TeaTime

3 hours ago, basketballman said:

How about just a plain, old .PDF 

probably as easy to trace over as a .DWG ?

Not at all. Tracing a PDF is a little more useful than just printing it and using that as reference. DWG/DXF is literal CAD data that you can snap onto.

On 7/24/2023 at 12:16 PM, Chopsaw said:

DWG is preferred but chief can import DXF from sources other than AutoCad.  This will give you the ability to measure things that are not dimensioned and some snap points to work with but not much else unfortunately.   I often ask for a reference PDF when I am being sent a DWG file that can come in handy when there are issues.

1 minute ago, DBCooper said:

Seems to work for me.

He nice work actually trying it!!

I'll just be over here with my tea.

It's been a while but I feel I've encountered this too - I'm pretty sure it's a hard coded thing for some reason.

@Renerabbittyeah I was curious about Space vs Escape in two ways: why one vs the other, but also just why in general. I figure maybe he had his reasons, but I'd skip it, myself.

re: not needing Home/Del - yes, indeed as long as your text is selected, just start typing.

With that, Ctrl+A can be avoided too if your paranoid about something misfiring and selecting everything, Tab/Shift-Tab will change focus off and back to the Search field with everything selected.

2 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

I like the Home, Shift+End, Delete to work with just the text field - but it still doesn't select the text when in Layout.

Well that's darn strange. But hey at least you're not deleting everything anymore!

I wonder if it's something to do with Library layout? Or just something weird with the Library in general - I've found just now that after I moved my Filter Results panel, I can no longer Tab to it. Restart Chief recently??

1 hour ago, Joe_Carrick said:

This works perfectly when in a Plan View to find the desired folder or object.

But in Layout it selects everything on the Layout page and deletes everything

Ctrl+L is the same in Plan vs Layout so I can't imagine why it wouldn't work exactly the same. That's a pretty standard command string too, so it shouldn't be any different than just manually hitting those keys (unless there's some weird timing issue as a result of being on a Layout, somehow). Obviously if the Library is closed when running that, then naturally Ctrl+L x2 will open then close it then Ctrl+A/Del will nuke everything, but just simulating that process I'm not seeing any sign that the browser somehow isn't recognized as being already opened after switching to a Layout.

One suggestion I'd give though: Ctrl+A/Del has a pretty high danger potential, as you've demonstrated if the macro misfires that's pretty catastrophic. I'd replace Ctrl+A, Delete with Home, Shift+End, Delete - unless you've customized them, Home and End shouldn't do anything outside of a text field. So at LEAST when it fails, you don't lose anything, you just don't get a search.

Also out of curiosity why lead with Escape and not Spacebar?

1 hour ago, robdyck said:

When I create a custom toolbar using multiple Place Library Object tool buttons, can I re-order the arrangement of these buttons in that toolbar?

Absolutely, open up the Customize Toolbar dialog and just click n drag 'em. You can drag them within a toolbar or onto new toolbars, just be careful because what you CAN'T do is drag a button off one toolbar and off to make a new toolbar. If you drop it somewhere else it just removes the button entirely.

1 hour ago, robdyck said:

Can an insertion point be added to a cad block if the cad block is already in your library?

Sure can - right-click it in your User Library and choose Edit CAD block.

In the Detail page that opens, go to the CAD menu, CAD Blocks, Add Insertion Point.

17 minutes ago, SHCanada2 said:

Click on the walls, go to the structure tab and click default wall top height

under the Edit menu is a "reset to defaults" tool where you can force all walls on all floors to revert to their Default Wall Top.

Try not to adjust wall heights in 3D views, not only should it not be necessary but it's also a common cause of headache.

30 minutes ago, SHCanada2 said:

I created a room on the second storey for the front entry with open to below and walls set to invisible with short room height

Why not just delete the slab on Floor 1 and define a porch room with room dividers? Makes no sense making a room on Floor 2 when its really a floor 1 room space.

There's also a long Gable Line on floor 2 that needs to go. And an unnecessary Ceiling Plane in the garage...

1 minute ago, RobUSMC said:

Is there a way to have it ignore the countertop without deleting the top so it shows the 34.5" cabinet box height versus 36"? 

There's a Box Height schedule column that shows exactly that.

In the Cabinet specification, Front/Sides/Back panel, when you select a specific panel there's an "Appliance/Door/Drawer" option that allows you to edit that specific panel, and the hardware applied to it. You'll have to specify a pull from the Library but there's an Edit option there that allows you to change the size apart from the Default size.

Similar thing happens dimensioning things in Elevation views when it can't dimension something, it places Point markers instead.
What's weird though is that End to End knows how to attach to both points, but Point to Point doesn't? Seems odd.

What's weirder more is that even with an End to End, if you try to move the diamond handle to another spot on the skylight, it either doesn't work or it jumps to th middle.

