RodCole

Good question. I have an illustrated dictionary of historic architecture that I refer to when I want to get the background on architectural terminology. So far I have not found a direct reference to shadow boards as such, but I did find some information that may be of interest. A verge is the edge projecting over the gable of a roof. This appears to be a very old term, that was used to describe pretty much the same elements that are and were for that matter referred to as a barge. We don't, or at least I hadn't heard the term verge currently. But it seems that it used to be very common to use either of the two terms to mean the same thing. Where it starts to make a little more sense as to where the term shadow board came from is that a verge, or barge board was often very decoratively carved, and from the illustrations I have seen, it would definely cast a shadow onto the gable wall it was projecting beyond. Also this verge or barge board was not the same thing as a barge rafter, otherwise known as a barge couple "two rafters". There was another thing that also made me wonder where exactly the term shadow board came from and that was related to stonework. It seems the masonry that projected beyond a gable roof was called a barge stone or barge course. Seems to me that this would also cast a shadow on the gable wall. But that is just me guessing. The closest thing I could find regarding the term rake was that it simply meant sloping or inclined. When the term was applied to the gable it seems that in general it was called a raking cornice, and the element often used for such a purpose was a crown molding that was refered to as a raking molding. This same terminology appears to have been used also for pediments or roofs. Hope this was helpful. I am still curious myself whether there is a clear difinition of where the term shadow board came from. Good question.

Joey Any ideas on the dipiction of the cutting plane depth, or back clipping? Just curious.

It seems to me that the really important thing here is that I am able to find a way to adapt Chief's capabilities in Layout regarding Callouts to the needs at hand. For me that means being able to label the Callout in such a way that the various views can be clearly defined. I don't see much chance that I will need more than 99 separate detail views, or sections, or whatever. So, then it is a question of how many letters are req'd to show the views in the Callout. So far two seems to work for me for the type of drawings I do. Those two groups of four characters and a separating dash and I am good to go. I think. It appears that five characters will be req'd above the line, and probably four below. I did some playing around with this today and I came up with a Callout size with Automatic unchecked and set to 20", and with a text style that has the text height set to 3 1/2". That was about the smallest I would be comfortable with from what I can tell so far. It can obviously be adjusted if need be, but that seems to be a good starting point. I will have to use it a bit more before I know for sure if I am going to like this or not. I just thought I would pass the info along in case it may be of benefit to those who may be concerned.

Larry I don't know for sure if the answer is here or not, I have not had a chance to review the information yet. You can google "Uniform Drawing Systems (UDS)" and see if that helps. They have 01 thru 08 Modules covering the different aspects of drawing conventions. This seems to be a response to the advent of CAD drawings in general as opposed to hand drawn standards. What I think we are both trying to do is to wade through this to establish how to accomplish this same consistency when using 3D modeling. The questions we are both trying to answer should not really be that tough. There just does not seem to be much consistency regarding standards, at least from my experience. From what I understand, this organization is attempting to do something about this situation. Note: The way Chief goes about doing some things makes it difficult to adopt what would be seen as industry standards. Layer names are one I have been dealing with lately as well. I did finally get my layer names to work with X6s Name filter feature. It took some time, and we are not given much to work with as far as instructions are concerned, but once I got it to work it is amazingly fast and simple to use. Blows anything I have seen previously away. I have some suggestion for this feature that I will post later. In short, Chief is a very capable modeling program. With the advent of the new features in X6 and the goals that Chief developers seem to be setting for rapid plan developement we are now faced with how to best use these new features. It would be good to have some standards available to use, and for Chief to be aware of them as well for future developement.

Good question Larry. I have been looking into issues like this recently myself. Since X6 has the capability to automate Callouts, it would be good to have a clear understanding of what all of these views are supposed to be called. And from what my research is turning up, supposed to be is the opperable word here. From the text for my engineering tech class, which has been the standard from the days when everything was drawn by hand, there are three types of section views. A full section cuts through an entire building, and within the full section catagory there are two types of full cross sections. If a full section view cuts the entire building the long way it is called a longitudinal full section view. If it cuts the building across the entire width of the building it is called a transverse full section view. Next is the partial section view, which is used to clarify details on a portion of the interior of the building that may need a more detailed drawing. Finally we have the offset section views which also cut the interior of the building, but do not fall along a straight line. Usually right angles from what I have seen. In the old days of hand drawing, it was often acceptable to use lines as kind of short hand for structural items such as steel columns. In this case a heavy line was drawn to represent the column in a section view, and the shape of the item was used in a plan view. If you are familiar with Revit, I think this is what they are trying to reproduce. As far as how deep the cut is to go into the building, that is where the good question comes in. I don't know that there is a right answer to this question, or even how this is to be indicated on a plan set. I have access to a ton of plans in my work and I have been trying to find an answer to this myself lately. My best guess is that since we are using new technologies in the form of 3D modeling, which will capture every detail if need be, it seems to be up to the individual as to how far and the level of detail that is provided. I have yet to see anything that on the plan view itself that gives any indication of the depth of the cut from the plans I have studied. It seems to me that there should be some indication of the depth, but unless I have missed something it is not commonly indicated. I am considering using a very faint gray line, or maybe a hatch pattern or a terminator indicator of some sort. Still working on that. I have a question regarding detail views. From what I have seen the views themselves are consistent across a wide variety of plans from different companies. What is not consistent is what they are called and how they are labeled and called out. My question is, does anyone know if there is a standard regarding the labeling of section details that relate to a particular section cut? The reason I ask is that. from what I have seen on other plans, it is not clear to me how this should be done. The same goes for plan details for that matter.

