RodCole

I don't have the time right now, but you may want to work with someone who has Premier and HD Pro and knows how to use both working in concert. If you don't mind, tell me a bit more about what you are wanting to learn and what the majority or your work is and I may be able to help out a couple of weeks from now. Send me a PM if you would like to follow up.

Paul I am intrigued by what you are proposing. I have both the construction background and the experience using Chief Architect to acquire building permits that could be beneficial to you and your projects. IM or reply here If interested. Rod Cole

Charles My work is mostly in the Portland OR area, but I do work outside of that area as well. I have a background in engineering and work with a Structural Engineering Firm in the Portland area that is licensed to work in Washington State. You mention having Home Designer and now the Architect version. I take it you mean that you are now using the Home Designer Pro program, correct? I have both the Home Designer Pro and Premiere versions of Chief Architect and can work in either version you choose. If everything is set up properly, most elements relating to architectural design can be moved between Premiere and HDP, that way you still have a working copy of your design. I would recommend using CA Premiere for the construction documents. I would be happy to talk with you regarding the list of concerns you have relating to engineering, construction, and design. If you are interested, please reply to this thread and then we can make arrangements to talk. Rod Cole

I have experienced the same issues as Michael when using round tubing for exterior handrails. I ended up importing solids that I made up in another 3D program. My bad, I had it on my list of things to report but did not report it at the time. I will follow up now. Thanks for reminding me.

Craig I might be interested in working with you if I knew a bit more about your projects. I do the type of work you appear to be looking for as I have held the position of CAD Drafter on many occasions. Freelance work is no problem for me since I have my own corporation and any benefits are my own issue. BTW, I can work with either Home Designer Pro files or Premier. Good luck on your projects.

Interesting thread. I did not read every comment in detail, but I would like to add that I use tape measures and the electronic version as well as custom grid paper for capturing measurements on paper. I have found that having a good paper reference can be very helpful since measurements in Chief will change if anything is moved. Nothing not mentioned above that I could see, but I would add that I find it very helpful to use a laser level to shoot elevations of the Floor and Ceilings as well as exterior site. I have recently purchased a telescoping tripod to make it easier to adjust the elevation of the laser level line. This is very helpful when there is a need to transfer an elevation mark from one location in a building to another location. I am also considering the idea of making a custom mounting base for the laser level that would allow for adjusting the line from side to side. This would be very handy for referencing ceiling plane ridges. I use this information to create construction lines in Chief on working layer sets and final drawings.

Love your work. Can you tell us a bit more about your work processes and the type of projects you do?

Thanks so much. I will give that a try.

I really like working with the Construction Line feature, but I have found that when I change the Line Style to say what looks like a traditional Phantom Line, then the Callout Bubble also assumes that Line Style and ends up looking broken up. There are times when I really do want to use these rather irregular, but useful, Line Styles. Just curious what others think about this and if anyone has requested a fix for this yet before I send in a request.

I have both an MSI laptop with a 3060 card and an MSI laptop with the 3070. Both are very fast, but the 3070 by design has about 10 percent better performance and better cooling. If you intend to do a lot of graphics work I would get a desktop for high end heavy duty work, but for basic work either the 3060 or the 3070 will not disappoint.

I recently put in a feature request to have Construction Lines display in a Wall Detail. Just another feature that can help framers and others visualize how the wall framing lines up to other walls in the floor plan and section views. You could do this in a section view, but there are times when the Wall Detail is a little less complicated to set up and use.

Lately I have been experimenting with lowering the backdrop intensity with generally good results. Depending on the render I sometimes bring it down to 10 or less and punch up the scene with additional lighting.

bdillard1 Do you mind following up on this render to show others what you have found that works best for this particular render? The reason I ask is that it is this type of situation that can be most helpful to others who are also trying to learn Chief's rendering tools.

Nice work Eric This will probably help quite a few other folks who are trying to learn Chief's rendering tools.

Just a bit of follow-up no what Eric said about the backdrop intensity. What I find is that at times it can be helpful to drop the backdrop intensity even below 200 in some circumstances. No specific recommendation, just lower it a bit and do a test until the image cleans up.

