Alaskan_Son

Framing Defaults>Materials Steel, Steel Stud 16" OC, etc. That's really subjective. Yes. Just set the Bridging material type to U-Channel.

This is a valid option and the typical way I would recommend doing it when you have multiple images, but if you have a true panoramic image, I’m not sure there would be any benefit. It would take longer, require positioning multiple pieces, and would result in a whole bunch of visual seams that would need to be deliberately avoided with the camera. The panoramic “billboard” would be a single object, position once, and for all intents and purposes...no seams.

Ya, that would make more sense wouldn’t it Correction made. Thank you. Definitely. Just throwing a side note out there is all.

FWIW, the extra line is actually unnecessary. Time.new.year or Time.now.year both work just fine as well.

I’m with Mark and feel like billboards are typically the way to go. Here's another option in that regard. The specifics are a little involved and I only have a couple minutes, but just make your own panoramic billboard backdrop. Here are the key points: You'll need to know the height to width ratio of your panoramic image. Start with a cylinder, circular polyline solid, or whatever and create object to surround your building. Do the math to make sure the circumference and height match the aspect ratio of your image. Create a material using your panoramic image set to Stretch To Fit and use it to paint the panoramic billboard object you've created. In order to make the image location on the object stable (in order to get a fully controllable orientation/rotation), you'll need to remove a sliver of your circular object so that there's a break in the perimeter. In other words, its like a chain link and not like a wedding ring. Just make that break super super small, put it at a location that will not likely be seen much, and it shouldn't hardly be noticeable. You should be able to set the orientation by simply rotating the object.

Yup. You can do that with pretty much all screen recorders. Also, as a side note, a lot of video conferencing apps like TeamViewer, GoToMeeting, and Skype have built in screen recording capabilities that can be used for this purpose too.

The free version is called Jing, the next version up is called Snagit (which is what I personally use) and the next version up after that is called Camtasia. All 3 are made by TechSmith. Start with Jing and see if that's enough for you. Otherwise I would highly recommend Snagit too. Its a super handy app for not only screen recording but for a number of other screen capture functions, photo editing, gif creation, and more. If you're just getting started, Camtasia is probably overkill.

Are you trying to change the dimension's text or change the actual dimension to make something larger or smaller?

May be other solutions, but try reversing the wall if it's the same on both sides. The jambs are likely dark because Chief thinks they're in a different room that's not getting rendered and is therefore ignoring them with the lighting. PBR's are pretty quirky in this regard.

There are other much more automated ways of setting this particular scenario up so that a person could still use their layout box label for other purposes and that don't require a text box with arrow either. Again, it wouldn't be free, but shoot me over an email or PM and I can help you set something up.

Oh, I see what you're saying now. Mick is right, the tool displayed in those parent drop downs defaults to the first valid tool in the list when you first open the program. Otherwise, it’s always the last tool used. I would suggest either adding the child tool or simply creating a Hotkey.

This is how all dimensions always work. They obey the Locate Object settings only upon initial creation. After that, they will snap to anything and everything.

I could be misunderstanding the question, but simply modify your toolbar by dragging the unwanted tools offscreen during your Edit Toolbar operation.

I would HIGHLY recommend that people read through the New Features list at every single upgrade and don’t move to the next item on the list till you have tested or otherwise fully understand the one you just read. I find that in general people tend to only understand a small percentage of the program which really limits what they can do with it. After using the program for long enough, it’s very difficult to prioritize time (and to choose topics) to backtrack and learn. So, when a new version is released, you can either fall further behind or you can take advantage of the opportunity for a sort of forced refresher course. At least this way you stay abreast of any changes and as a bonus you get to learn a few things you’ve possibly been missing.

I offer custom modeling services for things like this. I just charge hourly and the time it takes really just depends on the complexity of the symbol and on how much detail you need put into it. Below is a pretty typical example of how accurate I would model something though... Adding the True® monikers and interior items could also be done but would take just a little longer. In addition, the accuracy of some of the various architectural details could be increased which would take longer but would also result in a much higher face count. I like to try and find a good balance. Sure you're paying someone to model a new object (or maybe just to tweak an existing object)...sometimes just for a single plan, but I encourage people to think about not only the increased quality and accuracy, but also how much of your valuable time can easily be spent searching and searching and searching online, tweaking something that already looks wrong, explaining to clients that its just a placeholder, etc. etc. If your time is valuable, consider maybe just continuing to do what you do best and hiring the little time sinks out to someone else. At the end of the day, you might pay for a couple hours of someones time, but you get more work done and your end product is better than it would have been. Just a thought. Anyway, I’m providing this one as a free download for a limited time...as a pretty generic and average example of the type of modeling I can do for you... True Double Door Refrigerator.calibz True Double Door Refrigerator.3ds If you find it valuable enough, maybe consider sending a donation my way via my pay pal link at www.paypal.me/alaskansons Otherwise, enjoy.

I do something similar myself except I have my full size layout template set up to print at 18x24 and print 1/2 scale check plots at 9-1/2x11. Seems to work well for most average sized residential plans.

I actually did it right in Chief. Just about never use Sketchup anymore. Not secret. Used a more perfected method of some basic methodology I've posted here on the forum in the past.

It sounds to me like you're asking for a tool where you can... Click on an object with an eyedropper sort of functionality in order to pick up that object's layer Draw or place another object and have that object get placed onto the layer of the previously selected object. Is that correct? If so, no. There is no such tool in Chief. I would suggest you just adjust your workflow to more efficiently and effectively utilize Active Defaults and Plan Views. Click on Help and search Multiple Saved Defaults.

Here you go as a one time courtesy.... DS Chair.calibz If you ever need stuff like this fixed up for you in the future, shoot me an email. I offer this type of thing as a support service for quite a few people. I basically help deal with some of the oddball complicated little time sinks so you can keep doing what you do best.

I continue to believe Chief should just provide a toggle to allow the baseline to be located at either the inside bottom or the outside top. For rafter framing auto roofs would automatically place the baseline at inside bottom. For truss framing, auto roofs would automatically place the baseline at outside top. Outside auto build, the toggle would be on a plane by plane basis and could be toggled at will.

Yeah, truss details are totally different. There’s really only one truss detail.

Sometimes I find it extremely handy when manually modifying wall framing to cut from one wall detail and paste hold position into another in order to combine walls. Of course, I only do this if automatic framing is either turned off or retaining wall framing is checked in the walls in question.

Not sure what you are trying to say.

...and don't forget you can also use evaluated macros as methods: macro_a = 3 ----> 3 macro_b = 7 ----> 7 macro_c = macros.macro_a + macros.macro_b ----> 10 instead of being limited to... macro_d = "%macro_a%" + "macro_b%" ----> 37 or a non evaluated version of the same... macro_e = %macro_a%%macro_b% ----> 37

Think of it this way... Evaluated = "Hey Chief, I want you to send all this text over to Ruby to execute as code". Text macros are a pure Chief construct and have nothing to do with Ruby unless the macro is set to evaluate, and even then, it's only the code execution that involves Ruby. Non-evaluated = "Hey Chief, I just want you to just use this as dumb text." Anything between % signs is pure Chief and has nothing whatsoever to do with Ruby. Ruby only sees the text value of the two % signs along with the characters between them. Chief sees %macro_name% onscreen in the plan and it spits out the results of whatever that macro is whether it be evaluated or not.