mkennedy2000

Mark, thanks for taking time. I looked at the atachments and will consider your process in some depth - it does seem convolute but..... 4 out of 5 vendors I use don't have catalogs in PK but they small catalogs and I can deal with them in CA AND they are willing to build the order from my CA plan and schedule so.... It's just the one vendor that gives me fits. I think with study I may find some good direction in what you've posted, although once I accept I'm in a second software, I may just decide that PK, with the complete library, owner acceptance, pricing, order form, is the way to go. If I achieve an epiphany, I'll try to share it here, in the meantime I really appreciate your time and pointers.

Mark, what really iced 20-20 for me was the fact that I moved the office and misplaced the key - so they deny my existnece and will charge me very nearly the price of a new license - and I just don't use the software enough to justify the cost - and I'm not sure it's any better than PK, which I found to be very fast, easy to use and accurate. As well as having much more personable people answering the phones - my rep took calls on his personal cell, at home, on the weekend, when I was doing my demo! Can you describe your process? I've thought it would be nice to be able to display nomenclature as well as callouts, perhaps both in one display, perhaps one in elevation, the other in plan, perhaps toggle back and forth without losing my schedule or disconnecting my schedule from the plan. Maybe this should be a new thread?

I may have missed this being mentioned, but I find that when I modify a cabinet I lose my component edits. I look at the size of the Schrock catalog alone, and it's apparent to me that I will just reactivate my 20-20 license or buy ProKitchen before I manually build all those cabinets, with all those options. The arch block works OK for adding corbels and so on. I have added a 1" wall and base filler to my library, labeled as 3" so they will appear correctly in the schedule, that saves some time. I'm trying to find a way to default control the placement of callouts in elevation view - I like my upper callouts a few inches above and my base and tall cabinets a few inches below. The corner cabinets seem to be temperamental, sometimes I can control the display, sometimes not. I did my first kitchen in ProKitchen, it took about an hour to enter all the cabinets, based on my CA schematic from the con docs. It would have been quicker, but I was learning the SW as I went. At the end of that time I had a complete kitchen with full schedules (including price), it can run very quick decent quality renders (better than CAs camera views, not as good as a ray trace, but as fast as a camera view)

Scott, no worries, I've been called far worse.......

Scott - it's still Matt (not Mike), you better be careful, you may turn into a curmudgeon, going around calling people random names LOL I leraned some things also, always room for new\different and hopefully better ways to get to a result - CA does have a lot of options.... So AS is a vote for, anyone else?

AS, in that context I'd agree, you're experience agrees with mine. In my current incarnation as a kitchen and bath guy, also doing additions, my needs are a little different. I frequently care more about interior dimensions that framing layouts and I pull different dimensions on floor, cabinet and electrical plans than I do on framing and foundation plans. All that being said, thanks for the succinct answer to my question - definitely food for thought. Maybe I'll use auto interior for laying out the as built, but use auto exterior for con docs? Locating walls one side. Then I have to go and add interior dims at baths, halls, kitchens, other critical clear space areas, At the end of the day, I keep circling back to a feature request - the option to have a default setting to suppress wall widths on the aut exterior dim tool - so far I'll call you a vote against.

Scott, sorry, I always appreciate your suggestions and help, I just didnt see one here What I want is fairly simple - a default suppress wall widths option for Auto exterior dimension I tried various setting, locate main layer and so on, but none really do what I want. I can either spend a bunch of keystrokes manually suppressing every dimensions strings wall width every time or I can spend a bunch of keystrokes manually drawing interior dimension strings. I'll tinker with some settings to see if I can get something I can use automatically. The autto exterior seems to produce the least extraneous stuff and the number of keystrokes required to manually duplicate the auto exterior seems to be greater then the number of kesytrokes to modify it. The auto interior seems to produce an incredible visual clutter, so I just don't use it. I'll explore this further, but.... Right now my sense is that I'm pretty efficient - I auto exterior dim, then manually suppress \(every time, on every string) the wall width display. Which doesn't sound efficinet, and leads me back the the thought that perhaps this is one for the suggestion box? Do you guys just not use auto dims? Or do you only display one side or center o f walls? Or do you leave the wall widths displaying? Or do you turn them off like I do?

