Alaskan_Son

I would strongly recommend you post the plan.

Was trying to make a quick follow up showing a similarly quick and simple method for full 3D using p-solids but our power went out. Maybe tomorrow. The p-solid method can be equally as fast...its just a little more difficult to manipulate for proper layout within the room.

Hey Edward, Here's a quick video. Sorry, intended to make it a few days ago...just didn't find time till now. From the way you describe it, it just sounds like the method you're using might be more of a hassle than it has to be. Hopefully this helps; if not you, than maybe someone else... Note: You could quite easily add the thickness of the main beams/runners and cross tees by simply creating an extra line before your multiple copy. And you could add further accuracy by using polyline boxes instead of lines to differentiate between the main beams/runners and cross tees (would just take a couple minor extra steps).

I use Nitro Pro https://www.gonitro.com/pro

Build>Electrical>Connect Electrical Manually place connections.

No, I don't believe so. Material List for that.

Rich gave you one possible solution. There are probably many. I just got back to my computer a little while ago and after taking a look at your plan, I have another... As I suspected might be the case, your lighting intensities were all super high. Turn them WAY down and your colors will start to match a lot better. Just ran a quick test changing nothing but the lighting intensity. Turned all 3 down to 0.5 and here's what I got (9 passes)...

Harry, Not sure about version 10, but I believe for many versions now we have had 10" logs in the user library that we can resize as needed. Assuming you have molding lines, polyline solids, slabs, faces, or even a round post converted to a symbol, you can also use any one of those. What exactly have you tried?

Kevin, I think this is a huge misconception...that those of us who are sometimes seen as resisting change are ignorant or unaware of whats out there. The fact is that there are MANY Chiefer's (myslef included) who either have used other CAD software, or who still do own and use other CAD programs. Many people came from Softplan, Vectorworks, Revit, ArchiCAD, Sketchup, and/or AutoCAD just to name a few, and there are plenty of Chief users I know of who still use those programs. In fact some of the guys here on the forum own copies of half a dozen different CAD apps. Anyway, take that for what its worth. I'm just sayin'...we're not all living under a rock.

You're very welcome : )

Understood and agreed. I was just trying to reassure Mike that there's no problem with changing the fill to solid that way he could avoid having to always make the change through default settings (which is really probably not a great idea in some cases).

There are at least 3 ways to deal with that just off the top of my head: 1. Break and resize that wall in elevation and add another section of no room definition wall to replace the section you resize. 2. Probably a better method...Use a pony wall with one desired wall type on top and the other on bottom, then break and resize in elevation. 3. Probably the best method...Simply apply a wall material region.

I'm honestly not sure if there's an easier way. It's not something I've ever wanted or needed to do. Your solution is as good as any I can think of though. Biggest downside is that it's no longer completely live (i.e. if you change one countertop you have to change both).

By default cabinets are already set to solid so setting the type to solid should be considered a non issue.

There could (and probably should) honestly be a whole separate forum for ray tracing. It's a complex art form and takes a lot of time and patience to master.

Without seeing the plan and ray trace settings it's near impossible to tell exactly what's going on. There are various lighting and material settings that could come into play. Lighting intensity and lighting color both come to mind first though.

Using that technique, approx. how long does it take you to lay out ceiling grid for your average room? Reason I ask is that I think I might have a much quicker method that would work for you now that I have a better idea of what you are trying to accomplish.

That's not entirely correct, you don't have to go into default settings. You CAN simply click on the cabinet, change the desired settings and then click Set As Default (the little wrench icon).

1,000 words...

Fill Style tab. You'll have to either change it in the defaults or select a Pattern>Type other than "Use Default" or "None".

That's definitely doable within Chief. Unless you're pretty proficient with it it will probably by somewhat of a challenge though. I use Chief to draw odd things like that from time to time. If it's something you're going to do very often though I'm not sure Chief is the best tool for the job. Nothing against Chief. I just think there are apps better suited for the task for anyone who does that sort of thing on a regular basis.

Would definitely be a good tool to have...even for residential. It could be used for tile layout and all sorts of things. In the meantime, what are you doing now to create your ceiling grid layout?

I'm sorry, I misunderstood what you were trying to do. This sounds like a good one for the suggestion forum. In the meantime, for those of you interested in "silly workarounds" (i.e. using the tools we have to get the job done), its really not very difficult at all to do this using the multiple copy tool (with primary and alternate copies), a room polyline, one extra large polyline box, and just 2 boolean operations. If you can't figure it out, let me know and I'll try to make a quick video if I can find a few extra minutes. You can also create a single solid shaped like your ceiling tile assembly built using the multiple copy tool and then a single thinner solid for the grid Make it large enough so that it would cover most any room you might need it for and add it to your library. When you need it, all you have to do is position it over any given room to where you want it and then use a room polyline converted to a solid and a single boolean operation (solid intersection) to trim the whole thing to the right shape. If you want to use it for 3D views as well simply paint it the color or your ceiling tiles. If you want the ceiling tiles and grid work to be a different color, explode the shape and paint the grid a separate color. Granted it would have to be redone if you change the size or shape of your room, but its pretty quick solution none-the-less.

It depends on exactly what you're doing but I would personally likely just use either polyline boxes, plain old lines, or points along with the Multiple Copy Tool and/or one of the 2 Align/Distribute tools. Once created the items can just be group selected and moved around as necessary. You might also explore using Build>Distributed Objects>Polyline Distribution Region. Should be quite easy one way or another, a little more information about what you're trying to do might help though.

This is a very good tip Alan.