VisualDandD

I run into as well. What I do is adjust one of a particular pitch and see what the baseline becomes. Then I copy baseline. Group select all simial pitches and change as one batch. BUT I agree. I use fascia top all the time primarily knowing I have room for my platform...etc.

A few years back I showed how to model a pool using terrain and curbs w/ custom profiles.

Quick screen cap showing the advantages (some) of the 3d mouse.

Use a 3d mouse and just do a screen cap record. Been using a 3d connection mouse since they first came out and could never go back! Not only that, your 3d editing capabilities expand greatly. Selecting objects in 3d is super easy and you can hold **** and move model and select additional thing. EG editing multiple windows on diff elevations at same time. Or using material painter improves GREATLY. 3d mouse in left and main mouse in right!

I have been involved in construction for approx 25 years in the south east US. The construction standard has always measure sqft as Chief does. Considering a significant amount of trades also charge by the sqft, putting ANSI square footage (or appraiser method) would not be a good thing. It is not cheating the trades since they have always measured by the 'construction' standard. Their pricing models have been based on this standard for years. It seems that this sqft standard is pretty much across the board in designing. Think of any plans online I have ever seen or built over the years. Also I have built quite a few commercial projects which all had calculated sqft as the building envelope to the outside of the structural envelope. (not outside of the veneer). Not for site area pages, but for the construction pages. It seems only the appraisal world uses this method (along with stairs on both levels). I only discovered this years back during the recovery when I was having a hard time getting projects to meet financing appraisals. The lenders just use the sqft on the plans. When building costs rose, and markets were down, having a project appraise for financing became tough. That is when I discovered the ANSI standard and started producing "Bank" sets of plans. Presenting the sqft tables in the standard that appraisers use makes the difference of a project getting financed or not at times. I have shared this info with builders who have been in the business for much longer than I and quite a few had no idea of the different standards.

Here is a link to doc if anyone is interested: https://krec.ky.gov/legal/Legal Forms Contracts/calc_sqfootage.pdf

Actually Chief does not calculate footage by the standard appraisers use. Yes, appraisers use outside of the envelope. (on a brick veneer, this can make a significant difference), But an even bigger one is appraisers count stairs on both levels. For this reason I prepare two sets of plans for clients. One for Field which had square footage tables in keeping with standard building practices. AND, one for the bank and appraisal. The appraisal set has sqft calculated per ANSI Z765 It is the standard for single family residential square footage calculations. Depending on a the plan, there can be as much as 200 sqft difference in the plan. At $80-200/sqft, that can be a $40,000 swing. You dont want to use the ANSI standard for the Field plans since so many subs charge by sqft and your const costs rise. I realized this significant difference about 10 years ago. I clearly label the bank set on the sqft table with a note saying "calculated per ANSIz756". Back in the day, I always wondered why appraisal sqft used to come in so much higher. I just used to think they were bad at measuring! But no....they use an entirely different standard.

Why is that unreasonable? I your company has enough work to demand 4 licenses, $8400 is not much at all. Considering just about everyone here has paid for and kept current licenses for years, I dont think you are going to find a lot of sympathies. My advice is this. If 8400 is too much, you are not running your business right. Find another avenue to pursue.

This is a very cool thing you can use to generate pretty much any combo you want. I have used it several times when I have to demonstrate alt bonds..etc. I normally dont have to get that detailed, but you certainly can with this. https://brick.com/masonry-designer

I havent been around here as much but need to drop in more often. From an semi-outside point of view, I am actually amazed at the generosity and patience shown by the regular guys who often help others on here. I dont think in any way asking for simple basic info is wrong in ANY way. The fact that you are even asking is part of the process of helping others. Truth is, sometimes I see questions and my first gut is to tell them to try the 'search' function first. Like....how do I mull a transom on a door? No offense, but we are supposed to be adults here. Many of us make our livings in part with using this software. I would think if you were going to invest few thousand dollars, you might at a minimum spend some time with the help videos, or at the most basic level, try a search of the forum. I can, however, appreciate the quicks of the program. Having been using it for a long time, I realize how easily I now fix the bugs that I had to spend HOURS searching for solutions. (Like the ghost fascia board running out to infinity ). Point being, is I learned from trying to fix them. FWIW, I consider myself pretty decent at finding ways to get things done in Chief.....BUT>>>>I am still blown away at some of the inventive ways you approach things. Much respect man. You are very talented.

Ahhh thanks! I have been so busy, I dont want to go through the set up I just only now did X11 a month ago since I had a slight lull.