Scott, the question is whether I can default to suppress wall widths - I almost never want them, I graphically illustrate wall thicknesses and that's all I need, the wall widths clutter up my dimension string and I generally manually select each and every dimension string and suppress them. Perry, that only selects one side of the interior wall(s). I like to show the interior (clear) room dimension - I do a lot af asbuilts and that's the fastest, most accurate way I know to get from paper to CA. I suppose what I may do is use my current setting to develop my as built plan, then reste to one side for degn developpment, then think about going back again for con cods - or something. I would have been fine with a default to suppress wall widths

Lew - let me try again.... Perry - I don't quite see the path - in dimension defaults I can locate surfaces (which I do) or I can locate the wall dimension layer. My wall types are mostly defined to dimension to framing. If I set the default to locate the wall dimension layer, I still get wall widths? Can you send me your wall type settings to compare to mine?

Lew, see the attached snip, Jim, that's what I was afraid of - one for the suggestion box I guess.

Is there a way to control this setting by default? I really never need this info to diplay, I don't really carefor wall centers, I like interior dims,.....

P - I've tried the reference layer sets for roof planes - I definitely think that's the way to go in that case. I've seen your use of them and I love the way it looks. I don't know how I'd use them for a demo plan? Is there a way to reference another plan? That would be pretty neat - a reference layerset that could look at floor 1 of another plan and display it on floor 1 of the curretn plan. I've tried different things for demo plans over the years - a defined "demo" wall type for instance, but never found anything that worked as well as the CAD. When you do an addition or remodel do you saves the existing plan separate from the new? Do you include an "Existing Plan" in your layout set? I see dashed line walls in your attachment, are those demolition?

Lew - I'm guessing you meant me - I guess when the forum moved my signature went away, I fixed it, heres a pic. The dashed stuff is a view to CAD from the as built plan. I turn off almost all the layers, set everything to dashed (I have a layerset) then view to CAD. In CAD I shift select and block everything, E-FLR-1, E-FLR-2 and so on. I then copy\paste (hold position) the CAD block into the plan, sent to the bak, on a locked layer (layer set again). Once the as built is complete, I save, then save as the new plan. As I demo a wall, it uncovers the screened dashe wall\door\windows, leaving a demo plan. It would be equally easy to superpose a stack of floor plans, showing whatever info, lineweight and color, onto a site plan, very similar effect to the advanced use of reference layers sets in LAyout, but able to address multiple stories. You could view to CAD the first floor roof plan, paste them into the second floor plan, then either reference or view to cad the 3rd floor roof. Or display all 3 floors of a split level. Or whatever.

Or build a layerset, view to CAD, selct, block, name, copy, back to plan, paste (hold position). I do that for demo plans on all my remodels, very quick and easy.

Thanks guys for the tips and input. Somehow I didn't get an email so I was feeling unloved and ignored..... So post and pier is OK, but what about the girder on top of the post? And a bearing line to get the joists to break? Nice tip about the foundation wall as no room, def - saves a minute of layout time I think.

Here in sunny CA we almost never have basements. I often want to support first floor joisting with a midspan girder supported by piers\pads at 5' or 6' spacing. Any elegant solutions for this simple task?

Scott - have you tried comparing the mac to a PC to see which renders faster at whatever setting? My exteriors are usually really simple, so fast. Kitchens with lots of lights seem to take quite a while.

Scott - i'm pretty happy with things - x6 seems ti run great, but I'm still gonna go get a new box - I want a gang of cores so I can do renders in 5 minutes...... hows ur mac at renders?

I found the room divider didn't work when it was drawn as a collinear segment of a wall line. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it just me?