michaelgia

Hi, is there any way to import a sketchup .skm texture as a calibz into the chief library? I use Techobloc stone for façades quite a bit and have been winging it with stone materials from the Buechel/M-Rock/Coronado libraries. Techobloc's website has files for autocad hatch patterns and sketchup textures, as do a lot of other mfrs. would be nice to convert these to import into Chief.

I think you have to start with the main floor default setting for ceiling height. Then set all the rooms on the main floor to that ceiling height. Then go upstairs and repeat the process. Then go back to main floor and check all defaults again. I usually have to do a bit of back and forth like that until it all sets itself straight. DJP has done a lot of great videos of these exact kind of fixes and it's usually an exercise in wrist slapping for not having your defaults set right. Like he says, the program takes its cues from you.

You do realize that there is yet another monthly subscription fee right? Do we want that? Calculate the cost of Archicad plus third party subscriptions for stairs and another one for kitchen cabinets! (Yes, Archicad also sucks at kitchens) I mean in an out-of-the-box solution like Chief, that is.

...and Archicad is the best of the bunch. We got it good with Chief. Just wish they would spend more time fixing stuff that's broken than adding new features. They'll get there, I'm sure.

This is why I now use Chiefarchitect... I absolutely love stairs in Chief now. I like it! I like it! (a la Yosemite Sam)

I don't know if you'll find a program that does stairs right, but I can guarantee you that you'll find the said program's user group complaining about how stairs work.

Its the age old dilemma of a software company. - marketing wants new features to gain market share - power users just want them to fix what features they already have. - company has limited programmers and must decide which fire to throw them in. ...guess which way they go? - every year

Holy crap! He's building the White House as an addition! love it!

Ha ha. Nevermind. I had put the terrain on the "cad, site plan" layer. So dumb. Wow, one hour wasted.

I know this has been posted before but I can't find it anywhere. I have a terrain in plan for sure because I see it in plan and when I click on it, and open it, the terrain dbx opens up. However, in the layer set there is no "Red Cross" in the "used" column. As a result I can't see the terrain in elevation views. I feel really dumb, because I'm sure this is elementary. (Terrain is drawn on first floor)

Adjusting a manually generated slab is how most other programs deal with slabs, like Archicad. I find it amusing that we think this is some sort of work around when Chief doesn't always automatically pull the slab under the doors. I guess we're so used to Chief automatically or magically doing stuff like this for us. Also, I'm pretty sure if someone really smart looks closely at the plan they will find that it's user error, like the bearing material on those funky icf exterior walls. Just my guess.

I'm guessing, but I think the complete response would be to create a new annotation set to place that site plan on which would have its own cad layer, and then change its text style. Otherwise you will be changing your default text style associated with the cad default in your plan. - much misery.... (Assuming that was what seemed to be a site plan.)

Can you post your experience? Did the upgrade go well? thanks!

Archicad and other like programs let you set a printed size for text regardless of scale. I wish Chief had this. Just let me set my text at 1/8" or 3/32" no matter what scale I'm printing at. The scale should always only apply to your drawing not your text. ...or is there some ingenious way to unlink text from scaling?

However..... if you've done a layout already, be prepared for "reverse plan" to wreak havoc on your layout pages. You have to delete a lot of views and resend them to layout. Not an extremely big deal but it does require some work.

I think if you're going to have a separate foundation plan, all you need to show is the footings under the support wall anyway. The foundation contractor doesn't need to see the actual support wall - he doesn't care. As such I've gone back to just drawing slabs for the footings. I can shape them anyway I want, like a p-solid. The support walls are just standard walls with no footings. I can chose to show them together with the slab or not. ....until chief decides to give us a handle at the ends of the footings, or makes it so it doesn't truncate inexplicably at the ends when joining to other walls. No big deal either way.

You are absolutely right. I'm ashamed to say I tried to cheat and incorporate my finished basement plan along with my foundation plan. In that case I'll take the extra 15 minutes to produce a separate foundation plan and use your method for extending footings. Pretty ingenious method you came up with there sir. Sweet and simple.

Hi Glen, your method is definitely more efficient since as soon as you add a footing on the small wall section/piece it matches up exactly to the right length, however, it messed up when I added a door that spanned across that little section of wall. I think I have to go back to regular wall with a slab across the length that I need. Which is, by the way, 12" past the end of the wall. Too bad, I was excited at first.

Thanks once again Scott! Definitely quicker than adding slabs every time. Wish Chief would just put a handle on the end of the footing so we could simply drag it past whatever length we need. Great video!

Here is a screenshot. The darker grey wall is a standard interior-6 with "foundation wall" checked, giving it a footing of 30" wide. The perpendicular wall is a standard Interior-4.

On site plans here I have to give sea level to excavation depth as measured from top of closest fire hydrant. But then again I'm in Montreal, French do things funny I guess...

Question for all you architects then (I'm a lowly builder), isn't the top of the footing the "zero" level by convention? Seems to be what I see on most plans up here in the extreme north east anyway. Or even top of slab for commercial slab on grade construction... Seems I've never seen a plan with main floor plywood as "0".

Hi, ever so generous and helpful core of experienced users. So, when I draw a 2x6 support wall with footing in a basement, the dotted footing line wraps around nicely at the ends. However, if I then connect a regular non-footing interior wall at the end at 90°, the new wall clips the footing flush with the end of the wall which has the footing. My work around is to add a slab footing at the end of this wall to extend it, but is there a better way? Am I missing something? (I can upload a pic, if necessary) Thanks in advance!

Thanks a million for the video!

Hi, is there a way to set the top of the footing as the "0" point for auto story pole dimension? (As opposed to main sub-floor being "0")