postandbeam

So to narrow it down, am I correct with any of these statements (nothing to do with labels)?: -Chief will not dimension or provide snaps to the outside of the door frame? -The width entered in the dbx of doors is to the inside of the jambs or the door blank size (approximately the same thing), not the outside of the frame? -The rough opening dimension lines/snaps are the RO size in the door dbx box added to the inside of the door jamb, not from the outside of the frame? My previously attached plan seems to show the above statements above to be true, maybe take a look at that if you think any of these statements above aren't accurate? Thanks, -Huckle

Hi Ryan, I am experiencing something different than what you noted above and maybe it is a template or setting issue, but I don't believe so.... In the attached plan file (I believe untouched Residential Template.plan file), the size that is set in the door dialog box definitely does not include the jambs, so it is either setting the door blank, or the inside of jamb dimension. The two issues I have is 1. I believe Chief is incorrectly calculating the RO based on the door blank (or inside of jamb dimension) and not including the frame. 2. It would be nice if there were snaps on the outside of the door frame so you could at least customize what you want to show/see. Would you mind looking at the file (I have a few door examples with notes) and see if you get the same result, and let me know if what I am experiencing is a setting issue that I'm missing or a problem with Chief. Thanks, much appreciated. Chief Door Issue.plan

Hi Ryan, I agree that it is preferred to use the center when possible, but we often stack windows above doors (post and beam, big walls of gable glass) so there are times we need to be specific. Regardless, the real issue is that the R.O. dimension that Chief gives is incorrect for all doors (no matter the manufacturer).... as the Chief RO is based off the door blank and not the frame. To me, that needs a fix. The rest of it is subjective, and I personally like the idea of the door dialog box at least showing the outside of the frame dimension next to the normal width input box (door width + jamb thickness). I wish I had thought to add this to my original post, but it would be really nice if Chief dimensions could manually snap to the outside of the frame (in fact, I believe there are no snaps available for outside of frame, so you can't even accurately place a point at the outside of the door frame).

Take this with a grain of salt, I may be looking at it from my own little bubble and missing the big picture.... I also apologize if this has been discussed previously, but I did a couple of searches and didn't find any recent related topics.... Windows (work correctly in my mind): You enter the width of the window, and that is the width of the symbol and dimension snaps. If you change the frame thickness or rough opening sizes, the dimensions and symbol all adapt correctly. Doors (incorrect in my mind): You enter the width of the door, and that is the width of door blank (part of door that moves) only. It does not include the door jamb. That is not necessarily incorrect or an issue (but see below for thoughts), but the actual problem is that Chief is basing the rough opening off the this width and not the outside of the door jamb (frame). To clearly see this yourself, you can place an exterior door, set door to a 3' wide unit, set the door jamb sides (frame) to 1-1/4", and set the rough opening to 3/4". Now go into the auto-exterior dimensions settings and be sure the "Openings" check box is selected, and only select the Rough Opening check box . Now when you refresh the auto-dimension, you will see that the dimension line is inside of the jamb. if you framed to that dimension, the door would not fit in the opening. Bigger Picture I believe that doors get confusing because entry door sizes are generally referring to the door blank (the door itself, not the frame). A 3068 door has a door blank that is typically 3' wide by 6'8" high. The frame and sill would add to the thickness and height of the door assembly. Regardless of how thick/thin your frame is, the rough opening is based on the outside of that frame (not the door blank). BUT..... at least Andersen describes their patio doors (ie Frenchwood hinge, Frenchwood gliding) to the outside of the frame NOT the the door blank. So a 6068 Andersen patio door is pretty close to 6' wide by 6'8" high to the outside of the frame (technically 5'11-1/4" x 6'7-1/2"). So.... I'm not advocating for what Chief defaults to for door dimensions, etc. (I would personally love an option in the door dialog box to dimension to the door blank OR the outside of the jamb (frame) and have the door basic door width show both door blank AND outside of jamb dimensions so you can set whichever makes sense of the particular door (ie entry or patio)). What I believe is the actual issue is that the rough openings for doors need to be added to the outside of the jamb NOT added to the door blank as it currently set to do regardless of defaults for where dimensions snap or whether the door width is setting the door blank or outside of frame.... Separately, I do dream of an option in the door dialog box that shows the door width/height with 2 columns; 1 with the door blank dimension, the 2nd with the door frame dimension (door blank plus jamb thickness). Also an option to have temporary, auto, and manual dimensions snap to one or the other for each door... Any feedback or thoughts would be greatly appreciated before I submit a suggested fix (haven't done that before, I'll contact tech. support unless someone lets me know if there is a form or some other preferred way to pass on issues). Thanks, -Huckle

