Richard_Morrison

Not exactly true. ArchiCAD has a free 3rd party add-on to convert RFAs to ArchiCAD objects. From there, you could export in a variety of 3D formats.

The bar is correct at 1/4" scale, and is labeled 0-3. It's three feet long. But let's say you rescale the bar to 1/2 size so it's the same apparent size at 1/2" scale. Now the bars are labeled the same 0-3, but it's only 1.5' long.

Umm, I don't think it is quite that easy, Michael. You'd also have to explode the block and change the numbers, too. Not a big deal, but as soon as you scale it, the numbers are wrong.

Here you go. Just drag file onto a plan and it will go into your library. Larger one goes into 1/8" scale, smaller in 1/4". I'm not sure where these came from, but should work. Bar Scales.calibz

You know, in the many years I have been using the program I have never clicked on that menu item before, and was surprised to see a bunch of checkboxes I have never seen. Thank you!

But this is true ONLY if the rooms have default values. Works fine with all rooms on a floor at the same height, not so well with split levels.

I think I agree with you. I've spent a bunch of time today trying to understand the structure DBX, and I don't know exactly what's changed, but the top down approach used to make sense, but now I can't remember why. However, the way the floor and ceiling heights work make no sense to me currently. Suppose you have a two-story house with 8' ceilings on both floors. Now your client comes to you and says they want a 9' ceiling on the first floor. Logically, you'd think that raising the ceiling on the first floor would just raise everything above it by a foot. But, NOOO..... The top of the 2nd floor wall stays where it is, and you end up with a 9' first floor and a 7' second floor, then you have to go to the second floor and raise the ceiling by a foot there, too. I'm sure this is all incredibly involved for the programmers, but I'm just not seeing any normal logic here or anything intuitive at all!

Logic? There's logic? One big problem -- as I see it -- is that everything in the model is tied to the zero-point (subfloor of the first floor), and nothing that really ties that zero point to any real-world coordinates. It's like playing an accordion vertically. You can play it near the ceiling or near the floor, but you can't ever really know for sure where you're actually playing it. The world outside needs to move up and down relative to the building. Every other BIM software I've dealt with pegs the zero point to a fixed elevation that is defined OUTSIDE of the building. So, your first floor elevation might actually be 18" above a "zero point" that you get off of an accurate survey. But let's say you want to move the floor level down so it's closer to grade by dropping the first floor down 6", leaving the second floor where it is. In Chief, you not only need to increase the first floor ceiling height (which certainly doesn't feel like you're dropping the floor) and then raise the outside world (terrain) by 6" OR you can lower the floor elevation for all the rooms on that floor to -6" which screws up the story pole elevations. I don't know why you can't define a fixed real-world coordinate for each floor level, and let the rooms adjust from those, but you can't. At least, not easily. Maybe someone can explain Chief's "logic" in a way that I can understand, but no architect I know wants to start with room elevations at the top of the building and work downwards until they get to the bottom, and then play "whack-a-mole" until the elevations get fixed.

"Hi, I'm Barry. I'm a Chiefaholic." "Hi, Barry...." I've got my twenty-year chip, and the structure DBX is something that I still struggle with all the time, too. I appreciate the improvements in X11 to try to help (which is the first time in many years that improvements have been made in this area), but it really shouldn't be this hard and non-intuitive after all this time. And this isn't even a split-level! Some setting, buried a few DBX's down, is unchecked and is screwing up everything, or a wall is just slightly out of alignment, or you really need an invisible wall under the one above, or a default got checked or unchecked (there's a default for that?) and it's going to consume hours of your time trying to chase the problem down. (After cussing, I start thinking I should have started this project in ArchiCAD if it's going take this long, and then the next "easy" project comes along, and I optimistically think, "What could possibly go wrong with this one?" heheh) At least, that's the way it feels. The "room-based" approach is Chief's biggest strength and also its biggest weakness. I have never had such a love-hate relationship with any other software.

Next up for Rene, world peace....

Maybe, but not these homeowners. 7" is a lot to be out of square from one side of a room to another. I used a laser, and there was a lot of head-scratching at first, since you don't really notice it until you know about it. My clients had no idea, either, but weren't hugely surprised. Cabinets don't place as easily in Chief with just slightly angled walls. Overall, one of my least favorite existing houses to draw in recent memory.

Thanks so much, guys! I really appreciate your looking at this and offering suggestions. I think that Michael has it correct; it was the landing that started this whole downward path for me since I didn't realize what mischief it could cause. I don't how you were able to suss out these issues so quickly. But thank you. Kbird: Yeah, that's how the wall is in reality.

I've reached my limit here. This is an existing house I'm trying to model, and the split levels are kicking my butt. I've pretty much got it except for one corner, as shown. Anyone have any ideas? (Did I mention I hate doing split levels in Chief?) Corner issue.zip

They should rotate incrementally with the transform/replicate tool. At least, they do in X11.

My experience is that X11 is more stable and smooth than X10 ever was. In fact, I've gone ahead and deleted X10 off of my main system with no regrets.

I realize that this is a little like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, but I strongly encourage you to put your plan and layout files in a Dropbox folder on your computer. Dropbox keeps (pretty much unlimited) multiple version histories for 30 days (longer with Business plan), and you easily could restore a plan file from there. It's all archived automatically in the background, and there is an archived version every time you save your file. So you might have multiple versions for the last day. There's often a usable version in Chief's archive files, but Dropbox is WAY easier. Other programs like Carbonite might do this, too, but I've found Dropbox to be very reliable and fast.

Is this an annual survey? (BTW, you should pay close attention to the difference between complementary vs. complimentary lest you find yourself working for free. )

Go to your "Chief Architect Premier X11 Data\" folder (wherever that is) and look for the Templates subfolder. You'll find the Chief default templates there.

File>Templates>New Plan from Template, and then pick the template you want to use. You'll be prompted as to whether you want to make this your default template.

Probably you should be looking at Window DBX>Options>Recessed into Wall. However, you should be including your Version in your signature, as Mick suggests. Any hint?

On my 4K 43" monitor, it autoscales at 350%. However, the display scaling starts at the autoscale level, and adjusts it from there. If you wanted just a tad larger, you could use display scaling at 110%, and it would be 10% larger than the autoscaled version. At least, that's the way it works on my monitor.

You can make everything larger in Windows if you have a hi-res monitor by right-clicking in the display desktop area, choosing Display Settings, go to custom scaling (Advanced Scaling Settings) and set to 125% or 150%, say. You will need to choose the option to sign out, to get this to go into effect. You MAY find this causes problems with text wrapping incorrectly initially, but not always.

Dianne makes a very good point. If you see your primary value as just "to get a permit" or (as many Architects unfortunately see their own value) "to provide good design," then you have a very tough sales job, because these values are not necessarily held in very high esteem, except by a very few. On the other hand, if you see your value as making the contractor's life a whole lot easier in documenting the client's expectations so that construction can proceed smoothly, creating a set of CONTRACT documents that don't have a lot of loopholes (less liability for both parties), or maybe even making takeoffs a lot easier so contractors can get out more bids, then you start having dollar signs attached to your value. It may require massive education, though.

I suspect very little of this cost is used for development. They are using this money to pay for the salaries/wages of many people, their buildings, utilities, hardware & software, marketing, training, maintenance, legal expenses, etc., etc. and maybe a little profit. And some software development. You should not wonder why the price is so high, but rather why it is so low.

I would be very concerned that getting elevation data from the surveyor, and attempting to import all this data, would make Chief as slow as molasses -- maybe slower -- with a terrain this complex. Might want to run it by support first.