KirkClemons

11 minutes ago, BenPalmer said:

I'll assume you are referring to others on the dropbox comment, I don't use dropbox.

Yes, the O.P. shared a screen shot of his File Explorer and he is using Dropbox

One quick note about the Auto Save feature, this feature doesn't save your work like google docs would, where it's a true save of the original file. The autosave file is only kept around if there is a Chief Architect generated error message. If there is a hard program crash the autosave may never have the chance to be written to disk.

I would recommend changing your auto archive interval to hourly rather than previous save unless you are in the habit of manually saving often.

Also, I see that you are working from a Dropbox location. Do you see any different behavior if you work from another location that isn't being accessed by the dropbox application continuously?

Yes they are.

We have examples on the info page:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/360-panorama-viewer/

It's available from all rendering techniques except for Painting, Watercolor, and Line Drawing.

See my 'Step-by-step' posted earlier in this thread.

15 hours ago, dskogg said:

Kirk i looked at the pannellum and it looks very interesting...you can hook up multiple 360's and go from one to another, also you can add notes to different items in the vr view..i couldnt figure out how to do it..have you?

 

David

 

 

I have not tried to implement this on a website yet. (Basically, I don't have one)

But according to their documentation, you would need to configure some JavaScript at the bottom of the page. See this example from their site:

https://pannellum.org/documentation/examples/tour/

Particularly the 'hotspots' setting in that code is what seems to allow you to determine the location and target of a hotspot.

16 minutes ago, HamlinBC said:

Kirk,

 

So you're saying that in order to embed either the 360 Pano or 3D Viewer into another site we'd have to use other software?

 

I'm just wondering as I'd like to work with realtors to get them 3D Viewer files that they could embed into their MLS websites.  The problem is...they're not going to want to change code every time in order to do this.

 

It would be super cool if there was a way to either copy the link to go to chiefarchitect.com or else select "Embed", and it would copy what was needed to embed it for them.

 

I guess the more I think about it...they might have to change code anyways...hmmmmm......

 

No, that is just what you need to do if you don't want to use the Chief Architect branded viewer on your site. We are working on implementing an [Embed] function which will more than likely be available sometime during the transition from beta to the final release of X9.

So once that is all finished, you will have a quick and simple option of embedding a 360° Panorama or 3D Viewer model in your website using our branded player, or if you want to remove the Chief Architect logo and just display a generic player, or possibly add your own brand, you need to export the models to their own files and upload them to your website and utilize a player of your choosing.

Basically to sum up, if you are technical enough or have a person who is, you can upload the files externally. Or if you would rather take the easy route, you can use our viewer which has our logo on it but is up and running quickly and is hosted on our site.

Just now, Korel_Design said:

I've read this entire thread. Lots of good information. Here is what I want to do. I have a website where I sell my home designs/house plans. I have static images of my plans both CA Renderings and Actual Photographs. I do want to add the code so my website visitors can see the panos right on my site from my server and not have to redirect to another URL. Any suggestions? Face Book quickly recognizes my panoramas but compresses them so they look terribly fuzzy which I find as unacceptable. 

 

The Chief Architect viewer will always be embedded and hosted from chiefarchitect.com, but it's the easiest way to implement a 360 image.

You can always save the panorama to a separate file and use another viewer of your choice. Under the hood, many of them use either of these two open source versions so you can probably take your pick or just implement the core viewer yourself:

https://pannellum.org/

https://developers.google.com/vr/concepts/vrview

The step-by-step:

1. Open a full camera somewhere in your model.
2. Select 3D> Camera View Options from the menu and turn on any features you want to see(edge smoothing while idle, shadows, reflections, etc.)
   
    
3. Select File> Export> Export 360° Panorama.
   
    
4. Select a Width, Height, and whether or not to save to the cloud or to your hard drive. If you choose the cloud, you will be prompted to enter your login credentials for your Chief Architect account.
   