@Chopsaw- Your are correct about the tiling, I just did this as a quick proof of concept. It wouldn't take much time to fix the tiling so it was directly on the edge. I also agree that the terrain feature is a step that can be skipped. I'll mess around with the terrain settings to see if I can get the stretch-to-fit to work as that would remove the tiling adjustment step. We have a project coming up that I'm going to try this with and will post how it comes out. I'm guessing that we will draw the house, then zoom in for some overview shots and see how it looks. I'm also hoping that camera views from inside the house looking out will catch some of the satellite view on the terrain... I definitely think this has pretty limited benefit, but it might be helpful on some specific projects.... It might not be the best solution, but thought I would post this "hack" as there were some similar posts/questions, but never a solution on how to make it work...

I was trying to get an image from Google Earth to show up on my 3D terrain, and got it to work reasonably, but is a bit of a hack.... I'm wondering if anyone can think of ways to clean up the process or know of a better way... As a side note: my goal is different than trying to get elevation data from Google Earth, that is a totally different process. My goal here was just to get the image to follow approximate terrain and be visible in 3D views. My process so far: Take a Snippet (screen capture) from Google Earth (measure some points so it can be scaled in Chief correctly) Import into chief as in image then scale it accurately. Create the terrain perimeter at the outside edges of the image You can now move or delete the image (the import image step was just used to get the scale of the terrain perimeter to match the image size). I then created a new material using the image from my snippet (the exact same one I imported) and set the image height to whatever the height (top to bottom) the terrain perimeter measures to in Chief (from the steps above) and keep the "retain aspect ratio" box checked off (in this case it was around 1,000' in the vertical axis). The reason I do all the scaling stuff is that checking off "stretch to fit" didn't work for me as, but would seem to be the better solution if it did... (the result was that it had a few triangles that looked about right, but the rest of the terrain was just blurry green, almost like it couldn't stretch an image that big and have it lay "flat" over all the triangles that make up the sloped terrain...) Just to make trouble-shooting easier, I made a terrain feature the same size as the terrain that is 1" tall so I could apply the texture to that instead of the terrain perimeter (probably not a needed step). Apply the new material to the terrain feature (or to the terrain perimeter if you skipped the step above) When viewing in the 3D camera, it came up looking about right BUT since it isn't a "stretch to fit" material, it tiles the image. The tile start/stop doesn't relate to my terrain feature, so I had to use the X,Y offset within the texture to keep adjusting the tiling so it filled my terrain cleanly. Here is the result from the quick hack (image attached).... If this is useful to someone, or my instructions aren't clear, I could try to make a quick screen capture video of the process. If someone knows of a better way, I would love to hear how it could be done better. Thanks, -Huckle

Both answers are great. Thank You!

Embarrassingly, we have continued to use the same profile plan for many versions of Chief (just re-saved to the newer versions). I'm now trying to create a new and clean profile plan for everyone in the office to use with X13. This is a tiny issue, but I'm trying to delete a wall type we won't use (Build>Wall>Define Wall Type>X-CAN'T DELETE). When I try to delete it, I get an error that the wall type can't be deleted because it is being "...used by one or more walls in our plan. It may be used by a dialog box such as the wall defaults dialog." I've checked every default wall type (interior wall, exterior walls, railings, retaining walls, etc.) to see if anything is set to that wall type and can't find any walls that are. I've also checked the pony-wall option within each wall. As far as I can tell, that wall isn't being used anywhere, and the plan is blank so there are no actual walls drawn that would us it. I've checked every wall a few times, but I'm probably just missing something obvious but am at a loss... I renamed the wall to X-CANT DELETE from Siding-6. Any ideas on how I can track it down? My plan file is attached that will become the profile plan... X13 ProfileFindWall.plan

@Renerabbitt- Thanks for fixing it, is there any way you could explain what you did? The file I uploaded was a "dumbed down" version of my drawing and would like to fix it in my core drawing. Thanks!

