Alaskan_Son

They can only be done automatically with Auto Rebuild toggled on. Otherwise, yes...it's manual, but it can typically be done in under a minute.

If you set your various defaults back to EXACTLY what you've show in the screenshot above, what does the Default Set say? I'm just wondering if perhaps one little thing was off.

Tool works exactly like it did before. They just renamed it to Default Sets instead of Annotation Sets for continuity and clarity. It will always say "Active Defaults" unless you either select a specific Default Set or select a group of Defaults that matches a Default Set.

First thing is to decide whether you want to use a Fill or a material's Pattern. A Fill can be specified for pretty much any polyline based object using the Fill Style tab for that particular object. Fill styles can be set an an object by object basis. A Pattern can be specified only for each unique Material being used. For multiple Pattern offsets, this would mean multiple Materials. This is very easy to do using the Plan Materials dialog though. Next thing is to decide which type of object to use. This will vary depending on what the end goal is and on how much time you want to put in. For Plan Views you can use a plain Polyline with its fill, a Polyline Solid with its fill, a Material Region with its fill, or any other number of polyline based objects with their respective fill(s). Or, you could also use either a poyline solid converted to a solid or a Face which would allow you to actually use the Pattern in plan view. For Elevations and Sections you can use a plain Polyline with its fill, or any number of other object types. Aside from the plain polyline though, you will mostly just be working with Materials and their Patterns in these views though. For other 3D views you'll be limited to using just Materials and their Patterns. Lastly (and to answer the main question posed), you'll have to shift the Fill or Pattern offsets. To do this I use CAD Detail From View. Just click on that tool and then take any measurements you need to obtain your offsets from that view. Really pretty easy. I typically use a line and just copy the line length to get a precise number. 2 additional quick tips though... If you're using a Solid or Face to show the Material Pattern in Plan View, you'll have to use an Orthographic Overview from View Direction>Top View to get a usable CAD Detail From View. If you're using a Material and its Pattern, I suggest always setting the Texture offsets as well either manually or by checking "Keep Pattern/Texture in Sync" before making any changes.

It's funny, I've read the opening dialog of that Import Drawing Assistant and I've considered sending in a request that it be scrapped. It really seems like it serves very little use. Admittedly however, I'm not so sure I've ever read the closing dialog until Glenn just posted it. I wonder if its because I've just become jaded by the opening dialog and its lack of substance? Or maybe it's because of all the same "Your blah blah blah has finished installing" dialogs that we're used to simply clicking "Okay" or "Done" on these days. Who knows. I am however convinced that almost NOBODY reads that screen though as evidence that until I mentioned it today, I have never once heard or read anyone anywhere in the 9 years I've spent on this forum mention that we can import anything from paper space. On the contrary, I've heard and read the opposite mentioned many many times. Wonder how long that little note has been in there?

Yep. Obviously haven't read it too well though : ) By the way, that dialog needs to be re-worded. It's not imported into a CAD Detail window. It's imported as a CAD Block.

I must not have posted loud enough earlier in the thread. I'll try to speak up next time.

Thanks Mick. Never read that article before. I added a note to one of my posts above to clarify that its only the first page of paper space that gets imported.

Place it over in layout (Chief's relative equivalent of paper space) and the size doesn't seem quite small). In the example posted above though, there seems to be some weird scaling going on though.

Chief only imports from model space. It's paper space that looks like it never gets imported. It usually does though (at least the first page)...just as a CAD Block and only as a CAD Block (not placed in the plan). It's a sort of unique use that Chief has built in.

Why not use layers in model space?

It's really not all that uncommon, and (just like in Chief), I think it's typically bad practice. I only discovered this recently myself, but it seems paper space information is always imported as a CAD block like that. NOTE: It's only the first page of paper space information that gets imported. Oh, and by the way, Quick Tip... If you open CAD Block Management and click Okay without actually Inserting the "*Paper_Space" CAD block while Automatically Purge Unused CAD Blocks is checked, then you will lose it. You can always Undo to get it back, but I commonly make the mistake of hitting Okay instead of Insert so figured I'd throw that out there.

