madcowscarnival

EDIT: I figured out you can place trees etc without requiring a terrain. Thanks all.

I've completed a builders house sketch into a plan. I generally only produce the structural/permitting requirements (no site plan, terrain, etc.). He has asked for a front elevation with stucco, stone, and trees. The materials I can handle easily enough. Is it possible to insert trees in elevation only? I selected one that is showing up, however its layer order is in front of roof, behind walls (odd looking). It doesn't appear I can manually change it to front or back layers. Is it possible to produce *only* a dressed up front elevation (no ortho) without properly setting up some manner of terrain on which to set plants/trees etc?

OP, just an FYI. There are print-to-image programs that will generate PNG, jpg or a number of other image files natively without needing to PDF print->screenshot->PNG/jpg->import. This should significantly cut down on CA file size and probably make operation more smooth depending on how many / how large PDF details you have in the program. I too find the dwg import feature squirrelly likely due to my various AutoCad settings in those drawings. I specifically use ImagePrinterPro.

The original post is old news now but... I've never not used CA over a server for file storage. At the office its unnoticeable, plenty of high-speed transfer. At home office I now connect via VPN to that server (rather than a mapped cloud drive). Its a little slower opening, and saving, but other than that no problem. I have had situations where I forget to close out a file one evening, VPN logs out automatically the next day, get back to the program that evening, log in again, and no issues with corruption etc.

They seem like a quality product. They were a supplier on a house project I worked on, but the Owner ultimately went with traditional suspended slab. I see a major advantage in built-in runs for infrastructure, insulation, dead loads. I also believe the mfg. has a lot (if not all) of their various details uploaded to www.caddetails.com. However, like many manufactured products a lot of people skip them in the end due to somewhat higher costs regardless of superiority over traditional construction.

Thank you all for the suggestions and thoughts.

SNestor, the plan, for what it's worth, is attached. I took your suggestion and placed the double wall at the laundry wall. The house orientation is such that the front of the house, with entry is into the dining room. The rear of the house will look out over the Owner's property and lake. 19-052 Ben Layout REV A.plan

I'm laying out a slab on grade house for a guy; something I rarely get in to. His idea is an entry to a laundry off the Living Room. I don't particularly like that, but only other option is through a utility (with their deep freeze, kind of like a large general utility) with an extra entrance through master bath. Any thoughts on what would be more preferred? Bottom line, I'll make it work for him, but I want him to not have regrets.

Is it possible to place an editable text box on sheet 0 of the layout? Currently I just copy and paste in place the text sheet by sheet (for instance a descriptor of that sheet, foundation, floor, second, etc.). My plan sets are small, and its not a big deal, but it would make things more convenient. Something like an attribute block in AutoCad. Also, is there a method to align the plan file placement between sheets. When I send a sheet to layout, the width around the actual drawing is usually much larger, and I don't need the detail/section arrows for elevations. So I manually trim the frame, then shift the drawing to about the center of the sheet. I can't think of any really good way to align between foundation, main, and second floor. Also, not important but searching these generic terms doesn't return good results.

A couple points for this for future searches. I don't think it looks like a PS model especially with them having purchased the CAD file. I work with two designers that set up their plans in that same method in MS. Title block and everything nothing in PS. I'm actually a fan of that method for structural analysis. That said, there are some cheaper options than AutoCAD for modification of DWG files, DesignCad (by TurboCad) is one. I think their full program is only $100 or so. One of the designers mentioned above uses this program. It is not for longtime AutoCad users, it is counter-intuitive to everything I've learned for the past 20 years. But for a new user or someone making a few minor changes is does import, modify, and output .dwg files for far less than the AutoDesk yearly subscription.

A client has a full house model drawn up in a paid version of Sketchup. They sent the (huge >133MB) file link and I successfully imported the object into CA. I can view exterior and somehow even set and manipulate a camera on the interior. However, is there any easier way to break up the object into floors or view by floor level in plan? I don't want to willy nilly start messing around because the size of the file (also nearly 1M surface count). Its not critical, I do have their PDF output that I can markup for structural, it would be nice to know if possible or not. Thanks all.

To add to Gawdzira above, AutoDesk TrueView is a freeware viewer that comes with a conversion program that can save backward through all ACad versions. I find it much more helpful than going back to someone to save back instead. It uses the current engine and produces the same output that Autocad would use to save backward.

@Renerabbitt, having grown up in a 3 story Queen Anne Victorian with a loft area 4th, I would hate to pay your utility bills.

Solver, thank you. Transform-Replicate is not a command I make much use of. That appears to be the ticket.

Is there a rotate function similar to point to point move? I have CAD lines from a site plan imported in and blocked together, I need to rotate the site plan block to align with the house, basically horizontal rather than the line's actual bearing. I can get close with the edit handles but would like to be more precise. Such as, if I place the corner of the setbacks at the corner of roof, can I rotate the block around that specific point? Or can I rotate the block from some bearing line and snap it to 0 degrees? In CAD this would be a reference then snap to ortho. I can't figure out how to phrase a question for this search.

