ValleyGuy

9 minutes ago, DefinedDesign said:

Thank you! These videos are fantastic and have truly enlightened me on the time-saving potential. Adding it straight to my Christmas wishlist! Your dedication and time spent teaching us how to master the space mouse on a Mac is sincerely appreciated. Your accent even brings a touch of home to mind; growing up in Maine, it's like a slice of my childhood with Anne of Green Gables nostalgia. Fond memories of New England and Nova Scotia flood back. Thanks once more!

You are quite welcome Lisa, I'm glad that I could help while also sparking a memory of yesteryears.

I'm not exactly sure how the MacBook is with the 3D mouse as I have an iMac, but I suspect that it should work the same. I wonder if the MacBook with additional exterior monitors may be an issue as I've heard of a couple of people having tool bar issues - both on MacBooks.

Good luck with it, and hopefully Christmas comes early for you.

6 hours ago, myrtsbnye said:

Is there a way to do a house foundation that is a slab-on-grade with a frost wall? I've attached a section I grabbed online that shows what the client wants.

There is probably an easy way to layout that foundation but I haven't figured it out yet.

Anyway, I appreciate any help.

Thanks for your time

We do these all the time here, and I struggled with this for quite a while too. This works for me, you might want to tinker with it to get your appropriate thicknesses, heights, etc to fit your needs.

10 minutes ago, mthd97 said:

Cool videos, you really have programmed that device to the max to work with Chief.

Thanks, it works well. I'm very happy with it, well worth the investment and the effort to get it up and running.

On 4/21/2024 at 9:27 AM, Michael_Gia said:

Is that all of NS?

 

Pretty much 2/3 of the county.... I moved from Edmonton and I think that there are more people in city of Edmonton than this whole province lol

@DefinedDesign  @Michael_Gia  I think I managed a couple of videos, here are the links.  I'm sure there are all kinds of people using 3D mice on CA with all kinds of different techniques and different skill levels. I've only had it a few months now and here are some of the things that I have done with it. Maybe others could add some tips or ideas for you as well.

The set up of the mouse video https://youtu.be/iDKokC_19N4

The In-Use Demo video   https://youtu.be/R_HcESgGvXM

@DefinedDesign @Michael_Gia @mthd97hey everyone, thanks for your enthusiasm and confidence with my skills to make a video. I never made one yet, but it looks pretty straight forward and easy on YouTube lol. I'll try and make one tomorrow. Today is a milestone birthday for my wife and I have my hands full, ...and all the counter tops, sinks, fridge, the neighbour's fridge...  Hats off to all those comfortable in the kitchen. I draw and have built houses, apartments, even an airport hanger... but cooking finger foods and baking snacks for 75 guests .... food is an evil necessity!!  Who would have thought that the most dangerous thing in the kitchen was a vegetable? ... I guess peppers leave a residue even after you wash your hands... lesson learned = Don't touch your eyes!

19 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

I would gladly give up the ability to customize Toolbars if it meant the out of the box Toolbars would just stay put and not go all wonky on me. 

What kind of wonky are you experiencing? 

The only tool bar issue that I have seen is the floating toolbar stacks tools more vertical than the preferred horizontal once in a while. (I moved the 'selected item' tool bar from the bottom of the screen to be floating part way up the screen)

2 hours ago, robdyck said:

Not crude at all! Your Typar texture and Delta MS textures are better than mine!

Thanks, both of those were made from pics off the good old internet and use of CA's help files / videos to make a material and size it. CA is pretty good as I have really no idea how use all the mapping and bumping features whatsoever, and this iMac keeps me out of all the fancy rendering.

2 hours ago, robdyck said:

I use Chief Architect. Almost all my details are 3d. 

 

These are great, are they stand alone mock-ups only or have you got a system to make them active on the house plan cameras?

I've got 3D solids saved in the library along with some materials to paste on for mockups but I haven't figured out how to peel back wall layers on an individual basis when it is an active type situation, other than use a wall material region or use the delete surface tool.

20 hours ago, DIYJon said:

 

Is this possible with CA?  If not, what software are these guys using to create these images?