Hello, I recently upgraded to X11 (newest update applied). I drew some CAD lines and used the manual dimension tool for some line spacing. When I delete the dimension line, it deletes the cad lines it is measuring. Is this a new behavior (need to un-associate the dimensions to the CAD somehow?), or is it a bug? Chief Talk Question.plan

I stupidly didn't think to look in defaults, I was searching all around the individual cabinet dbx. Thanks!

I have some base cabinets that I want to space about 2" apart without filling the space between. Is there a way to make it so they don't stretch to meet the adjacent base cabinet? They seem to automatically stretch to meet at between 2 and 4 inches depending on how you move them (see image). Thanks, -Huckle X9

THANK YOU!!!! I learned a number of things: Signature line is important :-) Posting plans makes it easier (even if I'm embarrassed about my hack plans) Setting a material to be a Framing Material- fixed both my problems.

THANK YOU!!!! I learned a number of things: Signature line is important :-) Posting plans makes it easier (even if I'm embarrassed about my hack plans) Setting a material to be a Framing Material- fixed both my problems. Still need to learn forum etiquette. What does the green up/down arrow by posts mean, and the "heart" icon. I want to mark some of the answers as helpful and that they are solutions...

Wow, not sure I understand the "Why?" justmejerry's note to change the material of my rafters from my own "Fir" material to built-in "Fir Framing" now allows me to "Trim Soffit To Framing" and the roof framing now builds (I posted a separate question about not being able to get framing to build." Why would a material choice change those things? Alaskan_Son- I can't get your video to play, but am working on it. Can't thank you all enough for the help...

The plan is attached here. The option to "Trim Framing To Soffits" is greyed out, and I can't figure out how to enable it. Test Plan For Beam Roof System.plan

I attached the plan. A few notes that might make it "weird" and may be the source of my problem. I'm trying to make a timber roof system. There would be no ceiling surface, just exposed rafters with 2x6 decking above, then foam, then plywood. For areas with no surface, such as the ceiling, I set the material to "No Material- Opening." Test Plan For Beam Roof System.plan

I responded before seeing Chopsaw's note. The option to "Trim Framing To Soffits" is greyed out. I poked around trying to see if I could make other selections that would enable the checkbox, but haven't been successful, any recommendations of what to try? (image of my DBX attached)

Unfortunately, that doesn't move the soffit, it just moves the facia... I attached the result:

I have a plan that won't build the roof framing. I've made sure the layers are turned on so I can see the framing. Is there some basic thing that has to be done besides checking off "Build Roof Framing" in the Build Roof dialog box under the Structure tab? Thanks.

My roof soffits are "floating" below my facia by a few inches (flat soffit, plumb cut rafters). I have a steep roof pitch with tall rafters, and it appears that the soffit is automatically placed under the theoretical point of the bottom of a plumb cut rafter. I would like the soffit to be higher up (in the field, I would trim the point (bottom triangle) off the rafter so that the facia isn't very tall. Is there a way to do that in Chief X9? There is an attached image of my Chief generated section and a 3D view of how the soffit currently shows. Thanks

Thanks. I also really appreciate the mention of SLI not being used by Chief. Can you remind me if the basic renderings (non-raytrace) use the graphics card or the CPU? I saw Viki's post but a lot of it was in regard to the decision of upgrading or new and she would be re-using current graphics card. Regardless I re-read it and did get some good points out of it. Thanks again.

Thanks and agreed, we always do the trickle down computer switches. Once the last computer gets too old/slow for Design/Engineering, we move it to sales and admin as they are much less cpu/graphics intensive users.

