Alaskan_Son

I know your decisions aren’t random. Wasn’t saying they are. Just saying that sometimes they seem a bit odd. You do a lot to try and keep people from making mistakes like this, and I can appreciate that to a certain extwnt. After you spell out your reasoning on this one for example, it doesn’t bother me quite as much.... ...Doesn’t really change the fact that some of these little inconsistencies really really confuse, bewilder, and frustrate a lot of users though. There’s probably no perfect solution, I get it. Just don’t like the decisions sometimes. P.S. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of these things, but there are other solutions as well. First, those controls could be toggled off by default like some of the other controls are, AND second, you could issue a warning after a person clicks on the tool.

Manually with primitives, by converting a wall to a symbol and using that, or by getting super tricky with roof/ceiling planes. I would just be using primitives. A lot of manual work no matter how you slice or dice it though. Not something Chief was really designed to do.

With the efforts you've invested in trying to clean up the program, consolidate some tools, and make things more consistent and easier to use, I'm really surprised to see you guys move in that direction. Unless I'm missing something, there are exactly 2 little buttons that are not available in Active Layer Display Options (ALDO) that are available in the normal Layer Display Options (LDO); Reset Layer Names and Delete Unused Layers. I for example, use ALDO with all options turned on and have it docked off to the side at all times so that I can easily make any and all of these types of changes on the fly. Aside from using LDO for purposes of keystroke macros, I would otherwise have no use for it at all. Honestly, the only reason I see to have 2 separate tools is so that we can customize the buttons that we want displayed in ALDO. It really seems like a silly limitation to disallow just those 2 buttons. It's little things like this that make some users want to rip their hair out when working with Chief. It works like this here, and it also works the same h.....Oh what the %&$#!! $%&*&^%$%$$@@%&*!!!! ^&%^$%$^ Chief %&^%$#!!!........ ....*$#@....there goes another keyboard.

Chief is really getting pretty close with the new Custom Schedule capabilities in X12. It's very easy to create a schedule that includes any room or group of rooms. Include only an Area Column, and Display Totals Row and you can easily get automated area totals for any and all groups and/or subgroups. We could of course use a completely new group of tools, but one more small step, and schedules would be a totally easy to use and viable replacement for many scenarios where we currently have to utilize relatively complex custom macro solutions...

Yes, this is one solution. Another solution would be to place a layout box that uses a layer set that does have that polyine turned on somewhere off to the side in that layout. It's funny, I had envisioned al sorts of possible scenarios as to why your macro wasn't executing till you opened the plan, but the scenario you described wasn't one of them. Really highlights exactly why all the little details are so important.

Completely depends on that macro, how it is written, whether or not it references any other global variables, whether or not those global variables are set by a macro included in that particular view, etc.

As others have already said, there are lots of ways to do this. It just depends on how accurate you need it to be and on exactly what your railing structure looks like. Another super quick and easy method in my opinion is to simply build the deck as you want it with Auto Regenerate toggled on. Once your DECK is correct, check Retain Framing, turn Auto Regenerate off, move the floor definition down the distance of your desired newel drop, and then move the walls out the distance of your desired offset.

We do that type of thing for non load bearing openings all the time, although I usually either do 1 flat 2x on the bottom with 2-2x4 on edge (1 each side of wall) or I just use 2-2x flat (stacked).

You need to make a COMPLETE Break.

I think Joe probably guessed correctly here. Sounds like you're creating a molding symbol. These symbol types were designed to apply to a molding line and not as freestanding objects. This is why you're seeing the repeating pattern. Chief is showing you what it's going to look like when applied as a molding. Next time you convert to symbol, just make it a fixture.

Have you read the Help files on this subject?

That particular method only sort of works, only for certain object types, only for limited scenarios, and it can be a huge pain even when it does work. Examples: Bumping and Pushing still picks up on hidden objects so this makes placing new cabinets, symbols, etc. a big pain. Cabinet under even hidden countertops still think they have one already so they won't produce their own. In addition, they won't give you the Generate Custom Countertop tool either. Walls still connect to and/or override existing walls Windows and doors still cannot properly coexist in the same 3D space and will still cut a hole in the wall even if that window or door layer is turned off in the other view Automated moldings will not behave as expected in the various views as they still pick up on hidden objects in order for the program to work correctly ...and this is just a few of the issues to contend with.

Here. See if this helps...

Yup. This would be my guess as well.

Sorry, I spoke much too quickly earlier and didn't study your plan well enough so I just deleted my statement. It doesn't matter what floor you put the terrain on. It should behave the same and it should always reference Floor 1. Your discrepancy comes from your elevation line settings. That 21" offset is referencing a 0" elevation height. The highest point on your terrain however is -18".

Wow...That's hard to believe. If its true, I salute you...you must have been sprinting too and fro, and must be crazy fast at setting up that tripod (assume there is one). Okay, I guess it doesn’t sound too crazy. Pretty fast though considering the camera itself must take a little time at each location too. I’d be curious as to how much time it takes you from the moment you open the thing up to the moment it’s put away. Let me know if you ever actually time it.

