ddaigle

Hi Derek, I'm proficient with Chief, and live just an hour North of you. You can see some of my portfolio on my website: www.hg3d.ca You can contact me at dru@daigleng.com Cheers, Dru

Do we have to do this every time we open a perspective overview? Is there a way that we can make it default, and avoid the extra step? When taking exterior shots, I prefer the crop mode. Thanks, Dru

Hi There, I've been using Chief products for almost 9 years now. I'm a freelancer working from home and provide affordable services to design specialists, home builders, and home owners throughout North America. I'm currently looking to take on some extra projects. You can have a look at my portfolio on my website at: www.hg3d.ca I would be happy to answer any questions you have. Kindly Dru Daigle Designer | HG3D dru@daigleng.com

chkdsk clean ... no malware ... will have to get a can of air ... hopefully that's the culprit. Thx again Doug.

Doug ... Thanks for the link to Memtest. I did try this diagnostic (good exercise). Memory is fine. Thought I would try reinstalling X6 to see if anything magical would happen. Well ... not quite magical, but interesting results. Before my reinstall, my raytrace experiences were getting progressively worse, to the point where every file I tried to raytrace would fail after the 2nd or 3rd pass (interior or exterior .. didn't matter). After my reinstall, I tested the same files, and was able to raytrace most of them without incident (I only ran to 10 passes for the test). One of my files crapped out, not the first time ... but the second time I tried to raytrace it. I tried a third time, and had no incident. Except for Outlook, I didn't have any other applications open at the time, so nothing is competing with Chief. I don't get it. I have a bad feeling, that after a few days, I will start to see more occurrences of failures again ... but time will tell. Still have a ticket open with Support ... will send an update if any progress is made.

Just wanted to update those following this thread ... I thought the windows updates were the answer ... BUT ... they were not. I've submitted a ticket with support. X6 raytrace has been getting progressively worse on my machine. It is now failing on every raytrace of every file (whether I'm using photon mapping or not). Sometimes it fails ... and other times, I get the blue screen of death. I went back to X5 and tried raytracing there without issue. I know it's not file specific, as I tried raytracing the same file in X6 (as I did in X5), and failed. I more than meet the hardware requirements for this software ...so am stumped ... and frustrated, because I will have to go back to X5 and work there until we can figure out this problem. Don't really want to rebuild my machine ... Pain in the butt!!

I ran all of my windows updates .. and have great improvement. For the plan I attached in my previous post, I am now able to run my raytrace (without caustics turned on) without the raytrace stopping, or my computer crashing. Caustics on ... still causes a problem for this file ... but not my other files. Am wondering if it's because there are too many windows?

That's interesting Ian. I just looked ... I have 64 optional updates that have not been installed! ... Do you know which 4 you installed so that I don't have to install all 64? That would be most helpful.

Sorry folks ... I used to get emails letting me know when I got a message from Chief. I guess I need to set this up again for the new forum. I'll answer your questions in the order given: dhsall - I didn't turn off photon mapping, but I did turn off caustics. I'm needing the raytrace to be pretty high quality, as it is being overlayed on a photo for a building facade make-over proposal. I only have sun, no other lights. Not sure why my plan didn't get posted. Maybe I have to zip it up first ... I'll try again. KilgoreTrout - I'm using 64 bit. Dan - Sorry for my vague terminology. I was tired when I posted this! Most of the time just the raytrace just stops with an error, but I'm able to modify the image, and export it. There a few times that my whole pc crashed (blue screen), and once I rebooted, the file was corrupt... I had to revert to a back-up. I may have been taxing the system when this happened (i.e. still using Chief while the raytrace was operating). I can't recall. However ... If I turn caustics on, the system hangs at about 91 percent in the first pass. Come to think of it ... it might be the caustics that give me the blue screen of death. I can try again. I'm attaching my error messages, and my plan (again). apt 3.zip

On the subject of crashes ... X6 has been crashing on me all day during a raytrace. I've modelled a 10 storey apartment building. I'm trying to generate an exterior raytrace. I'm using photon mapping, but had to turn off caustics, as with that turned on, I can't even get past the first iteration. I haven't done a lot of high-rise buildings, so I'm not sure if there is a limit with floor sizes, or if it's something with X6. My raytrace crashes after a few iterations. Sometimes after 3 or 4 passes ... I can't get beyond 7 passes. A few times, my whole pc crashed when this happened, and I had to reboot. Has anyone else had this problem either with X6 ... or with raytracing multiple floor buildings with lots of windows? I've posted my plan. Thanks, Dru