Chopsaw, I rebooted the computer twice before my posts just to make sure. Hopefully its not a hardware error. Also updated my sig so you could see this machines specs. My work machine is about the best I can build with Win7. Glennw, The first issue was solved, but not sure why it happened. 2nd issue, that suggested setting is what I was looking for, thanks. Third issue is difficult to describe. When in layout, say I go to place text, edit my text and get out of that dialog box. When I'm finished, the cursor stays active with the "text" command, ready to place an additional box. Usually, at this point I'd hit escape a couple of times to cancel out of the text command, and any previous command, to get back to the point where the cursor will simply select objects for editing. The issue is when I hit escape a couple of times, it does not return the cursor to a default state, i.e. it remains ready to place additional text boxes. I have to manually select the "pointer" function on the toolbar to get the cursor back to an object select state. I think I'm going to chalk this up to hardware/memory issues as well as my primary machine performs as I "expect" it to during the described operations. Thanks for the help folks.Hopefully I can milk this machine along for a while. I realize its specs are far below the minimum for Chief, it just happens to function with it. Primarily I'm using this machine for old ACad and spreadsheets, which is pretty easy on it.

Several strange things happened with Chief today. I'm going to go over all of them, though several are already solved. 1. On opening chief, the only thing on the screen, even with a file open, is the 'File Menu'. No toolbars, shortcuts, etc. I've never used any custom toolbars. Fix was reset through default preferences. This led to... 2. After toolbar reset, everything was back and in the places I recognize. However, when starting a leader (for instance), picking a point brings up an array of grayed polar lines that I can move along. I've never had this function appear before, and don't need it. Also similar occurrence when moving a polyline edge, it brings up a grayed-out segmented line with stops at 1". I don't even know how to describe these issues to google to determine how to turn them off. 3. This is the problematic one. I opened a previous layout to resave and use with new file. Edit my Sheet '0' no problem. Go to sheet 1, where I like to place a text box in the title block for a sheet label. I sent the open plan to layout, no issues. However, I can not select the send item to bring up edit handles or pan function. My text box function is still active. Pressing escape did not go back to a default no function, text box still active. I did eventually figure out that I could manually select the pointer icon and go back to selecting normally but do not recall this ever having been the case before. Coming from AutoCad (old command line style) my finger is always poised at the ESC key and it always seemed pressing it would take me back through commands to default "nothing". The above described actions, does it sound like a computer error (primarily #1). This computer is older, running an insufficient graphics card, but until tonight, had functioned completely normally, just a little slower than my work machine. I'll appreciate any replies but may not see them until tomorrow later afternoon. Thanks folks.

Looks like a font issue, I don't know the specific solution, but my workaround would be to try and print or save as an image file, PNG or otherwise, then import that file into Chief. My issue a while back (not related to Chief) was a PDF would demonstrate correctly on screen, but printed with all the heading text in wingdings. Never corrected the issue, made the original designer print hard copies for me.

Kamingk, I had your same type of reservations when I first started posting on this forum, primarily as my plans are basic and more focused on structural information than the high-level finished plans you see by other users. It seems everyone here is very professional in their forum interactions. People who produce simple plans aren't going to take advanced plans and try to reproduce, people with advanced plans already know how to produce amazing data with Chief. Very often there is data/settings/events that are so much simpler to open the plan and quickly check rather than try to explain the process. I think you should give it a shot, the answers you receive will no doubt solve the problem. If it is a complex solution, you may even get a video made and posted back, a truly amazing and free resource with some of the most proficient minds using ChiefArchitect. EDIT: If you decide to post the plan, close out CA first, then upload.

That's it. Just to temper some expectations though: you already have a very fast machine, the m.2 drive is about 6X faster than a SATA SSD (3500 MB/s R/W to 530 MB/s), but in "real world" terms you probably won't notice it quite as much. Also, Carmel Hill, that will be a top shelf machine for years to come. I'd bump to 32GB RAM if your budget allows.

Yes, exactly that.* * - enthusiastic caveat here: you will have to clone your boot drive, but the software from Samsung is very straightforward.

That's a good board, I run its little brother. You can literally plug and play an m.2 into the native slot, use Samsungs clone software (with a Samsung drive like evo 970 or so) and have a native m.2 boot drive

And if you're not sure what your MOBO is, and really for anyone else interested in their hardware specs, I'd recommend CPU-Z from CPUid (www.cpuid.com). Lightweight system device reader.

Adam, what MOBO are you running? It surely supports PCIe. There are PCIe to m.2 adapter cards that "can" function as boot drives with nearly the same speed as a native m.2 slot. I put the quotes in there as some OS and MOBO cannot boot through PCIe. However, in my limited reading up on Windows 10, it seems that OS has drivers built-in to permit that type of booting.

OP, that original rig had plenty of specs, I doubt you'll notice a marked difference between the two particularly in Chief. Biggest update you might be able to do (if not in already) is upgrade to m.2 SSD. @Rich_Winsor, I too build my own rigs and keep Win7 primarily to keep using older programs. Just recently built a new one as I was beginning to have mobo or HDD errors. If you're planning on building another one get a board with an m.2 socket. It was difficult getting it going but it is almost ridiculous how quickly AutoCAD, Chief and QB will open.