 

I achieved a similar crude example for a wall using the wall material region tool - cut to the parent layer. Just made a few different regions adding one more material layer for each region. I never tried doing it for the roof before. It would be a great idea for the "suggestions" though.

1 hour ago, Astrigal said:

Can you fellas think of any creative way to get a tray ceiling into a floor truss?  I do this all the time with great rooms. 

(now where's the cross my fingers emoji?)

We do it around here once in a while too. Make a room divider wall directly above the tray ceiling room below and adjust the floor & ceiling measurements. Then build three individual floor joists (and line them up), install a crown mldg to hide the gap. The cross section looks almost like the real thing.

Thanks guys.

I have used the import tools before, which is kind of like moving the new defaults (walls, layer sets, SPV's,...) into the old plan / version. 

I was looking for more direction on some of the other time consuming work items like: items on two different layer set lines (sono tubes are now on 'front' or 'rear'). Fill pattern scale, line wt & transparency changes that need updating (drainage stone fill for the room 'sub-soil' is different) . I think the combination of the copy and paste as well as the style palette pasting will help greatly. I haven't really spent much time with style palettes and after looking at your video, it may handle a large portion of what I am looking for.

Like you said, it really is just a matter of updating / changing all the items in the plan as req'd, and right now it is a lot. I suspect that this work will become less involved as the changing of things slows down and the plan items become more consistent. Growing pains, mine just happened to start a little later in life lol.

1 hour ago, EmmaCox said:

@ValleyGuyThanks, I found those settings and changed. Sorry to ask, but how do I now change the header to be on a seperate layer?

There are a couple of ways, 1) Select the header from the plan view. With the headers toggled on, select the window, then tab to get to the header (bottom left corner will say what you have selected... window, wall, header...). Open it up and you will see the 'Framing Specification (Header)' as shown in my first post above. 2) choose the wall and open the wall framing, choose the header and open it up.

14 minutes ago, EmmaCox said:

 

2) @ValleyGuy Thank you for the detailed screenshot, I don't use chief for the material take-offs so this won't be an issue. I tried to follow your steps but my settings were different with PC vs mac so I couldn't find the framing specifcation for header only, is this under framing defaults (attached)?

 

I feel the easiest way might be to just turn off the window layer and draw a couple lines on the outside / inside layer of the wall. 

In the window defaults, under framing. The actual individual window framing header will then need to be placed on the new layer set line, and this will need to be selected individually in plan view once the wall is framed.

I am looking for a system to start using past projects that I can access the information from the working .plan file to efficiently transition to my current version of CA. I have been drawing (using CA Premier) for a long enough time now that I have customers asking if I have certain types of plans (bungalows, two story, duplex, garages,...) that they can look at. Basically, what's in my portfolio that they might be able to use / adapt easily. Whether inspiration or just a place to begin, this part is easily enough satisfied by saved PDF files sorted into 'types' saved on my computer. However, actually using the .plan file information is where I struggle.  I have made a lot of changes in the last three years since starting in X12, my template now is light years from the OOB starting place. I like the changes that I have in place with my current X15 template and do not want to reuse the older plan templates. I can open an older version of CA and carry on with the old line weights, colours, layer sets, SPV's ....(unwanted defaults) without missing a beat. Or I can open an older version plan in the current version of CA and have all kinds of issues with deleted / changed things. As even my wall definitions have changed, copy and paste / importing from the old to the new is such a pain. 

I haven't tried using a CAD pic of an old plan view, then use make walls in a current template yet, would this be a viable option? Has anyone done this?

What does everyone else do to reuse old plans while taking advantage of the current template?

Here is one that I just stumbled onto that may be of interest to all of us that try and hide markers and CAD lines by making them small or colour matched - you know, the ones that we put in the elevation story pole. Just put them on a layer that you toggle off and the dimension will stay. So make them big and bold and then make them disappear. No more trying to grab an itty bitty line to adjust it a 1/16". 