Michael.....what version of software are you running by the way FWIW, totally agree with you. Just poking fun. Remember you are dealing with the internet and people love to leave negative feedback. Thanks for all those who take the time to help others on here. For years, the only 'help' with chief was reading the manual. Something everyone should try.

I am in the camp where I LOVE copy/paste in place. It is one of the reasons I have not gone to X12 since I have a programmed keypad with a hotkey just for that function. It is pretty amazing that I have NEVER encountered the problem of 'accidentally' using this function. If I ever forgot to drag the new object (got distracted in a moment) it is quite apparent in 3d since it messes up the trim and wont display right. What else do we need help 'protecting' ourselves from. Sometimes, I accidentally delete something.....maybe do away with delete I know some guys run with no 'undo' cache to speed up drawing,....not me

I use an old Logitech G13 programmable keypad. I have it set up as full 10 key with foot and inch symbols. (makes trying in ft in soooo much easier) I also have floor plan and roof mode. Floor plan and copy, paste, copy past in place, point to point. I have a roof plan the has join roof planes, roof break and cant remember what else. I use a gaming mouse that has prog buttons with open Dbx for selected item, or select next . I think I have shirt and ctrl on there but I usually use keyboard. There is a new(er) usb prog keypad out with little led screens on each button. Was thinking of trying it, Maybe when I start using x12. Just stuck in my current mode.

To answer the OP, I do topo all the time. Easiest is to get the surveyor to give me a DWG. I import w/ ft as scale. Select convert to polylines where possible (I think that is what it says). I then clean up crap I dont need, by deleting or moving to an alt layer set. Rotate as desired. Then I check each topo line by selecting it. If they are broken my test or labels, you have to connect them. I move them all to a layerset I have named for my topo info Then I create terrain perimeter and snap the corners to the survey (or run bigger if wanted) I convert my polylines to elevation data and start entering the data. Most of the time I reduce it to simple feet by dropping the 100's number. Sometimes I take my lowest point and call that "0", and then just go up by incriments of 2. Whatever strikes me as the easiest. ( I can always reference a benchmark later) For 3d views, I use sidewalks for prop lines and set back. I "paint" them red and or yellow as desired. Pretty simple. Here is a pretty nasty lake lot I modeled as an example.

Man the second one is brilliant! I used chief for cut/bal calcs on my own house. Albeit not as elegantly as you! I made my terrain model and the in 3d set the material of the terrain to be transparent. Then using a series of polyline solids (color coded red and blue), I sized my "cut" areas, and my "fill" areas, and then using the DBX I got volume of my solids. Then it was a simple table. Your second option just shows how many cool and interesting ways there are to get things done. LOVE IT!

I'll bought a nice tripod with a center handle. It takes 15-20 sec to scan and another 10 or so for it to process data and update your scan on ipad. After the initial scan, you can move the camera before it has processed the image. As soon as the new image pops up, hit scan again. Rinse and repeat. My scan was kind of haphazard and for for doing more accurate work, I would have thrown in more points. But I was just excited to run something thought it! My mom is visiting, and she sat at the island the whole time. My dog appears 3 or 4 times because she was following me around It really is pretty easy. For "as builts", if you are not worried about being in the pics, you can speed up the process a BUNCH since you dont have to go around a corner. I ducked out for most of them, but didnt bother for others. There are cheaper 360 cams (400-800) that are compatible w/ matterport hosting, but they are not accurate enough. They are also aprox 24mp vs 134mp (matterport pro) They totally rely on the visual stitching. The matterport has 6 lenses and 3 what I think are laser rangefinders. The "Pro" camera gets all the 3d measurement data whereas the cheaper cams dont give that info. The would probably work for simple realestate listing though. I am going to play with it a bit more and see what else I can learn. Will share for sure!

That was aprox 20 scans. It was very haphazard. I took the time later to read tips and tricks and I would do it better if It were for a job. I think it took me about 15min. This thing is pretty awesome. If I had a detailed model, you can pay for a full 3D file in OBJ format. You can get whatever dims you want off that. I checked a few sample dims (using the little tape measure tool on the viewer) and it is dead nuts! Certainly within the margin of error of measuring post drywall. Thanks! The design is a compromise between what my wife and I like. I like modern and she like more traditional. Here is a rendering I did early 2016 when the house was just a dream. This I where I believe in the power of what Chief can do. (but I did render movies in lumion ) Here is then Sept 2016 where I was tightening up my cab layouts. House is a courtyard home with pool in center. It is a super energy efficient home. I used a staggered stud 2x8 wall system I got an engineer to bless, and have full foam encapsulation. (Including attic). I hired an energy consultant to help me size my equipment. It is 8600 HSF and the cooling load for 95deg design temp down in North Carolina had us at 3.6 TOTAL tons cooling (on max day). I put in a crazy system...(might bore your guys but has variable speed indoor AND outdoor unit. The outdoor unit can bring itself down to about 1.4 ton by running slower, therefore optimizing run efficiency. It was a fun project for sure. Designing for one's self can be the most fun, but like every client, I wish I had more in the budget!!!! I HATE 'as builts'! I dont like doing remodels for that reason alone. For what I would have to charge to take the time to do it, I cant really justify. But this really changes all that. I actually agreed to do a remodel recently for a long time client. I cant wait to try this out!

