HamlinBC

Fixed...

Sometimes I have to recheck "Use Interior Casing", change all the interior casing values to "0", CTRL move the passthru to the end of the wall, and then uncheck "Use Interior Casing"...

Which is what I did here.

Not sure why Chief doesn't recognize that when we aren't using interior casing...it can actually move the opening to the end of the wall.

46th Ave Townhouse.plan

You have to uncheck "Has Interior Casing" and "Has Frame"...

See attached...

Gee...thanks Mick.  I was really looking forward to that vacation...

What's more interesting is that if I turn on line weights, it's a big fat bold dot.

For monitors, I'm running 2 - 24" Dell UltraSharp's (@ 1920x1200).  As for eyesight...beings how I'm about half the age as most of the users on here...well...that probably explains why nobody else can see it   

Hi Bernie,

I feel your pain.

I posted this issue a few months back:

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/4415-x7-printing-issues/?hl=%2Bprinting+%2Bissues

We ended up having to change the way we operate...we have to send everything to PDF's before we print.

I talked to Chief, and I posted it here, and basically that's what came of it.

Scott,

Not really sure.

I set the watercolor settings the same and they turned out identical.

Thank you...

And we don't go into the details like most people here do...

We don't show framing, electrical, HVAC, plumbing...we don't do cross sections (unless required), our elevations are quite basic, etc...  That's not to say that we CAN'T do that stuff.  We just figure with the "free" service...you're going to have to do a little "fill in the blanks".  Besides...the subs wouldn't pay attention if we showed them on the plan anyways.  In this area, the subs have laid all that stuff out for so long that they just hammer it all out with the homeowner.

That's why it will be interesting to go to the UGM.  To see how others do things, and hopefully get some good ideas.

I've attached a PDF of what a typical "final" looks like (this actually is for construction use, but I just put the disclaimer there...juuuuuust in case ).

Final.pdf

That's why we hired the other draftsperson...so I can take a couple days and go to the UGM

Wellll...there's more to it than that.

We do more than just houses, plus we don't have strict codes around here.  So we don't have to get things approved by engineers, etc...

On average we do 50 pole buildings per year, plus there's a lot of simple garages and remodels.  They're not all full blown new houses or extensive remodels.

And we don't bill out for our drafting services.  We make up for it in the material we sell.  We call it a "service we provide for homeowners and contractors".

Not all 400 of those plans went to Final either...

Between our two stores (me and a draftsperson in training), we've drawn around 280 projects this year.

Last year total I drew around 400 (we didn't have the other draftsperson hired yet).

So we've got a little bit of ground to cover yet...

I, too, agree with Larry and Perry.

The customer is #1...all's we can do is advise...and swallow a little pride 

Sorry guys!...I thought the answer was going to come out.  Usually everyone is up for a challenge, so I'm surprised it died out so quickly.

Mine are pony walls...

Guess I'm not really sure if I did mine right...

Hmmmm....interesting.

Maybe I'm losing my mind...I think I need a vacation 

Hmmm...maybe it's just my template.

I recreated our template in X5, so it's relatively new.

I took it one step further and on a new plan with no walls it only shows up when you select an object.

I've attached the template.

Untitled 8.plan

Double enter hot key and see what happens.

Opens the dialog box...hmmm...interesting.  I wonder which way is faster, marquee select or double enter the hotkey?

...or if I click on an edge of a polyline, then transform/replicate, then select rotate, then select absolute angle, then type in the angle that I want the selected edge.

The only real time I use that method is when I'm doing site plans...I don't have to try and guess what I need to rotate it.  Just select an edge, make it 90deg in the absolute angle, and call it good.

OK...I had no idea about the double click feature.  I have "Make Parallel/Perpendicular" set at a hotkey so I've never thought of that.  Still...a good option to keep in mind.

Usually what I do is marquee select my polyline and then make parallel/perpendicular...

Anyone else notice that there is a pixel at the point 0,0?...

When you zoom in it disappears, but when you zoom out it's there again.

Don't know if it serves a purpose, only to confuse me when I'm flying around a plan...

See attached.

I agree with what the others have said, but also remove the focal blur.  That gives it the "mini house" look...

All the colors feel a little STARK...not sure if it's the sun or what that's doing it.

One thing that helped me with exterior renderings is looking online.  You can find some pretty nice looking stuff out there, and just try to mimic it as much as possible.

Yeah, I know.

I was trying to save a couple steps, since my template already has a sink base with a sink in it.

There's not really much of a question here.  Just more of a heavy sigh...

I tried to change an existing regular sink base into a corner sink base, and got the attached error message.

It just seems like..."Really?".

So I thought, "Ok, I'll just copy and paste the sink into my corner base cabinet.".  Yeah...that doesn't work either.

The biggest problem we run in to is networking the Chief plans.

Chief claims it's not "networkable", and to me this feels like a major downfall...especially for offices of your size.  Not sure how many users you have, but we're running 10 copies of Chief between 2 locations.

As far as hardware for running the software, we haven't had too many problems.  We usually stay up-to-date with Quadro (on all the machines except for mine) video cards and processors.  So if we need to upgrade hardware, there isn't a big expense.

I have noticed that Chief is becoming more and more hardware intense, so a lot of our "older" machines have been needing upgrades.

Don't know if this helps you or not...

@rockside

I've used it a little...for some very basic plans (see attached), but it sounds like what you want you'd be better served with Draftsight or some other version of CAD.

Draftsight is free...