If you are considering purchasing Chief Architect, then you can download a trial verision of the program. I am not exactly sure what features are enabled and which are disabled in the trial versio though. It sounds like what you are after is the ability to store pre-configured items in the Library. That way you can configure them the way you want them before the customers arrive. Then pick and choose from those stored items rather than having to change the settings when you are with your customers.

I like your idea Larry. From my perspective, I am considering actually sending a separate plan view to Layout that has just the basics and then all of the Call Outs on hopefully one sheet per floor. A few reasons for this. Space for one, like you mentioned could be dealt with more easily if things were not so cluttered. What I am working on is having a section view for each individual shearwall on the plan. Still working out the details, but the idea is to have the Call Outs and 2D engineering CAD blocks and a few items of dimensions and text related to the engineering on the plan, and the section views will display the framing and the 3D connections in place. I would also like to place a custom marker to indicate that there is also a 3D overview of the connection detail and where it is being viewed from. Another reason I am considering a separate plan view for this is that the automated Call Out text does not provide for a circular reference as to where the Call Out is located when you are viewing the Section Detail. By creating a camera name with the return location included it will show on both the plan view and the Section Detail label. I like this capabilty of Chief X6 very much, but it is, you guessed it, even more clutter. If all of the Call Outs were consistently placed on the same page, then there would be no need to edit the camera labels after the Layout Page order is set. It remains to be seen whether it is going to be practical or not to keep a couple of pages or so in a fixed page location. I think it is worth a try though because it could save a lot of time and potential miss labeling. Anyway, I do like your idea. But, I can also see some good reasons to maybe try a few alternatives as well. We seem to be heading in the direction of more clutter rather than less from what I can see comming down the pike.

To further what Jonathan has said. There are other similar appoaches that are either available or soon to be available. My personal favorite rendering engine is Octane Render. They are currently developing a wide array of plug ins for applications such as SketchUp, as Jonathan uses, and others. I would throw Lux Render into the mix as Well. It is open source, and in the right hands can produce some very nice work. Blender, open source as well, has it's own version of a physically based rendering engine called Cycles and it can also produce some very impressive images. It does not seem to be about price so much anymore, but about having the time to tackle the learning curve most of these programs will require. I am hoping to get around to a more thurough evaluation of a few of these applications in the next couple of months. Some do require special hardware, and each has it's strong and weak points to consider. Seems to come down to, what are your person goals, and then what software will do the job for you. For what ever it is worth, to me, I consider the time spent learning and gaining skill with a particular software more important than the cost of the software itself. That being said, there are some very impressive options available that are free of charge. Edit: I am doing some things now with X6's new file export format for 3D models called Collada. This is a very widely used file format in the graphics industry, but I am finding that there are a few things to consider when using this option. From what I have seen so far as I have tested, you will probably need to use the 32 bit version of chief. Then import the model into SketchUP and either use it within SketchUp, or open or import the file into other applications from there. It appears that Chief's version of a Collada file exporter was mostly intended for the SketchUP market, but that does not stop you from using it where ever you want. BTW this does not appear to be working with the 2014 version of SketchUP, at least it has not worked for me yet.

I did call tech support today, and currently there is no facility for multiple criteria in the Name Filter text box. That would be a nice feature to have IMO. How this does appear to be working, for those who may be interested, is similar to what would be seen as *Character String*. That is, any time a particular group of characters anywhere in a string of characters is found it is added to the list of layers to display. This is simple, and it is effective for many circumstances. Say you want to display layers only related to Cabinetry, then type Cabinet into the text box and any occurance of that character string anywhere in any layer name would be displayed. This could be very helpful when dealing with a large list of layer names. The problem I have is that this actually creates an issue if you want a particular group of, or groups of layers that are organized into a list alphabetically or alphanumerically. Where the problem comes in for me is if you think the list will be sorted from left to right and only list those items that are found in the first characters of the layer names as they are sorted in the Display Options dbx. It is not really so much that this is a big deal in itself, but knowing it is a big deal if you are to use how Chief has set this feature up to best advantage. What is important to know is that you will need your layer names to provide unique characters to separate or group items you want to sort on. In some ways, by trying to make it simpler they have made it a little harder to set things up initially it seems. At least if you are familiar with traditional sorting methods. But, with a little creative use of unique characters, this could turn out to be very effective so long as you have things set up the way you want them in the first place. It would be nice if the dbx were to remember the last entry in the Names Filter text box during a session. A drop down of preconfigured criteria would be very helpful as well.