I have done multiple floor levels using Chief with metal framing and it worked out well for the most part, with a few exceptions. CAD Block Management in Chief was buggy, which made reusing text items very difficult. ACAD or a similar more fully developed program in this area would be very helpful. Chief's Solid Modeling tools have improved somewhat over time, but a program such as Revit would be much better suited to the concrete portions of the project for many reasons. ACAD or Revit have much better file compatibility when exchanging files with design professionals.

Don't overlook Excel, especially the pivot table capabilities. I read something a year or so ago that Microsoft was making Excel Pivot tables the flagship of personal computing. From what I understood, they were backing off on future development of Accel because of this shift in focus. So, looking forward, Excel may be worth your time to check out.

PM sent

I have a few quick questions for you. What version of Chief are you using? Where are you located? What is the time frame you are trying to meet for your project? These are just a few of the things that folks will need to know. Feel free to contact me by message if you would like. Click the Member Icon upper left and choose message. Best wishes Rod

Both of my new machines are from MSI and the 3070 is a bit faster than the 3060, but it also has a better cooling system due to the high-end gaming use it was intended for. I have not found any features in Chief that work any differently in either setup. I purchased from Costco Online, and there were models available online that were not available in the warehouse stores.

I have this card in a laptop version. I also have a 3070 laptop as well. The 3060 machine works very well for me, I just wanted a second computer as my primary with the 3070 as a workhorse and I use the 3060 for a backup and for training purposes. Either one will produce an RTX image in a matter of seconds, but the 3070 machine is faster. They are both fast enough that I doubt I would pay a premium for a 3080 or 3090, but that's just me. I still have my older hp and it still runs great, but it will not run the latest features on X13, so I bought the new machines to avoid that frustration. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

This is a very interesting topic for me. Glad you brought this up. Span charts are one thing, but they don't tell you anything about what is really important, and that is deflection. You can find the span you want in the chart, but if you either do the calculations by hand, or using a computer application you will find that what may work from the chart is not something you would feel comfortable with in a particular situation. Say, the chart looks good, but the deflection is 0.75 inches or 3/4". This type of scenario is not that uncommon, so I use deflection as a pertinent factor in choosing a construction member. Another thing that I have been finding that is very frustrating is the lack of knowledge from plans examiners. One of my best friends is a retired plans examiner and we used to disagree all the time regarding code applications. Obviously, he won, but the important thing was that I respected his knowledge and experience. Not so much these days where it comes to plan review issues where the boomers are retiring, and less experienced folks are in charge. I have found that a very narrow approach to code applications is iften being taken. As in, if a particular method of construction does not have a picture of it in the book, or some direct reference in the text then engineering is required. Some jurisdictions require a structural engineer, not just a licensed engineer, for such circumstances. Point is, perfectly good solutions may not be cost effective if you factor in the cost of an engineer and the time delay for your project since these types of situations are coming up far too often these days and engineers are often booked out a ways. The advice I give myself these days is that if I do not find a direct reference in the code book to a particular construction method, then take a step back and find a method that does.

Got it. Thank you very much for pointing this out Ben. No problem on the customizing hotkeys. I am just very glad you helped to clarify this for me.

I used the spacebar technique for several years and after a very short time it becomes automatic. Pressing keys needlessly every time you need to use a command, not so much.

Years ago I used a customized program in AutoCAD that allowed for up to 3 characters and required a delimiter to execute the program. That meant you had to enter however many keystrokes you wanted followed by either hitting the enter key or the spacebar. The spacebar is easy to use since it only requires you to hit it with your thumb, cinch-a-reno, But Chief insists on not requiring that extra keystroke. I can see that in a way, but IMHO it actually makes using the hot keys harder. Sometimes I want to use a short sequence and sometimes I want a longer sequence, but only when it makes sense to me to type the extra keys, not every time. I for one wish Chief would reconsider their approach to using the hot keys and allow for a spacebar or enter keystroke to execute the command.