PMMully

Nice plan!!! I have a somewhat similar issue so I will be watching this thread :-)

@solver As always your suggestions are solid. I am not exactly sure how I got the height right on the first drawing and could not figure it out anywhere else :-). I also did not realize your original video post had videos behind one another, so I missed the main show. I sort of got it now, but he is right, it can be a little bit "funny" but clearly super powerful. Thanks again, we can put this one to bed.

The one on the left is a test and illustrates that regardless of me tracing a straight line, it is winding up on the floor. I can see it in the plan view as an object, and I figured out that that it was actually under the cabinets, so I moved it out for illustrative purposes. The right shows a real kitchen I am in the middle of and notice the molding on the hood top. That one worked just fine, and it a 3d polyline. But for the life of me, I can not recreate what I did on the right into the left. I compared object properties, tried a molding polyline vs 3D, same result. @solverI was thinking about your tip here...

If I understand your question correctly,... the answer always seems to be "it depends" :-). Where I am, there are simply none other than the Florida Build Code (now 2020/V7). Every PE I work with have their own style, so I have created layout templates for each of them. I tried a generic layout, based on what I, as a builder thought was best from looking at many plans from many sources.... it did not work out so well. Fortunately, CA has the templating, user libraries, etc, so it is coming together. As the industry matures, I imagine the Building Information Model (BIM) will start to take hold. I understand it is big in Europe. Packages like Revit are sporting it. I have been doing a lot of kitchens lately and using the NKBA dimensions. However, nobody locally seems to care.... around here anyway.

I am using the Molding Polyline tool as you suggested to attach crown molding to some of the hood objects in the library that are not normal cabinets. When I place it in the plan, select the trim, etc., It seems that sometimes I can attach it to the edge, and others it just shows up on the floor. Not sure exactly what I did when I worked. In the plan, I am just tracing the edge, set the molding, is it tied to the actual library object maybe? I used the 1550 Style EE Hood 3 Panel. I went back to the plan where I got it to work, I actually used a 3D polyline, set the molding, etc. I used the Arched Raised Panel Mantle Range Hood. I was able to draw it along the edge, set the molding, and it worked just fine. I simply can not get it to do the same thing on the other plan. Everything winds up on the floor :-) I know this is something simple.

Have you seen the jumbo quartz that is now coming available? Pretty darn big. My local granite shops are starting to have 72"x 134-144" slabs now. Apparently, the no-seam message has been received. I have done one with a small set of drawers on either side as you describe, turned out great. I have several countertops that are also very long in these monster homes, can not get away from the seams. In that case, we use the best fabricator we can find. The one I use often has a $1.8M CNC table, driven off of digital templates, all robotic, water reclaim, very sophisticated, very cool. You have to really look to find his seams, and I know where they are! Thanks folks for all the inputs.

We used to do it that way at one time. But you wind up effectively sacrificing a cabinet where all the stubbing comes up (yes you can build out and hide it). If one is happy with that, so be it. The use of a plumbing (sanitary, supply) wall allows the plumbing to come through the cabinet back just like any other wall, and any cabinet that has power has no power strung through it. We do high-end custom homes and the market wants a clean look. It is very simple, clean, cheap, and adds stabilization and structure as these massive islands (60" by 120" or larger are not unusual). My drawing shows only 4 cabinets as an example, we would not likely employ this technique for such a small island. Most of these islands also have bar seating on one side as well for 4-6, with a 12 cabinet in front of them for storage. and supports if the overhand is gets large. Relying only on cabinetry for such large islands can be problematic based on the quality in our experience. Most importantly, it adds a few inches of freedom for the final setup as the layout of the plumbing and electrical can vary a small bit based on how they pulled the tapes from the form boards, if they accounted for foam insulation, etc. Like all construction, many ways to do it, It's just the way we do it. In actual practice, there is often an outlet on each side where the plumbing wall ends are, cased by two trim panels, which is why they basically use fillers to trim the gap. The trades and cabinet guys seem to like it also. Happy trades, happy builder, happy customer. @Alaskan_Sonyou nailed what I was looking for, thank you so very much. I should have suspected it to be configurable :-), like the schedules.

The picture is above. The plumbing wall is just a 2x6 wall, with or without drywall. Sometimes we drywall them for stiffness. It allows plumbing and or electrical to have a place to enter the island from below (i.e. slab, floor). From there, there is lots of room to plumb sinks and or install outlets, etc. Yes, sorry, MTO is Material Take Off. I am starting to dabble with the Components and material list master aspects to start to apply to cost information for the actual build. So I am trying to use whatever it is in CA that would approximate the real way it will actually be ordered and built. So take a cabinet for example. If I add a side panel, it could be $100 extra, etc., so it is fairly easy for cabinets. I saw a video on custom crown molding today that went into real detail on how to build it up for multi-layer crown. So I am looking at the tools under the materials list to see if I can offer a decent MTO/cost aspect of my service to some of the people I do business with. My first runs at this are "if you can really nail this, you get all my design business". So, in the past, I have used things like fake cabinets to close out the plumbing wall gaps, fillers, whatever it took to make it "look" right as the plan was regarded as conceptual only. But, the materials list does not reflect reality as I took a shortcut as I was learning. So my real question is, what would be the best CA tool to reflect the finishing of each end of the island as above so that I could most accurately provide the materials list for a kitchen that had an island with a very common center wall. I do not think it is a cabinet. So far, the material list for standard stuff like doors, flooring, etc, seems to be simple enough.