5 minutes ago, ValleyGuy said:

Brett is definitely on the right track for the white windows showing in a floor plan. It isn't that hard to get the window look that you are after while maintaining a dynamic plan should you move a window. Two things that may be of concern: the white rectangle is the header and the header is larger than the actual window size. Secondly, this method has a solid wall width header size that may mess with the material take off, if you use that feature.

This should get you close

 

.

 

 

I forgot a couple of points: 

I turned the window layer line colour to white - this removed the glazing. (I suspect that you may already have a specific SPV and layer set for this particular drawing.)

I believe that I had to adjust the view draw order of the header to make sure that it was on top. 

On 4/5/2024 at 3:23 PM, EmmaCox said:

Is there a way to show the windows on plan view with no glazing line in the middle? Just wanting a rectangle / space in the wall to depict a window opening, attached example. 

 

I could convert the file to CAD lines and erase them, or show white rectangles over each window to cover the glazing lines, but wasn't sure if there was something in the settings to make it easier. 

 

I know this is an odd request, but this is how we show the drawings on our website as presentation drawings. They usually do them in CAD but want me to try and replicate it in chief so we can do it this way moving forward. 

 

Thanks in advance! 

Brett is definitely on the right track for the white windows showing in a floor plan. It isn't that hard to get the window look that you are after while maintaining a dynamic plan should you move a window. Two things that may be of concern: the white rectangle is the header and the header is larger than the actual window size. Secondly, this method has a solid wall width header size that may mess with the material take off, if you use that feature.

This should get you close

.

3 hours ago, Gawdzira said:

It is generally a lot easier in the long run to rotate the plat out of North and keep the plan on the orthogonal directions. Off angle plans are a world of pain.

I agree 100%, I had to manage a build from of a set of angled plans once and it seemed that every guy reading the plans complained about it.  There weren't that many errors, but I believe some of the mistakes were made because guys got confused in the verbal communication describing the plans. One wouldn't think that little change would have such an effect on the job site, but it did. Aside from the first few guys at the start of the build, everybody else has more interest in the direction to the coffee shop than the position of the house.

If you haven't completed the plans yet, or need revisions, you also might end up saying a few bad words at your computer while dealing with off angles...

I'm not familiar with HD but this gives me flashbacks to CA X13 that had issues dealing with standard rendering.... even the library item pictures looked poor. CA worked out the issues to have much improved pics in the next update, but until then they suggested turning off shadows and putting the ambient occlusion to 0. This did seem to help. You may also try to view your cabinets with the sun shining on the front surface instead of the tops in your doll house views. As you know, not all whites are created equal. I have had good luck in standard view with "white" being the brightest and least gray. As DB suggested, using the light tool to add in a light sources really makes a difference - gives the lumens without the fixture.

After a couple of months with this new mouse, there are a few things that are not as they first seemed. As stated above, the joystick glitching has been solved. And now, thanks to Rene Rabbitt, the common library items that I thought were not possible to have in the radial dials, are indeed possible. I haven't found anything in my library yet that couldn't be attached to the Space Mouse. This ballooned up the number of items at my finger tips and drastically reduced the number of trips that I need to take to the library. It just gets better and better. I've attached a pic showing how adding library items is done.

Another important item that I would like to suggest for anyone getting started with one of these 3D mice, is to come up with some sort of system to stay organized. I have made many changes over the past couple of months and I suspect a little more fine tuning or adding will be sure to follow (hopefully some new fantastic tools in X16 will be added). Having said that, I wasted quite a bit of time in confusion before I came up with a way to keep the tools 'mapped' out to strategize grouping. I found that certain buttons are easier to use because of their physical location and then proceeded to redefine the tools associated with the different buttons. It is much easier now that I have a paper copy to reference while I reprogram the mouse. The paper page also is a great reference pinned to the wall beside my screen if I need to quickly check it. I've included a picture of how I've been tracking my tools per button on paper. You will create your own system and find your own groove I'm sure. 