The reason I say to check your CAD Blocks is that the items you're "missing" were imported as a sort of disconnected CAD Block. It looks like those text notes were added in paper space (essentially AutoCAD's version of Layout) and as such they're not actually part of the drawing itself. You can however resize and reposition but you'll have some cleanup to do with the way text was formatted during the import.

I use the Tab key. Hit Tab while you're dragging and then enter location/distance/direction parameters.

Check your CAD Blocks

For question #2, it totally varies based on WHY I'm showing them a rendering. Do I want them to see and understand some construction detail? Is it a surface detail or the inner workings of something? Is it for general massing purposes? Do I want them to see the focus on the form or the finishes? For me it just totally depends. Don't have time to exapand on it, but here's something I posted elsewhere a while back to give you an idea of how I operate... I use all of them with the exception of Duotone and Painting. I'm not super good at describing artistic rational but I'll give it a go... Vector Views result in very sharp, clean lines, and can be used in color when you want to accent the details about the basic form and include a very general sense of color schemes but still remain a bit disconnected from reality. The "cartoon" like qualities help keep the model from feeling like the real thing and therefore allow a person to focus on whats important during the initial design phase. Glass House is good for seeing how the various design elements interact and correlate with each other. Technical Illustration is one of my favorites for accenting form without bringing color into the mix. A person could use vector views with colors turned off for this as well, but I find technical illustration much more realistic, much warmer, it brings better depth and just has a better overall feel in my opinion. Watercolor to me is like the opposite of technical illustration. I use it (usually with line drawing) to accent color while only giving a very general sense as to the details of the overall form. Used along with line drawing it seems to help a person more freely envision the deign without getting tied up in the details. Line Drawing is much like watercolor in that you can use it (especially early in the process) to make the design feel more like a rough idea...a sketch...which again, keeps people from getting too tied up in the little details yet it still allows for a relatively good way to accent the form. EDIT: PBR and Ray Trace I use just to either highlight actual material and lighting decisions, or (more commonly) just to give clients something kinda fun and exciting to look at. Which one I use just depends on the scene and on how much time I have. I prefer Ray Traces for a number of reasons, but for some scenes and projects PBR does well enough.

-File Size -Layout speed -Sortability -File Size -Sortability -Inability to preset the layout box cropping, scaling, positioning, etc.

No, I still mean CAD Details...the ones that live in the Project Browser.

Sorry, opened the plan up and had a quick look. Definitely not going to have enough time to delve into that this morning. Suffice it to say that there's A LOT going on in that little area and definitely nothing like what I had originally guessed. I will leave you with 2 little tips/ideas though... 1. When I run into a scenario that seems like it just won't work (a Chief limitation), I will commonly just stop fighting the program, pick an element that I want to leave automated, and then manually model/patch the other. I'm sure that's something you already know. 2. The roof plane below the floor will only screw the floor up if it's topmost point is higher than the bottom of the floor. So, one possible solution is to break that roof plane into 2 separate planes...one that is lower than the floor and a separate plane for the portion of roof that is not under the floor.

Yup. mos def. Been suggested quite a few times too.

I think this is really the main (and perhaps only) benefit of placing all into a single view whether that be: -Individual CAD Details with subsets of Details (Eave Details, Foundation Details, Wall Details, Trim Details, etc.) -Grouped by floor in a warehouse plan -Grouped by layer sets in a warehouse plan -Organized by page in a warehouse layout (should be much easier in X12) -Etc. Otherwise, I think the individual CAD Detail Method has only advantages.

Looks like what they sent you was Blocked PDF references. They need to send you the referenced PDF files too.

This is correct. We can however use custom macros to suppress labels in any given layer set AND we can also use the reference display in sneaky ways to change label display on an object by object basis.

Basically the same for me... I only use the North = Up on plot plans. For CD's its simply Front, Left, Back, and Right. I do however still include a North Arrow on the floor plans though sometimes to help keep a reminder of where the sun is going to be.

Into CAD Details You can create new using CAD>CAD Detail Management or by simply right clicking on the CAD Details folder in the Project Browser