Not a problem, I appreciate the effort. This could be a really great tool with a few tweaks, or maybe there is just something I am not aware of so far.

Not exactly. What I am after is a way to better control the Name Filter text box so I can filter the list of layers in the Layer Display Options dbx. The text box is directly underneath the Layer Sets drop down list box located at the top left of the dbx. I have been experimenting with this a bit more and I am not exactly liking the way Chief has implemented this feature. It is great that they have made it less complex than a typical CAD programs criteria based Selection Set. But, IMO it does need a bit more control so that we can get the list we are after. What I do like is that it is simple. Just type a few letters and you get a filtered list. The problem is that you will get a list that displays every item that contains that combination of characters found anywhere in any of the names in the list. This is not exactly what you are after if you have an organized list of names. Mine is alpha numeric, which works very well for organizing layer names into groups, but I do not want every code that has a particular sequence of letters and numbers. I want just the ones listed as the list is sorted from the beginning of the layer name, and I would like to be able to choose more than one catagory to be filtered on. At the very least there needs to be an option that allows for the list to be limited to the placement in the character string where the filtered characters are found. Simple yes, but just a bit too simple from what I can tell so far. I was hoping someone could fill me in on whether there is additional imformation available as to how this is supposed to be working.

Very nice feature. I have been mostly playing around with this in a default template file just to get the hang of it before using in on my custom template files. What I was wondering is if there was a way to select more than one group of text items to be included in a single selection set. Say I want Cabinets, and some other catagory as well. I tried using a comma, but that only sees the comma as a text item to be filtered on. I have not found much help on this in the online reference manual either. Just curious if there was some sort delimiter key, and wildcards for that matter. I would really like to take advantage of this capability if it is available.

You can open a Layout View, and it will open the plan with the Layout View's Layer Set on in the plan view "not new" . Opening the Layout View will now also activate the Anno Set associated with this Layout View "new". You do not have to have the Layer Set selected in the Anno Set if you use this method. In fact it can be a bit confusing when you see "Active Default" as the Anno Set instead of the Anno Set you thought should be there. It took me a little time to get used to using the Layout View method, but I think it can be very powerfull if set up correctly. Edit: Just in case someone tries this in anything other than X6. This is a new feature of X6 and does not work in previous versions.

Compared to other programs that provide a UCS plane to work with, CA is not in the running if you are interested in production. As Gerry described, a great many things can ultimately be accomplished with molding lines and Solid Primitives. The problem I have found is that even if you do spend the time to become accomplished with CA tools and methods, you will still not have all of the tools and capabilities that other software provides in this area. An example would be a project I am working on now where there will be serveral trenches with various utility lines connecting different buildings on the property. I can export the terrain from CA and convert it to a solid and subract the excavated portion. I am just getting started on this phase now, and I have not attempted this before in CA, but I am relatively confident that I have the tools I need to do the job when using a more powerful solid modeling program. I am very glad the CA does have the capabilities that it does provide, and a great many things can be done with if you are determined enough. I have been down that road, and I came out of it with an appreciation of what CA can do, and a fairly good idea of what it doesn't do well.

There is another thing that I find extremely annoying regarding how dimensions are locating objects and that is how the system overrides the users selection of a snap point. In order to get around this it is often req'd to set the reach setting to as low as 1/8". This is so it will not grab whatever it decides to, even if object snap are employed. Often times it is the On Object snap that is being overridden. But that is because that is the snap that is available when a low reach value is used. It would be nice if we had the option of deciding for ourselves whether we would like to have the On Object snap have the same priority as the other snaps, or not. To me, if I have a snap employed and choose the point that I want the dimension to snap to, that is where it should go, and nowhere else. To get around this I have taken to creating the extension lines with no gap, and then editing them once I am sure they are actually where they belong, which is a big waste time. If you would, take a look at this while you are at it. It has also been a problem for a long time now as well.

I was hoping there was some kind of a simple setting in the materials or something that would provide more contrast when printing. Thanks for the info though.