That's pretty stinkin' cool. If nothing else, it seems like the ability to record and review basic site conditions alone might be worth it. How long did that "scan" take, and how many sample locations did you use?

I would...and have. There are a couple pretty great (albeit rather complex and advanced) methods I've developed and utilized. There are different variations of each and they can be further automated using some more complex steps, Ruby, text macros, and/or macros in Excel, but here are the 2 basic methods in their simplest forms and in a grossly understated nutshell... Method #1 (using solids): Draw an existing terrain Draw a proposed terrain Use Multiple Copied Polyline Solids that reference terrain at top (these should represent your desired sample size and shouldn't be more than you really need), convert to Solids, combine using Solid Union, and chop the bottom off at a specific height using another Solid. This will result in a solid version of your terrain from which you can get a Volume using Ruby. Do this for both terrain versions. Use those 2 terrains to get your starting volumes of each terrain. Use Solid Intersection to find undisturbed volume of those 2 combined terrains. Take Cut and Fill volumes from that. Method #2 (using an object and schedule to automate the old-school grid method): Draw an existing terrain Draw a proposed terrain Use a multiple copied object that has a schedule to distribute your "grid" reference heights. This multiple copied object should reference the terrain at bottom (0") and should have a usable "bottom" in its schedule. Once distributed, change the reference to absolute (but DO NOT change the height). Drop a schedule with a "bottom" column into the plan. This should give you a list of your sample heights that you can simply copy/paste into a spreadsheet for your existing terrain. Copy paste your distributed objects and schedule to your proposed plan, and repeat the appropriate parts of the process to get numbers for your proposed terrain. Use Excel or other spreadsheet to carry out desire calcs. Quick Note: The required boolean operations for Method #1 can take a long time for Chief to carry out so don't overdo the sample quantity, and the schedule for Method #2 will be very slow to work with since it will inevitably be quite large...especially if you use any macros to further automate the thing, so again...don't overdo the sample quantity. ...and that's about all I have the time or inclination to spell out on that right now. Totally doable though and the results can be about as accurate as you can get anywhere else. As accurate as you want to get really.

Love it!!

It's about 10 below at the moment. We're hanging in there though : )

In addition to being able to remove the path length restriction in Windows 10 (a quick search will show you how), you can also actually map a folder to a drive letter thereby cutting out a whole bunch of characters from the path name. Plenty of articles out there on this as well. Just search something like "map local folder to drive letter".

I believe it's been 260 for a long time. I think the 255 number is a generally accepted length after a few necessary characters have been accounted for (drive letter, colon, backslash and....not sure...file extension or terminating characters or some other technical jargon).

As Chop said, you can add spaces. If you are using dimensions below the line this could be solved by using a Marker Default that has the Alignment set to Away From Marker so that the dimension just gets moved with your text. The other things you can do is manually position actual markers which DO have the capability you're asking for.

Not sure if you read that completely or not. It's not just the product keys. It's the installers too...

I’m with you. This is a common attitude amongst most Chiefers, however I assure you that Chief DOES have the ability to model things extremely accurately and there are a handful of us that do exactly that. It really just comes down to what you’re using Chief for I guess. Quick and dirty CD’s and I can’t fault people for just getting it close enough. I personally however model things to a very high degree of accuracy on a regular basis. It’s just about investing the time in properly learning what tools you have available, how those tools work, and how to let go of your preconceived ideas of how the tools should work based on your experience with other programs. Anyway, here are some quick tips that immediately come to mind... 1. Learn what Multiple Saved Defaults are.... 2. ....and set up/utilize Active Defaults from the start. It’s just very important from a productivity standpoint that you learn to place your various CAD/annotation items using the appropriate defaults, the appropriate settings, and onto the desired layers, etc. This makes quick work of dimensioning your tiny little molding details as necessary. 3. Study and learn the Enter Coordinates dialog (Tab entry method). It might not be what you are used to, but it’s the method Chief uses, and it’s really quite efficient and effective once you get used to it. 4. Learn to limit your work to plan views and elevations/sections whenever possible if you want to model super accurately, and in conjunction with those views... 5. Learn to use CAD Detail From View along with Cut/Copy and Paste Hold Position. This is the way I always obtain snaps that aren’t otherwise available. Assign the tools to hotkeys and the process becomes pretty stinkin’ quick. 6. Turn the various Snap settings on and off as necessary. The last thing you want when trying to draw things accurately is Chief snapping to the Angle or Grid when you want to snap to an object. 7. Learn to use both dimensions and the various dialogs to set object parameters. I know it’s easy to get used to simply typing in parameters during the initial draw with Sketchup and you can do that to a certain extent in Chief using the Tab key; however, it simply doesn’t work the same and in my opinion that just comes with the territory in large part when moving from CAD and basic 3D modeling to a program rich with built in parametric functionality. 8. Learn to import, resize, and trace over/measure from images and PDFs. ... I could go on all day with additional power tips but those are the top few that come to mind for accurate modeling.