VisualDandD

Maybe for appraisal standards. But NOT for construction standards. I have been involved in building before I started designing. Almost 30 years now. The accepted construction standard in residential homes has always been outside of framed stud (where dimensions go to on plans, and stairs only on one level. Using the ANSI standards often yield a higher sqft anywhere from 100-200 sqft and even more on full brick homes. Stair config can have a large impact upon this. By using a non-industry standard, you are costing your clients and builders more money and making their homes more expensive to build. This is because a significant portion of the subcontractor base bills by sqft under roof. About 10 years ago, I started producing 2 sets of plans for each home. There is a "bank" set, with specific notation of sqft being calculated to ANSI standard (with a big watermark NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION on it). And then there is a "FIELD" set calculated to normal industry standards.

Open a 3d view of home. Make sure to turn OFF terrain so just the house and foundation is shown. Convert that into a symbol. Next, build your site model and then set your home into said model. Depending on the plan/foundation, sometimes I cut a hole in the terrain using a copy of the orignal home perimeter, but if not a basement, or you are only looking at views outside home, it should not matter.

Wow! Been away from the forum for a while. X15 looks pretty good. I have a current ssa and have not even take the time to download it. Might have to get around to it at some point. Love to see more of what can be done in it so will be following along this thread. I have been using TM for a while. Dont really consider myself a rendering person, but it comes along with some of the higher end jobs I do. Be interesting to see what can be done. Here are some examples or recent stuff I have done in TM. No post processing. These are the direct images out of TM. Video also renders at same quality. Need to catch up for sure!

I need to get around to installing x15 I keep saying when I get done with the 'next' project.. Just as a follow up. I rendered it (very quickly I might add...no sidewalks or drive and just dropped in a few bushes to break up the front). It actually rendered fine...

Looks like it might be fixed in X15. Thanks! Maybe I should get around to installing Thanks!

Forgot this work around. Set upper mulled trans unit to have sill. Un check apron and I created a very small cad block so sill is very small. (uncheck 'apron'). Hit 'clear' under the library profile and it will remove molding. Set lower mulled unit to 'lintel' and hit 'clear' to remove the molding. Looks pretty good, except in 3d the molding for the 'sill' extends to outer part of casing. OK for plan view but no good for 3d color. I made a 1/16 sq molding for sill but it will only let it go so small. For 3D I see 2 solutions. -Take casings off all windows and then add casing as molding polyline manually from ele view. -Use my lintel/sill trick and for the 3d make a very small solid that hides the sill and color match. Latter one is probably the fastest. Fin product elev and 3d with sill/lintel trick. Note: I did not do the color mask for the sill. Just showing how I got around it.

I had forgotten about this one, but anyone else have a fix? 4-mulled units. Two lower mulled first. Two upper (1/2 arch) mulled second. When you then mull the top and bottom together it makes the upper trans both full arch. Disclaimer. Current SSA but still working in 14 as I have never taken the time to upgrade to 15. Dont know if it is fixed there or not. But might be worth my time even if it just fixes that bug. Any body got any ideas? I The work around I have done in the past, is make single arch above and fudge my elev w/ cad line work to make it look like there are two frames. Pics of pre-mull (upper and lower) and post mull result below. Fixed in X15?

One of the methods I have come up with when dealing with finicky wall connections that I want to define intersections that Chief will now allow is to create a very thin wall (often just 1" thick). I can then draw some very intricate, even short return walls to intersect like I want to. The catch is I do a CAD fill box that only shows on my Floor Plan view. I set color of fill to wall color (gray in my case) and remove the line color. On the plan set it look perfect and 3d looks perfect. The thin wall bypasses a lot of min wall lengths that try to 'snap' walls to certain increments. Some may call it a 'work around' but pretty easy to do.

Here is my other work station.

Here is my messy office My son built my keyboards custom for me. (He had me pick the switches that I preferred...nice tactile ones).

Man your work is INCREDIBLE!!!! Just had to say that! Awesome job!

I am in 100% agreement with this. I would never take the time required fiddling with trying to get chief to draw all the roof perfectly in an automatic fashion. This becomes especially true with varying plate heights and offsets. It is quicker to just draw the roofs you want then it is to fiddle with the plan, make invisible walls trying to define 'rooms' to get the roofs to auto gen. I will use auto sometimes to just put a rough start on a a roof, but then I shut off and edit and draw roof planes as needed.

Glen I just used the square window (no casing in or out) and then made 3d solid overlays to 'hide' the part of window I did not want. I then made my sills out of solids and precast casing is a 3d molding poly line. You can see my solid selected in 2nd pic. Did same for interior. Does not look bad. I do my elev in 'line drawings' so I will have to delete the lines created by solids but this was the best way I could think to approach. Just was wondering if I was missing something?

Have current project that needed gothic arched corner free window. I could not figure out how to do normally within chief. Corner windows easy. Goes away as soon as you arch or shape. Am I missing anything? I used some 'work arounds' to do this. Also the keen eye will notice the wood insets cutting the brick veneer. Chief does not like to do this either. Even with material regions, it leaves some of the veneer material at sill and header. This was an easier work-around than window....