If you haven't used one of these Space Mice yet, I highly recommend it. I'm in no way very tech savvy at all, so I'm sure that most everyone that can figure out CA will for sure be able to get a handle on this mouse. I'm not going to downplay the effort that it takes to get tools and items selected, labeled or hot keyed, grouped and organized, and then all programmed in, but it doesn't compare to the amount of effort to get your default settings, templates, layer sets, library, hot keys and everything else that you might spend time setting up and maintaining in CA. It is worth the effort and I will confirm that this 3D mouse does make things flow a lot more easily and production does increase significantly. 

7 hours ago, westvale said:

Hello, can someone please tell me how to deselect an item from a group selection? I've tried shift clicking, command clicking, control clicking, option clicking... nothing works. I'm a mac user. Thanks!

I have a Mac and I just group select (box with cursor, or hold shift and individual click items) let go of all buttons, hold command down and click on the item to deselect. Not sure if there is a default somewhere or not, it just works.

13 hours ago, agriffiths said:

Hey everyone! I have tried all my settings but I don't seem to be creating what I want.

Is there a way to create something like this in CA? Its just a plain 2d floorplan with furniture but in colour.

 

 

This might be a little easier...

Take the screen shot (this is standard camera view), it is really important to make sure the picture is square (use the cross hairs against a wall) and turn off all the items that you do not want to see again like walls, terrain, footings, etc. Import the picture directly on your working plan. Use the resize button to make the picture building is the same width as your plan (the whole thing will resize). Use the snap point to point button to place the picture directly over top your plan. Make a separate layer set with the few items you want to see with desired line colours / weights. You may need to adjust the view draw order (button also found on the same tool bar) to see the plan through the picture box, mine worked properly the first time. Send to layout as a picture.

12 hours ago, agriffiths said:

Hey everyone! I have tried all my settings but I don't seem to be creating what I want.

Is there a way to create something like this in CA? Its just a plain 2d floorplan with furniture but in colour.

 

 

Orthographic floor view - Top View camera position. Turn off walls. Take a screen shot. Import the picture back into a CAD sheet in CA. Make CAD lines for "Doors Swings" and white CAD boxes for the windows - place as needed. This will get you close. 1st pic is vector view, the second is water colour/color ... whichever team you want to choose lol.

Note: your floor under the walls will show through when the walls are turned off. This example is from a house on a concrete slab and shows gray. OSB or whatever your sub-floor will show through on a wood floor system in which you may want to adjust the sub floor colour to suit your needs. Maybe someone won't want gray but may prefer grey.....

13 hours ago, cchs14 said:

CAN SOMEONE HELP ME FIX THESE GAPS PLEASE AND THANKS IN ADVANCE...

For the house entry doors: I check the add a sill box and place the door up 1" to show the threshold and cover the flooring.

For the garage: I set my room floor slab material to 'No Material' and then manually draw in a concrete slab at the regular thickness (which shows correctly in cross sections). This allows for proper sizing and shapes of the slab, ie: the slab floor can then sit on top of the foundation wall door cutouts, and properly extend to the outside edge of the foundation wall - as it happens in the real world. This allows a lot more control to cover up any slab to wall gaps seen in 3D caused by a pony wall with a thicker lower wall than upper - like the inside foam on an ICF foundation or a floor check with a foam thermal break. You also don't see the foundation wall anymore if you put the door up. If need be, I lower the OH door by 1/16" and it will hide the thin white sill that always seems to be there. The driveway height doesn't have to be so exact as terrain elevations can be a chore as well at times. 

On a side note, as this isn't as per your example, when both the house and garage are on a slab, code here requires a min 2" lower garage slab elevation to house slab. An easy way to achieve this (without the frustration of trying to get a handle on all the settings on the different levels) is to simply make the 'No Material' 2" thicker than your manually drawn slab and set the top of slab at minus 2" from absolute . IE: Top of house slab is absolute (0"), set garage floor 'No Material' to 6", draw a 4" slab in the garage and set the top to -2" from absolute. And as a bonus, no matter how far down you put the slab, you can still have baseboards at the wood framed wall bottom using the normal room defaults.

Door sills are far from perfect, but setting your door heights only has to be preset once, same with the 'No Material' garage floor default, so the only additional step you have to do for each new plan is draw the garage slab.