   
   * If you want to export a ray traced view, you need to choose 360 panorama from the ray trace options.
   
    
5. Once the export is finished, you can visit your online account to preview or share the panorama which can be viewed in any browser:
   https://accounts.chiefarchitect.com/360/914375142142347

This can be caused by walls that are out of alignment, or walls that are at different angles.(e.g. the first-floor wall is .025° while the foundation wall is at 0°)

Check the angles of the walls that are giving you trouble, and then check that they are aligned across floors.

Once the camera view is open select 3D> Camera View Options> Perspective Crop Mode. This will restrict the clipping plane to just the view port.

I used the predefined material type of 'Transparent' and set the Index of refraction to Crown Glass.

Here's an example of using caustics:
whiskey.bmp

100 passes took 40min.

test-render.zip

I typically need to run a ray trace for close to 100 passes or more when using caustics. It will eventually clear up it's just an expensive process.

This article should help with the general process:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01029/creating-stairs-with-a-cable-stair-rail.html

You can change the default directory, it shouldn't be a problem. Just do the following:

- Close or quit Chief.

- Copy your 'Documents\Chief Architect Premier XX Data' directory to your secondary drive.(preferably somewhere near the root to avoid long path names.)

- Open Chief and set the preference that Perry pointed out.

- Re-launch Chief.

Also, double-check that you are using the texture size, not the pattern size. A common mistake is to define the material type and expect the texture to scale with the pattern.

I decided to research the physically accurate colors of different types of metals and create a library of them for ray tracing.

These metals have the rgb values for a more accurate reflection color.

You can adjust the roughness or apply bump maps to achieve varying textures.

Hope they are useful.

Metallic Base Colors.calibz

The Online Support Center does not currently have a file size limit. We do recommend compressing the plans into a ZIP file to help cut down on the upload time, but it's not required and you should be able to upload any file size provided your internet connection doesn't time out for any reason.

Just run the installer for Xvid and then restart Chief Architect. The Xvid codec should be available under preferences after that.

https://www.xvid.com/download/

The issue is with the roof planes over the front porch area.

You need to cleanup the roof plane connections so that the larger gable isn't just resting on top of the main roof.

And the smaller roof plane on the left side of the lower gable, is cutting into the wall a little too much.

Instead modify the roof lines so that the gables can all be joined together.

Image with lines overlaid for reference.

The flooring disappears when this condition is met.

Open an orthographic full overview, then select '3D> View Direction> Top' from the menu.

How can I set Chief to either 1) Save the paper source/size specific to the layout.  2 ) choose the paper source/size of the printer that matches the layout sheet or to warn me when a print job is spanning multiple pages. (e.g. WARNING, Print job spans multiple pages and will take 437 sheets.  Continue?)

1. Select 'File> Print> Drawing Sheet Setup' from the menu.
2. Select your drawing sheet size and print scale.(See this article for choosing scale: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00651/setting-the-print-scale.html )
3. If you want Chief Architect to remember the last printer you used check 'Remember print settings after printing'. If you want Chief to remember a specific printer and paper size uncheck that option and click choose printer.
4. Click print and always check to make sure that these last settings are correct, then click print again.

Hi, 

I have just downloaded the pro trial today and I really just wanted to try out the rendering capabilities before buying the program, but for the life of me, I can't find the ray trace tool anywhere. 

Does the trail not come with that rendering tool? 

If it does, where would I find the tool? 

 

Please and thank you guys! 

~Georgie

If by "pro" you are referring to the Home Designer Pro Trial, then that is why you do not see the ray trace tool. Home Designer does not have any ray tracing tools, you need Chief Architect Premier or Interiors:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/compare.html

Is there any way to import this as elevation data or just as markers and polylines

I typically just place some point markers and then download the data as a GPX file. The point markers are then imported as elevation points in Chief Architect.

Nice! I've also used this site as well:

http://www.geoplaner.com/