HumbleChief

I also see that the product is being announced as a 3D Viewer product and a "Virtual Reality" viewer. Is it truly a virtual reality viewer and if so what VR device is it designed for? Occulus Rift? Google cardboard? Or is it a 3D walk through app without Virtual Reality features? If there isn't any true VR capabilities should it be advertised as such? Curious.

Looks interesting but, I can't see myself actually using it on a mobile device - ever. Is there a link I can send a client so they can view it on their large screen PC or MAC monitor? Or is it strictly a mobile app? If there's not a version for a PC or a MAC how and in what circumstances do you envision the app being useful? Should I bring my 5" phone to a client meeting? Should I review my plans on my 5" phone instead of my 32" monitor? Do I now need a new Chrome Book in order to view plans? Or an iPad? And who would bring an iPad to a client meeting to show a client their new home design? On an iPad? Really? I'm a bit confused as to the intent of the app and need a little clarification on the purpose of its design and how we might use it real world. Thanks.

Hope these help.

Two things you might try if you haven't already. One, set Chief as a program for custom 3D settings in NVidia control panel. I had severe slowdowns at one point and I emptied the windows temp file. Just selected everything and delete them all. There are 2 or 3 that won't delete and just hit skip. I do this every so often and it speeds things up.No idea why but it might help. Please keep us posted on any progress.

I still think the question is interesting, "Do Power Users Prevent Needed Changes In Chief?" but maybe moot as there's no way to really prevent the software engineers from changing/improving the software but have any of the engineers thought to themselves, "This may not be ideal, but the users have found a way to make it work so let's move on to other things." If so then the OP might have some validity. If not then the software fixes (some long overdue as Bryce points out) are prioritized in a way we'll never understand.

Newell, Check out your ceiling finish the room spec dbx. It's set to 35 5/8" thick. Try 1/2" drywall, that should help

I didn't see or read or see anyone suggesting we sit around complaining and/or whining but forums posts can do magic things sometimes. It's fine if someone disagrees with the sentiments expressed but why denigrate them? And I'm wondering if the OP might have been better put as a question such as, "Do Power Users Prevent Needed Changes In Chief." To Alan's point, I really wonder if the Chief folks dismiss a serious problem because we have found a way to work around it instead of addressing it. It's human nature in a way isn't it? Would love to know the actual effect on program changes.

All the comments above don't make this forum anything less than the best I've ever encountered but again the OP has a valid point IMO.

Same here and I know I'm not the brightest bulb but there's so much that can be improved and not by suggesting tedious incomprehensible techniques for the simplest tasks.

Personally I have stayed away from offering the "We can already do that (insert ridiculous amount of effort to accomplish simple task)" in the suggestions forum and I think the OP has a very valid point.

Thanks Rich nice work.

Thanks for the vid Scott, I posted a suggestion in the suggestions forum. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/9588-would-like-additional-bottom-offset-setting-dbx-in-window-dbx/

Ah yes the old dog ear arch looks good but needs to be rotated 180 degrees...hmmm.

Well you know how thick I can be and I just didn't see the same window shape as the OP was looking for in that post #11. I'll wait for the video to cook and thanks as always for your help. BTW Video says This video is a duplicate of a previously uploaded video.

Symbols work great and their heights can be individually adjusted when importing into a 3D terrain so you can adjust heights relative to the terrain then.

jimmy, do you need 3D? It gets really simple if you don't, and won't put any strain on your computer..

Good advice David but I'd like to mention one more time that an option is to not do any 3D work in regards to the terrain and houses, unless your agreement requires that 3D. That way you can draw your 2 house plans wherever/however you choose, create floor plans wherever/however you choose, then just note the terrain/siteplan with 2D CAD as far as house locations, floor heights etc. Sometimes I think that just because Chief is a 3D program that everything has to be done in 3D but it really doesn't.

Great way to start any project like this is with the question you are asking IMO. If it were me, and not having the advantage of time to think it all the way through, I think I would have a Terrain Anno Set (or Layer Set) that had the terrain data shown and built (perhaps locked if you wanted to preserve it) and reading javtom's suggestion above set to NOT rebuild then start building your houses right in that same plan file. Check for floor heights versus terrain heights, throw in an elevation region or 2 for your flat areas around the house (obviously have to unlock terrain data to do so.) You can always use another Anno/Layer Set to show what you need for floor plans, site plan etc. but if you build right on the terrain data you'll have a model that actually works on the terrain, or at least looks like it works. Some of this assumes you will be trying to produce a 3D model of the floor plans on the terrain. If not then you could start a separate floor plan for the houses (or even each house) and simply draw in their locations with CAD lines on the terrain map, no need to get all fancy with elevation regions etc..

Thanks Scott, I was sorta thinking about this thread. One poster showed he could do it, but not how. Then another poster claimed it was easy peasy with still no clues as to how. I assume the OP found a way to get it done, but I for one would like to learn how, if possible. Thanks again.

I'm curious, when did the spirit of this forum change from, "Here's what I did to help your situation and here's how I did it, hope that helps you get your plan finished and out the door" to "Look I can do it, Oh yeah, me too, hope you can guess how, because I'm not going to tell you?"

Chief is probably being very conservative with their guidelines to prevent any data loss etc. but having typed that, I've never had a problem migrating older templates and haven't heard of any problems but I think Graeme's advice is probably the best, every couple or 3 years one should probably create a new template(s) from Chief's installed templates. Personally I've never done that but I can be pretty lazy sometimes.

In my personal opinion without a test done with 2 different processor setups on a single model with all materials, resolutions etc. exactly the same it's impossible to guess where the RayTrace advantage line gets drawn. Will a super fast overclocked 8 core i7, beat 2 fairly slow 6 core (24 effective core) Xeons in a RayTrace test? So hard to know. I have 2 Xeons, only because the builder had 2 used, low power and inexpensive Xeon chips laying around and I told him what I wanted (which was RayTrace speed) when he ran tests they moved more gig-flops (or some other mysterious computer measure) than the fastest i7 available at the time. They're still pretty darn fast and hard to match with an i7 unless you buy the most expensive one out there and overclock it, but it's doable today. For me if I could exceed the dual Xeon's performance with a single i7 by enough to justify a new rig, I'd do it (and will when the performance numbers work) because the dual CPU system is a bit of a pain. HUGE case, very complex boot process that doesn't always complete, dual coolers, dual everything and when I bought my system there was only one mother board that would overclock the Xeons which made these slower Xeons come alive. Not really answering your question but I don't think there's a simple yes or no answer to which set up is faster for RT's.

Nice

The thing I like about the CAD method is the ability to move the foot print in relation to the Setback and PL CAD lines instead of moving the setback and PL CAD lines in relation to the floor plan. I find the latter a bit awkward.