Got my matterport today! Used it right out of box without reading any instructions. I did a quick scan of a small part of my house this morning. (Excuse the mess! ) This is really cool and I am going to start playing with all the features! Not really sure exactly what I am going to use it for, but I am sure I can find some way to justify House designed in chief too! Built it 2 years ago. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=jpTB21Nojnr&mls=1

Not sure if this is what you mean, but this was done in chief and then rendered in Lumion. Need to have Sketchup Pro. To be honest, it is essentially useless except for the general depiction of LARGE areas. The LIDAR used is often 2-3 meter resolution, meaning the info can be off 5-9 feet Not nearly accurate enough for true site mapping and benchmarking how a home will sit. This is a broad map based on GIS just used to show cove lot and sun study. This is an example of a detailed lot placement vid I made for a client. There are several layers used. One is gis based and then the detailed site model was done from a surveyor provided topo. As you can see there is a significant difference. With only a 12" error setting foundation ht, you can cost a builder $1000's. Pay a surveyor and get an accurate model done.

I use chief in a lot of 'outside' the box ways. I attached a portion of a design revision video. I use these types of screen cap annotations of revisions for most of my major revisions. It allows me to really walk the client through the process of how I came to the decisions to make the choices I do design wise. There was discussion elsewhere about designing in front of a client. I made the statement I NEVER do that. What I do however, is show them clearly how and why I do things specific to thier design goals. These vids are often 30-40 min, but I chopped this down so you can see what can be done in chief model wise. Everything was composed and brought together in chief (but using lumion to show it). The vid is an example of very tight site placement with the clients being concerned about seeing their neighbors on a tight lake lot. I think there were 4 total models compiled to make this. I still dont know what I will do with the matterport, but I am looking forward to figuring what I can do with it! Already thought about topo modeling of a cleared site. Costs me about $1000 to get an accurate topo made. I am thinking I could shoot cleared ground and use the OBJ and sections for site topo???...:-) Second one was a trick I posted a while back on how to get GIS data directly into chief. In a modeling program, you can dress it up nicely!

Sure. Was not until I checked the box for 'advanced options' on the symbol import that I got an error file that it could not find the ".mtl" file. Like a DAE, OBJ will most certainly associate textures with surfaces of a model. But it does it differently than DAE (which just makes a simple file folder). It creates a .MTL file of the same name. All it took was going though the files Matterport sent me to play with and sure enough, I found the .mtl file of the same name. Just create a file folder and put both the OBJ and MTL file in folder and do import. Set unit of measure to meters (took some trial and error but figured out that is how dimensions are referenced. Was more guesswork than anything and playing around. Chief actually does this process better than sketchup in my opinion. (I had been trying to play with conversions and plug-in's in sketchup). I cant wait to try on some more normal structures. I do almost zero remodeling, so I probably wont use it much, but I like to see what I can do with Chief. I have been playing with VR and Oculus and the matterport I can justify to work with some of my clients on marketing. 20+ years, and I still have not figured out what I really do for a living

Got it!!!!! Quick vid attached showing what you can pull into chief and how you can use it. Thanks guys!!! The dialogue helped a lot!

Correct. IF>>>IF you have associated them. When I do the OBJ import. I get the obj model in 3d. And then when I open plan materials, I have all the materials reverenced in the model, BUT there are no images with them. I can by all means one by one open each separate material and associated the correct image with it (same file name that I get from matterport). But that would take forever. Your solution of converting to a DAE was a GREAT idea....except it automatically purges referenced materials that done have actual images attached..... When you open the new DAE file, all those materials are now gone, leaving no association.

If I only could figure out where Chief stores it's data for textures in the root directory structure. I remember one time I found it when I was looking for an easy way to create normal maps. I dont have the time now to hunt every program folder, but if anyone know it, that would be great. With that option, I can just cut/past since file names are exactly the same....and BOOM, it would work in one shot!