bunch of jello. There is no way to easily understand the priority of ceiling and floor heights. This whole thing could be fixed EASILY by letting us set the floor height of a room and then letting us LOCK it at that height. Nothing changes until we unlock it. It can't be that hard to program. Personally, I don't think Chief has a higher priority for development.

Try here: http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread.php?32814-Attic-Vent-and-windows-disappear But I'm not sure it's helpful. Everyone had to re-register on the new site.

Unfortunately, many people seem to want to hide behind a cloak of anonymity on this forum. (Yourself included, I see.) So, unless folks start coming out from the shadows, you are probably going to have to look at people's signature for a website, which will be a very limited number; there's not much more you can do.

If the PDF looks exactly the way you want it to, but the printer is doing something to it afterwards, then I'm not sure what's going on. You will need to send to tech support, I think.

A couple of ideas: 1) Indicate your version of Chief, preferably by adding it to your signature. 2) Post the plan, or at least a screen shot. Maybe related?

Mike, You will likely get a number of opinions, but here are a few suggestions that have worked for me. Import your details into a CAD detail window. This can be either a CAD Detail in a plan or in a Layout. Then you can send the detail to Layout from the CAD detail. The reason to do this is that each CAD window can have its own scale, which it will retain. If you have a CAD detail window that is set to, say, 1"=1'-0, then when you send it to layout, it will be automatically set with that scale. (This is set in the Drawing Sheet Setup under Print.) Also, line weights, lines scales, etc. will look the way it will look on the Layout, so you have an accurate preview. So, all of the details in any one CAD window should be at the same scale. You can have as many CAD details as you need, and you can label them to be helpful. You can have a bunch of foundation details in one window, or one detail per detail window. There is an advantage to one detail per window in that the automatic labeling in Layout will work correctly. I think using the detail windows in the Layout is good for standard details because they will always be available when you start a new project using that Layout. After the detail is created, I would store it in the Library, too. Personally, I think the library is a great place to store your details, even if only as a backup, because you can organize them in folders so they are easy to find. Unfortunately, scale is not retained in the Library, so when you place a detail, it should be placed from there into a CAD window that has the correct scale. It is unfortunate that hatches explode into a myriad of entities, so you might want to consider replacing ACAD hatches with Chief hatches.

Sorry, I read your post too fast and thought you were trying to get common electrical ITEMS onto a hotkey. Maybe the tip on icons will be helpful, anyway.

Just use a plain old arc instead of a "connection."

I don't know how to get a specific object into a hot key, but you can create a customized icon by dragging the "Place Library Object" icon onto a toolbar, and customizing that icon with a specific library object (and image), which is about the same and maybe even faster.

You probably want to use a hyperbolic paraboloid form, since you can do this with straight members. https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Hyperbolic_paraboloid_in_construction A generic paraboloid form is likely going to be more difficult; although I guess anything can be built with enough money.

Good point! I should have looked a little further, and not stopped after finding the first rogue element. However, in my defense of my own laziness, these CAD items shouldn't have any effect on the model export.

Well, since it might be instructive for the future, here's how I did it. I went to each floor and did a zoom "Fill Window". It was on floor one that the zoom jumped to outer space. Okay, so you know that the rogue entity is going to be somewhere near the edge of the screen on this floor. Zooming out a little further let me see the little black dot. However, if the dot were too small to see, I would make sure that all layers were turned on and unlocked, and then do a Shift-Select at each screen edge. One of the selection boxes is likely to pick up the object, and then just delete it.

On floor one, you've got a tiny piece of wall far away from the model. Go to floor one and zoom extents (i.e. zoom "Fill Window.") Then zoom out a little more. You'll see a tiny black dot near the bottom of the screen. Zoom into that and delete.

I haven't looked at the plan, but generally multiple labels means you've got multiple schedules. Delete one. NEVER put dimensions in the Layout. There is no way for dimensions in Layout to select anything in a .PLAN file. The blue box is just showing you the area that's going to print (printer margins), but will not print.