On 7/21/2023 at 7:51 PM, SHCanada2 said:

Anyone know why?

Skylights changed significantly in X15. I'll be the engineers who revamped them might know  

26 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

What version of Chief are you using?

Title Bar says Pro 2024 - so technically you're on the wrong Forum but that doesn't matter, Import options are view dependent.

Open the menu in a Plan view.

Chief doesn't do fancy brick so good - its easy to overthink this sort of thing but assuming there's only a few of these on this house, it's probably easiest just to make a 3D Solid on one side and copy/reflect it.

It's hard to say without really being able to see it, but looking at the image, some of the wall materials have been painted, rather than using the wall's default materials. Walls especially can do some weird things if their materials are being specified outside of the wall's definition. I'd start with selecting those materials and choosing the Use Default Material option to let the wall sort out its own materials. And if that doesn't work, post the plan so we can see whats goin on

1 hour ago, WooleyP-GC said:

I am still getting used to all the layers and being able to turn them on and off.

FYI, in a broadly sense, when simply selecting an object the Active Layer Display Options side window will show you the layer the object it on (highlighted), and all other layers related to that object

so in this case just clicking on the image you'd have seen both the picture layer and the label checked to be displayed and you could easily uncheck the label layer there.

51 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

Not entirely true  haha 

Well okay, sure, but for 99% of (normal) people out there...

1 hour ago, Renerabbitt said:

Unlock your toolbars then edit

Shouldn't need to, they unlock automatically when the Customize Toolbars dialog is open

5 hours ago, RobUSMC said:

When I add a custom symbol icon using the Place Library Object tool onto the plan screen, then assign a symbol to it then drag it up onto a toolbar row,

But I think that's the issue, it sounds like you're planting them as new floating toolbars, then closing the Customize window in order to set it up, and then dragging those floating toolbars up. But that will just dock them next to eachother. instead, when adding them from the Customize dialog, just drop the icon directly onto the toolbar, don't drop it on the Plan view as a floating toolbar. You might even drop a few of them in a row if you know you need several.

The pain is you can only add toolbar butons from the Customize dialog, but you can only customize those buttons outside of that dialog. But that's purely because the Place Library Object buttons are special.

Uncheck Same Eave Heights in the Build Roof dialog.

@GeneDavis, just type @ and start typing the name, it should autofill as you go

59 minutes ago, jtcapa1 said:

Thoughts or comments?

Just don't bother calling Support if it doesn't work right, there's no way that's a supported OS configuration!

Honestly though I don't know that I'd expect it to do much for PBR--assuming you're referring to the Real Time Ray Tracing--since its entire purpose is to offload 3D rendering from the CPU onto the GPU. I don't know a lot about Atlas but it sounds like the point is sort of the same, to free up resources by disabling a bunch of 
"unnecessary" services. But that's only going to affect RAM and CPU usage. I would only assume you'd see a general performance increase simply on account of the PC running better in general.

That was sort of my take from what I read on Atlas in the first place, it seems to be intended for hardcore gamers who just want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of their system. Seems a bit excessive.

On 7/13/2023 at 3:02 PM, robdyck said:

I've used an orthographic overview underneath a plan view, with a customized layer set just for displaying certain information on top. You can send the overview to layout at your desired scale and then simply align the 2 views using the point-to-point move tool. One of the nice things about this method, is that if the camera is saved in your template plan, and if you have a layout template for this purpose, relinking the views is quick and simple.

so...

On 7/12/2023 at 4:02 PM, TeaTime said:

Something like this? https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01142/creating-an-image-for-use-in-a-brochure-flyer-or-website.html

28 minutes ago, DBCooper said:

You could also just use a pass-thru window to make the wall opening because windows have the "shape" page which would allow you more control.

I'd probably sooner just manually draw it with 3D Molding polyline - there's a good deal of measuring/trial and error to get Window shapes right - polyline will snap onto and automatically match the stair angle. The only thing you really gain from using a Window is it'll follow Default casing.

30 minutes ago, DBCooper said:

You would have to manually place the door panels inside the wall though since you can't have a door in a pass-thru.

You can Ctrl-drag a window onto a door, so if the door had no jamb/casing and the passthru defined the casing, that'll work.

3 minutes ago, robdyck said:

Chief works much faster if I delete them all.

Huh. Just to see if maybe it's a matter of my not using them as rigorously as you, I made a few and did a multiple copy array--woops, ended up with 336 of the things, and it sure slowed down Plan view (but so does having that many Callouts), but my 3D views loaded the same speed before and after, displayed or not. I wonder why you're seeing a performance hit.

9 minutes ago, robdyck said:

I take it you don't feel that the 3d aspect of text notes make Chief slow enough for you?

I haven't ever encountered any significant issue with them, no.

10 minutes ago, robdyck said:

I'd like Text Notes to completely lose their 3d function

I don't think I understand, if you don't want them in 3D just don't display them in 3D?