Richard_Morrison

Generally, if boards are under a certain standard length, you will get an accurate count. If over the longest standard length, they go into the "unconsolidated" category. If you have a 42' wall, Chief doesn't know how you want to cut and overlap the plates, so these are just shown as overall lengths, and it is up to you how you want cut them. If you check "consolidate", then all these boards will be totaled together as an overall sum. If you get plates that consolidate to, say, 2"x 4" x 140', then it is up to you to decide how you want to buy these. 7-20' or 9-16' or 12-12' boards. Seems like Chief could make some decisions, but that is part of the artistry of estimating.

Sorry, but I don't think you're using this right because it works just fine for me. The BUY list tells you how many of each STANDARD (predefined) size members you need. The CUT list tells you totals, but doesn't put them into standard lumber sizes. The Help function can be helpful. BTW, if you want an accurate stud count, you need to build the wall framing. It will count studs correctly, but if you just do a generic count based on a wall type, it's likely to be off. I just did a quick one room shed of non-standard size, counting the wall studs, plates & ceiling joists, just to make sure.

Have you explored "structural member reporting" Cut List vs. Buy List? You can set what lumber lengths are available from the lumber yard, and Chief will calculate how many to buy. So I think this is already fixed.

Yeah, it did occur to me that it might be useful to store "building blocks" of macros Rubyscript routines, so you could put together a much larger macro routine very quickly.

Personally, I don't WANT text to update behind my back. Pigeonhole can easily categorize THOUSANDS of notes, and use find and select to find the text note you want. Chief's macro management can't do that. Also, Pigeonhole can run in the background and just pop-up when you move the mouse to a screen edge. For the price (free) it's worth a look. I should also mention that Pigeonhole has uses beyond Chief, and you can use it in a variety of applications, like Word. Standardized verbiage for letters, client or contractor addresses, etc. Another useful feature is that you can store web URLs within a note and you can jump to websites or write e-mails in one click.

I just discovered that Pigeonhole Organizer is now freeware. http://m8software.com/clipboards/pigeonhole/pigeonhole.htm You can have your notes/specs organized in pre-typed text blocks, and insert them from a matrix of 175 "pigeonholes" x 20 pages. Gives you an instant preview of the text, from which you can paste into Chief. Very simple, but very powerful. You can also reorganize your note blocks in Pigeonhole by dragging.

With no disrespect meant to Chief, this is really not the kind of project that Chief was designed for. I think you might be better off with a different program. You will certainly notice a dramatic improvement in X9, but the lag time would still drive me nuts. ArchiCAD, for example, could handle a project of the this size without breaking a sweat, and jumping from view to view, or making a change to a window (or all of them), etc. would be virtually instantaneous. Rooms could be handled by a repetitive module (where you make a change in one module, and it changes all similar rooms), and could give you quantities, generate reliable cross-sections, etc. I shudder to think what this model would be like with an accurate terrain.

What version are you on? (Please add to your signature.) How large is the actual file? Chief has always had a point where a plan gets too large and you need to start finding ways to simplify 3D representations, like replacing fancy balusters with square ones, getting rid of exploded fills, etc., although models can be much larger now than in the past. You may find that X9 will help enormously with speed, since that is something they've been working on. A five minute undo would drive me nuts. Another thing to look at are the number of CAD items you've got. CAD intensive files used to be very, very slow, and you might need to move these items to a separate file. This improved in X7 or X8.

You can use it to get square footages for the envelope, so it can save some little tedious calculations. Only issue is that Calfornia works with gross square footages for the wall areas, so you need to add the window areas back into the wall areas before deducting them again. It would be great if California could use the energy program that the rest of the country uses, but we're too special for that, I guess.

Glenn, Having multiple main layers isn't a problem, generally. (See, for example, the Chief SIP type wall.) Also, it could be that the OP is trying to get a good representation of a grouted concrete block wall. Still would help to see the plan file.

You generally will get more helpful information with a file.

It would be good to go through the basic tutorials that Chief has. This question is almost at the level of "how do I draw a wall?" and is asking more for tutoring than help with a problem you can't solve. This forum can be very helpful, but people expect that you've taken the time to learn the basics on your own.

Yes, the stair handrail should give us the option to extend the bottom of the handrail beyond the first tread, AT THE SLOPE OF THE TREAD, before turning horizontal.

Personally, I don't like the idea of putting notes in a CAD detail in a Plan because you can't preview them directly, the same way you can in a Library. Also, if you have city-specific notes, it's a lot easier to have them in the Library, organized in a folder by city.

Just unblock the notes and change the text height to "real world" scale, like 1/8" high, and resave to library. Then you can place directly on Layout.

The easiest way would be to just draw polyline solids in an elevation view, and not worry about trimming it. As far as deleting walls on a dormer, after you explode it, the Delete key works really well.

Not a bad solution. Just copy the blocks to the floor plan window, and do all your manipulating there. Remember that there is also a "Cad to Walls" tool, which may help. (Or it may not.)

In the "olden days" we used to use a cabinet to hold the positions of walls. You can accurately place a small base cabinet and lock the cabinet layer. Then walls will bump into the cabinets and go no further. (You can even put a cabinet on both side of a wall to lock it in place.) It's a pretty kludgy workaround, but it may help. Putting in a small 1/16" thick invisible wall that is perpendicular to the wall you're trying not to extend is another possibility.

Dermot, there is full light data in the recessed can that I showed above, similar to other 3D lights. So, I don't think that adding light data is what triggers the 3D preview. It's getting the preview some other way.

Dermot, I have bunch of recessed lights that show as 2D in the preview, yet are clearly tagged as lights in the Options. I can't figure out why THESE can have 2D previews but others don't.

I'm not sure it's that easy. See this from the Core Library. Some objects have a 2D preview, and some have a 3D preview. I can't figure out where these different preview types are being set.

I think I'm having a brain fart here, but some of my electrical symbols in the Library show the 2D plan preview, while others are 3D previews only. I would like to generally see the 2D plan symbol, with the 3D preview below. I can find no place to set this, nor to change lights that are 3D only at the moment to a 2D view. (I'd like to see what this is going to look like in 2D (like we can with switches and outlets), but I can't find out until I actually place it. I KNOW that we used to have a 2D only display available, and I'm not sure what the difference is between various of my symbols, except that some are probably from older versions. Is there any way to get the 2D views back?

This may help: http://www.brighthand.com/howto/how-to-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-wi-fi-hotspot/ You'll probably have to call Sprint customer service and find out how to activate it. But they may be able to do it immediately.

Since you have internet on your cell phone, why don't you just use your cell phone as a mobile "hotspot" and get internet access for your tower from that? I have an "unlimited" (after a certain number of GB, they start throttling the speed back, so it isn't totally unlimited) data plan from T-Mobile and use my phone for internet for my desktop that way. With LTE service, I'm getting 30 MB/s which is very acceptable. Much cheaper than getting a separate internet provider.

So, in that same screen shot, you are prompted to select a material. Do you have other textures available right now? Or are ALL of them gone. (It also may be that you need to update the libraries when you have an internet connection to get that particular texture.)