I try to update computers for our designers every 3 to 5 years. We like to try to stay within the $2,500 to $3,000 price range, which has historically meant a pretty good gaming system. For example, the last system I bought was in 2013 and was an Alienware and was around $3,250: Aurora-R4 with i7-3930K (6 core, 12 MB Cache, 3.9 Ghz), 16GB DDR3 memory, Dual 2GB GTX680 cards, and an SSD drive. That computer still seems to be performing very well for us. I have a new employee and need a new computer. It seems that the options for processors available since 2013 have expanded significantly, and the top of the line is leaps and bounds above the past top-end processors in both money and performance. It looks like you could have a spread of about $1,500 between a decent cpu and the newest 18-core i9. Graphics cards seem to continually improve, but the price and performance increase is not as much of a leap as with the CPUs. I can look at numbers and tests of speeds, but it doesn't account for how a computer is actually used. For example, if all you used a machine for was ray-tracing, that would need a different spec and budget than someone who does basic floor plans and elevations with a few 3D views. Our balance is floor plans and elevations with a good number of 3D views while working, but very few ray-traces. When we need to do some ray-traces, we usually run them overnight which is not an issue with our specific workflow So.... is a $2,500 to $3,000 budget still enough to get a good machine for what we use it for, or do we really need to step up to the $5,000 range with an 18 core processor and dual top-end graphics cards? Also, how much of a real-world benefit are people seeing from dual graphics cards, is it worth the upgrade? Finally, any feedback recently bought machines that seem to be working well would be helpful. In past threads, I see that the Alienware has continued to be pretty good for a pre-configured big company system. I poked around HP and was surprised that I was able to build a system that seemed to be possibly better than the Alienware in the same $2,800 price range with an 8th gen i7-8700, 32GB memory, 512 GB SD, and a single GTX1080Ti (dual 1080 8G adds $350).(http://store.hp.com/us/en/ConfigureView?orderItemId=101210522&catEntryId=3074457345618585320&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&contractId=10003&storeId=10151&fromURL=AjaxOrderItemDisplayView&ctoCacheInvalidationCnt=0.07958294288914436&selectedRecommConfig=). I haven't ever gone with a company that does custom builds as many people on this thread seem to do. I would consider more if it was just one machine for myself, but when I might need to buy 2 or 3 machines and deal with potential warranty issues I feel like I should stay with a larger company. Am I off on that assumption? Sorry for the long post on a question that gets asked often, but I've read the past threads and was hoping to get an update. Thanks!

A number of newer laptops now have a Thunderbolt 3 port (the crazy fast port that can often be used as a single cable docking solution). There now seems to be a resurgence of external graphics card solutions using the Thunderbolt 3 port. From those enclosures, you can run multiple monitors along with the mouse, keyboard, networks cable, power, external drives, etc. (so a docking station as well). There is a roughly 10% performance hit from having the GPU (graphics card) being remote from the motherboard. They aren't all that cheap right now, but more competition is resulting in price drops and options. You may also realize savings in your laptop purchase if this solution works for you as the laptop GPU is no longer important for your everyday work. In general, a GPU in a laptop adds a lot of cost, weight, and is power hungry (huge power brick). They are also more expensive to replace than the desktop versions. I am not a major power user anymore (work on other parts of the business), so I bought a "travel" laptop with the best CPU I could get, an SSD, a Thunderbolt 3 port, and just the integrated GPU (part of the CPU), NOT a discrete graphics card (the kind you typically find in a gaming laptop). This makes a lightweight, not crazy expensive, reasonably powerful laptop with a really small power brick that shows X9 models in 3D fairly well (serviceable) and works for a remote client meeting but wouldn't want it to be my daily work machine. But.... with the enclosure, I'm hoping it will greatly improve my daily GPU intensive tasks (mostly Chief X9). This won't fit everyone's needs, but it is now an option that is just more recently available due to Thunderbolt 3 ports. For more information, do a Web search for "external graphics card enclosure thunderbolt 3" or similar. As with anything, there are good and bad sides of going this route. Add it to the list of additional things to consider when purchasing a new laptop.