OldBarnDesign

6 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

No! You went to the other side?

 

seriously though, how is it?

 

I've worked on both platforms and I personally prefer PC. Biggest beef with Macs to me is the lack of upgradeability. They are great machines, don't get me wrong, but they are overpriced and I hate sinking 3K+ into a computer and being stuck with no way to upgrade without dropping another 3K in two years. With a PC, I can choose to add more memory, disk space, upgrade to the latest graphics card or CPU, at any interval I want. 

Concerning software, drivers, etc. Microsoft moved Office 365 to a yearly subscription, so you don't buy the software anymore. Same with Adobe... NVidia will tell you when new drivers come out and you can optionally choose to upgrade and it's streamlined. You can buy legit Windows licenses super cheap. It really isn't an issue. I built my own PC about 18 months ago, spent less than 2K, and it blows my wife's Macbook Pro (which she purchased shortly after I built the PC), out of the water even with the graphics card now being a generation old. 

To each their own though

Hey Chiefers...

Based on the forum searches, it looks like I'm not the only one with issues taming brick ledges. My issues are small issues with brick ledges in construction drawings, specifically the foundation plan.

In the 3D view below, you can see I have a brick pony wall sitting on a brick ledge that looks ok, ideally the brick ledge wouldn't cut into the door casing like that, but I can live with it. My issue is in the 2D.

I've noticed on a number of projects where you have brick crashing into another wall that doesn't have brick, the brick ledge doesn't always "close off" properly in 2D. Chief doesn't draw a little line to make it nice and neat and delineate. Sometimes it does it, sometimes not, and I haven't figured out the magic. The top circle and bottom circle in the 2D image below show this. In the 3rd image I have an example of where it works and it's in the same plan. The middle circle shows the brick ledge encroaching into the doorway on one side but not the other. Again, in 3D things are consistent on both sides. I've played around with the foundation around this area and can't get it to behave in 2D. I've tweaked walls and it appears the wall intersection tool doesn't let you adjust pony walls. Any hints on how I can fix this? I've perused the forums and watched several of the videos posted by some of y'all on brick ledges. Still no bueno.

Thanks!

Thanks Rob! 

Also, I am aware of this article now:

Troubleshooting Slowness in Chief Architect Plans

Being a pretty new Chief user, wanted to throw his out there to see how others manage this when it comes to creating renders for websites, proposals, etc.

Say you create a new stock plan and generate construction documents, and now you want to create some high-quality renderings to show off the plan on your website.

I tried using an Oculus Quest 2 with RT ray tracing with a NVidia 3070 GTX this summer. The frame rates were < 10 FPS, so it really wasn't up to par from an immersion standpoint. I've heard the new NVidia 4090 series GPUs have 4x the ray tracing performance compared to the 30 series. That is going to be your best bet I would imagine, but still would be pleasantly surprised if you get 30 FPS. I used to be in the real time graphics business about a decade ago, so I don't know what they offer these days above and beyond the gamer level hardware. NVidia used to offer Quadro cards that were 3-5K a pop (10 years ago) and had the ability to pair multiple cards together using SLI. Not sure that is the case today, but if you are worried about spending $2500, that solution isn't in your ballpark.

Thanks! I figured as much, and it make sense that if a user isn't keeping their SSA active they probably aren't doing enough business/using the software enough to turn things around quickly.

If you have an X14 .plan/.layout files, will an older version of Chief be able to open them? I presume there would be little to no compatibility here because it can be difficult to make older versions of the software future proof. The older version would have no knowledge of any new capabilities.

I'm asking because if I were to farm out additional work to somebody, I presume they would need to also be on X14 like I am. If they were on say, X12, there would be issues?

Cody

I saw some benchmark YT videos and the ray tracing is supposedly 4x the performance compared to the 30 series cards. If so, hot damn, could you actually model in a ray traced view?

9 hours ago, solver said:

 

Use the Input Point tool.

Awesome! Thanks!

Based on my limited experience thus far, I definitely see a slow down when using Live View on elevations, especially if I have a bunch of interior wall elevations. Updating only on demand helps tremendously.

I tried to figure out how to do this today. Here is what I did, though I bet there is a better way.

1) I created a pair of intersecting CAD lines, basically a cross/ + sign.

2) I used the transform tool to move the position of that cross to 0,0,0. You can specify an absolute position in the Transform dialog.

3) I used Edit Area->Edit All Floors and selected the whole plan.

4) I used the point to point move tool to move the plan. I used the center of the front door as Point A and the center of the cross as Point B.

5) Delete the cross or hide it on its own layer.

Seemed to work, but again, surely there is an easier way.

When I get this message it's usually because the roof plane baseline is not sitting on the outside of the wall. Make sure the Roof, Baselines layer is on in your plan view. To select the baseline, click on the roof plane, then hit the Tab key. Move the baseline so that it sits on the outside edge of the wall.

Cody

1 minute ago, solver said:

It's helpful, especially to others, to start a new Topic for questions. Keeps the forum cleaner, makes responding easier and makes information easier to find for those searching.

My bad, just chiming in on my limited personal experience with plot lines, similar to the OP. I was sneaky and snuck in my own question  I'll start a new thread next time. 

Thanks Eric! I will play with that setting as well. The mulled unit is nice in that is magically solves the problem. But if I recall, it also treats the entire group of windows as a single entity, kind of like a CAD block so if I need to make a change to one of the windows, I have to temporarily break up the mulled unit, make my change, then remake the mulled unit? No biggie I guess...

Thanks Robert for the quick reply! I have yet to learn about Material Regions so I'll check into that!