Larry When in the Section Elevation you want to detail. Turn on the Framiing Wall Layer, or whatever layer you may have placed the framing on. Make sure the wall surfaces are not displaying, as dicussed above. Set up an Annotation Set for the type of view you are working with. Important if you intend to use Auto Dimensioning. In the Annotation Set edit the Dimension Default's Locate Objects section, and make the settings you want active for dimensioning in the Framing catagory. Or, whatever method you choose, you need to make sure the Framing is set to be dimensioned. Annotation Sets are just one way ot doing it. Note: in X6, Annotation Sets are view specific, and there are connections between the Auto Dimension tool defaults and the view defaults. There is kind of a wierd science going on between Dimension Defaults and Auto Dimensioning Defaults. More too much information, but I hope it helps.

I was wondering if anyone else sees this the same way I do, and if so are there any good fixes for this. What I am refering to is the representation of Terrain in both the 3D overview and when it is printed. There is enough highlighting in the 3D overview to get an idea of what the Terrain will look like, but when printed the contrast is almost nonexistant. I have successfully exported the Terrain model out of CA and converted it into a solid. Then imported it back into CA, and it does show a little better, but not anywhere near what I would like. It does help to visualize the Terrain by placing Library or other Objects on the Terrain surface. But, on larger tracts of land this is not always desired. I have also been experimenting with slicing the Terrain into layers, like you would see in a cardboard model. But that is not always desireable either. Very cool for certain effects, but just not for everything. Just curious what others have to say about this, and if they have some kind of hopefully simple solution.

Dan I still have your VHS videos for Chief V3. Don't tell anyone how long that has been, or how old I am getting. Memories indeed.

I also used an Intuos 3 6 x 11 tablet with a pen and mouse. I agree completely that to use the mouse on the graphics tablet is very awkward and tiresome. You can set the working area on the tablet to a much smaller size, and that does help out some. I did like to use the pen, but the buttons on it were not really designed to be comfortable to use on a continuous basis. What I did like about it was using a regular USB mouse along with the tablet. That way you could use what ever input device you wanted. What was really nice about this setup was that there were a ton of programable actions available on the tablet. The reason that I no longer use this setup is not that it wasn't a good working arrangement, it was because the drivers for the tablet were constantly crashing. I just got sick and tired of continually having to reinstall and set them up all the time. It was awkward to use the keyboard and the tablet at the same time, but it can be done. I am not so sure I would use an arrangement like this now, mostly because of the new hot key capabilities in Chief X6. But for paint programs and the like, I still keep my tablet under a monitor stand that I made just so I could keep the tablet close at hand, but out of the way until I needed it. I don't use it that much anymore, but I probably would buy a newer model for better control of brushes in Painter.

Don't think so. The Layout Views are what are linked. You could have multiple plan files, but they will still be linked to a specific Layout View, not the Layout itself as I understand it. The SAVE AS METHOD and modifications thereof are very powerful ways ot using predefined Layout views. I thought maybe that was what you were asking about. My bad. Follow the Menu to the dbx as mentioned above to see if there are any plan files listed. Hopefully that will let you know for sure.

If I might ask, what version are you using? Also, are you looking to create a layout template within the same version of CA, or are you moving from X5 to X6? I think what you are wanting to know is how to relink Layout Views to a different plan file. Your use of the term deleting links is making it a little difficult to know for sure what you are really after. I will take a stab at pointing you in the right direction. In a layout file, go to the Tools Menu, then to Layout. At the bottom of the list you will see Referenced Plan Files. Select that item and it will open a dbx "dialog box" that will allow you to relink to a new plan file. There is more to it. You will need a matching Plan file as a Template as well if you are going to get what I expect you are after. Let us know if that is what you are after or not.

From what I can tell so far, the book deals with issues such as you raise. But, primarily it is addressing the issue of how the real power of our own information is being used to disenfranchise us from the value of our information. The main points being made so far are that it is this very aspect of the information age that is at the root of the loss of jobs in our ever increasingly automated world. Claims to have a fix, haven't read that part yet.

Michael You are bringing up some good points. It is very interesting to me because I just happen to be reading a book entitled Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier. The subject matter of the book is about how the lions share of the money being made in the information age is primarily made by those at the top who control access to information. They get the information from all of us for free, with or without our consent, and then sell it to others. I have only read the first few chapters of the book so far, but it will be discussing how cloud technologies will play into this senario. Ironic isn't it?

In my neck of the woods I would have to set my tee time for next Friday. Just checked. But, Scott is right, we do need it. Architectural Blocks could be used for a great many things. That is if they would work the way I would like them to. The short list would be: 1. Be able to include CAD Blocks 2. Display correctly in plan view within the A B and especially when encountering walls in plan view 3. Provide an automatic way for distinct objects to show without editing materials in 3D views 4. Provide for standard controls over fill and group controls for 2D plan views 5. A wish list item would be for A B to be replaced from library, and actually work (Back to the Future, Ghosted Blocks)