Most definitely a Chief question. From what I can tell, if you want to use the cost/MTO functions of Chief for kitchens/baths, you must be careful of using the Chief tools to make the designs look right, and what that turns out to be. In practice, they build a small baseplate and essentially use a filler. The installers do not use a cabinet to close up the ends. In practice, the plumbing walls are just like base cabinets on normal walls. I have a contractor that is considering using Chief as an MTO tool through the designs. Not sure about how accurate it could be.

What is the best way to address islands? I normally build in a plumbing/utility wall as most of them have a sink and or power. I have been using a half wall for that. What is the best way to close off the ends? Cabinet partition, filler? I close the top with a custom countertop. I have closed it with a cabinet that I just make small and remove the face, or leave the door face as a panel removing the knob - false door. In reality, the cabinet makers use a filler. Looking for the best way to solve this. Not sure why I have a double image here.

you can see where I added a 3D polyline.

I have a series of cabinets on the wall, can select molding, all good. I also have an "Arch Raised Mantle Range Hood" on the same wall (it is a copyrighted object by Jim Bishop), all good. But I need to add the same crown molding on the cabinet to the object. I can not seem to find a good way to do this. I imagine I could create a tiny cabinet above it and just have the molding show, or do customer polyline? I have seen examples in the videos of custom moldings. I really do not need to go to that extent. I know there is an easy way somewhere..... thanks in advance.

I have a kitchen image that is at ~760 passes and counting at about 5:20 hours. I have seen some example shots of the RT that look absolutely amazing. This is the public stuff on the CA sites, etc. Given it is an image at the end of the day, is there any way to capture the metadata that was in place at the time in the DBX settings that were used to generate the image? I have seen this in digital cameras where there are properties captured like exposure, etc. It would be nice to be able to learn what allowed those images to be generated in such a fashion, and when the number of passes starts hitting the point of diminishing returns. The reason I ask is like everything, it sure would be nice to get a feeling of what lighting/material properties are most beneficial as the @TheKitchenAbode points out. I take it these are the "base settings". What would be common changes to those settings? @Chrisb222 thanks for posting your process. When you say "Then adjust, repeat. If something's wrong...", what adjustments are you referring to? How does the image properties compare to external tools like Photoshop? I was also able to play with the image settings on the fly, and some of them had immediate and drastic results. I did find the defaults to be the best settings for this one drawing.

It is actually plan files, separate files, linked to one layout for as-built/proposed.

I just registered, thank you.

Hi all, two questions: 1) When I create window schedules on a detail page, I selected a plan/view, and it creates the schedule just fine. However, if I have more than one plan open, I was thinking it would take the last selected plan. I had to close the other plan to get it to work right. I was thinking my selection make the one plan "active". in this case, I had an as-built plan open and a proposed plan open, I wanted to generate the schedule from the proposed plan only. This is a minor nit but I figure there is a good trick out there. If I am in the proposed plan view, it generates the right schedule but puts it onto the view. 2) Given the scenario above, the proposed plan has a mixture of existing and new windows. When I create the schedule, it puts them all on the schedule. But what I really want is just the new windows. I looked at the schedule tool section of the reference doc but saw no answers. Custom schedule?

@solver Wow, a one-second fix. Yes, the camera was outside. It works the same for either cross-section view, once the camera is in the right place. The video threw me cause nothing was inside. Thanks, my friend!!!

@solver here is what I am seeing, I can not see the roof planes in the cross-section like the video. The video is on the right. The title of the window in the video says cross section on it.

@Joe_Carrick thanks for point that out, I got it working just fine. One last question, how do I get a cross-section elevation to show custom ceiling planes like in this video below? I looked at display settings for the cross-section but nothing is jumping out. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/309/drawing-vaulted-and-curved-ceilings.html?playlist=96

Hi all, I have seen the kitchen remodel video that shows how to do a custom ceiling (add a vault) and that all made sense. However, in the example, it seems to pick up from core roof build based on the exterior walls as the baseline. In some simple kitchens and baths, I have been just using interior walls only (no exterior walls) as the ceiling was never required. I imagine I could make a new wall type that is labeled exterior so a roof can be generated. I had one plan recent where I had to capture an existing vaulted ceiling on a kitchen, and I could not find a way to use a customer ceiling plane to make it work. I am not seeing the best practice out there just yet. Is the best practice to make exterior walls all the time if ceilings will be an issue.

I worked with another member here recently and we came up with two options: 1) Continue doing work as I am, saving PLAN files as revisions. The pros are the history, the cons are multiple files. 2) Go to the layer set approach as called out in the kitchen demo video. While I get it, it seems a bit weak for the more complex demo sets. Other ideas are welcome!

Update, the reason the heap clear command is NOT work was that I did not run the command prompt in Admin mode. There was no feedback when running the command in normal mode so I had no idea. The only reason I noted it was doing additional troubleshooting like the file checker, etc. it mentioned the admin mode. Actually, my video card does have the required memory. Thanks all!