9 hours ago, robdyck said:

The amount of unwanted lines is entirely dependent on the model which is dependent on the user. 

For 99% of my elevation drawings, I don't have to clean up a single line; they are perfect.

All it takes is about 15 years of practice and about 20 versions of Chief and about 15 different computers! 

Damn, I'm gonna be here a while, I've only got 4 months under my belt! LOL. One of the places I struggle with "unwanted plot lines" is around window trim. So far the only way I know how to get all this trim to merge in between windows is to create mulled units everywhere. One of the problems with that is that the windows show up as a mulled unit in my window schedule, which isn't desirable. Is there a way to get the trim to "merge" so it looks correct in plot lines? Something in the window DBX settings perhaps? Perhaps there is an example of what to do in the sample plans. I need to look.

The other place is when there is some sort of construction/material issue, usually around roofs, rake walls, and floor platforms where walls get misaligned. They typically are hard to spot in Standard View and but stick out like a sore thumb in elevations. I guess it's a good debugging tool.

8 hours ago, DBCooper said:

The short answer is yes.  You just need to make sure that you choose electrical when you build the symbol.

 

Thanks Cooper!

9 hours ago, solver said:

 

Have you tried?

Hey Eric, yes I have, but I think Cooper's answer is the reason it didn't work. I just now getting to the point where I'm creating my own customer symbols.

Thanks!

Cody

Hey all,

Is it possible to create a new electrical light fixture symbol (like import something from Sketchup 3D Warehouse) and attribute it so that the Connect Electrical tool will allow you to hook a switch to it? I know you can use a dashed CAD line to make it look the same, just wondering if it's possible.

Also, any recommendations on finding better light fixtures? Most of the SAS bonus catalogs seem too European, ultra-modern/contemporary, just not our clients' style. Looking for stuff that leans more simple, rustic or farmhouse, not too eccentric.

Thanks!

Cody

10 hours ago, Scharp said:

I dont know how to do screen captures. I believe my post is very clear.  

In Windows you can press the PrintScn button and it will copy the screen to the clipboard. Then open Paint or any other image program and hit Ctrl-V.

As Solver said, all those fields are related so changing one number affects the others. Rough Ceiling is the height of the ceiling from the floor to the ceiling joists. Finished Ceiling should be slightly lower (5/8" by default) because it includes the drywall. If you change the rough ceiling height, it obviously affects the height of the drywall and vice versa. Hitting the Help button within the dialog will explain it.

We are Sketchup to Chief converts here... we moved to Chief in May and are still converting all our plans from SU to Chief. It's been an undertaking... primarily because we are having to learn Chief, establish templates, and rework the entire look and feel of our plans. The first plan took me 140+ hours. I'm in the middle of our second plan and will probably get it done in ~30 hours. I couldn't imagine there being an easy way without the Chief engineers coming up with an importer. As somebody mentioned, Sketchup geometry isn't "smart" geometry by default. Chief geometry, outside of the CAD primitives, are parametrically driven. You give it a set of parameters (e.g. wall thickness, height, length, etc) and Chief creates the geometry automatically. Sketchup has some smart components and people write Ruby scripts to make them smart, but it's a far cry from what Chief can do. Best of luck!

On 9/6/2022 at 3:03 PM, DBCooper said:

I have not done it myself but it looks like you can change the location of the folder in your preferences.

 

Have a look at this tech article:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-03090/moving-library-content-to-the-cloud-or-other-custom-location.html

 

Thanks Cooper,

This could work because we have a network drive we both can access.Do you know if moving the User Library will break existing plans that make use of those assets? I guess I could run an experiment to find out, 

On 9/7/2022 at 1:35 PM, M-Reed said:

Cody. In most multi-user offices using CAD, someone is designated as the CAD manager. His reason for being is to maintain and insure the safe keeping of all plan files, symbols, and similar. Its just too easy to foul these files up when users are working.  I would have a certain trusted person handle the distribution of  copies of the main backup library after hours when all workstations are off and all files are closed. 

I am your neighbor and used to drive through Granbury on a daily basis going from Fort Worth to Hamilton.  We are seriously looking at pontoon boats for the lake! - Maxie

Thanks Maxie, that CAD manager is me! LOL. Right now it's just a two person outfit, me and my wife. We are both Chief users, but I'm the tech guy - I have 20+ years of software development under my belt which puts me in charge of keeping all our projects under revision control and managing all the library assets. Just trying to figure out the best way to do it with Chief.

I also noticed your "Texas Hill Country" location! Where are you now? Wimberley? Buda? Fredericksberg? Hamilton is a cute small town, once home of "Brushy" Bill Roberts, who claimed to be Billy The Kid! My wife designed (she's the one with the actual architecture degrees) and we built our home on Lake Granbury. We live on one of the canals and are in the middle of building out lake wall/dock so we can get a boat.  We moved to the lake to enjoy the water, looking forward to enjoying it! 

On 9/6/2022 at 3:35 PM, Renerabbitt said:

Far less problematic to export and import on each machine. Overwriting issues will occur and you may lose symbols permanently.
There is an advanced method but I do not teach this any more as it requires an advanced user to maintain.
Just drop new symbols into a shared folder and people can just drag and drop, very simple

Thanks Rabbit,

Right now I'm exporting my entire library and sharing it with my wife. Are you advocating that I export one symbol at at time as new symbols are added, then added them to her User library individually? The problem with exporting my entire library is that when I import it on her computer, I have to launch Chief on her computer, then go delete the old library then import the new one. Not hard, just a manual process.