Alaskan_Son

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.

You can't delete Z11 because its actually a system layer that you just renamed. Its the Terrain Features layer.

Works for me too.

The problem is that I believe those layers are being used in some of your CAD Blocks. If you check "Automatically Purge CAD Blocks" you can delete the layers just fine.

That's not going to work like you're imagining it should Lew. 8.5 X11 and 11x17 are 2 different ratios.

Yep. Same happened with me.

All you have to do to verify that the proper GPU is being used is click on Preferences>Video Card Status.

You don't happen to have a second integrated graphics processor do you? One of my computers was having issues because it wasn't using the NVIDEA video card. I assume that issue is mostly going to be with laptops, but who knows.

Logical use? Product numbers or SKUs maybe. Only thing I have personally ever used it for is to create extra usable data fields for customized schedules.

The problem in the suggestion forum is that time and time again people make suggestions for things we already have full capabilities of doing, or often times there is a solution they simply don't know exists and it would be doing a disservice not to mention it. I really think people need to report and suggest things directly to tech support a lot more than they do. In my opinion and experience THAT is the best way to influence change. You can rant and rave all you want here on the forum but I really think more often than not it just amounts to a lot of white noise.

Kevin, you mentioned this in your other thread and you got me curious as to what you were talking about so I came back to take a look. To me, much (but not all) of this appears to be the case of a person simply not knowing how to use the tools properly. Specifically, try studying the Bearing Line, Joist Direction, and Floor/Ceiling Beam tools to get you started. Then look at modifying your room structure settings and various framing settings. Could we use some improvements? Absolutely! But when you say. "Yes, I know you can draw all this in using P-lines/Solids.." it becomes very clear that you don't actually know all the tools and capabilities you already have at your disposal. Check it out, you might be surprised.

Can you be a little more specific? We do a lot of zero threshold trench drains but I personally never really model the sloped floor. I just draw up CAD details as/if necessary and since I typically frame those details myself and/or line out one of my best guys to do it, I don't typically need much more than some arrows on the plan showing the slope. Having said that, I'm sure it can be done one way or another. I would need to see a more specific idea of what you're talking about to advise though.

Actually, all you have to do is Shift select and change the one single section of stairs. No need to disconnect them from the landing.

I usually do one of 2 things... 1. Create an elevation view and use whatever rendering technique you want. 2. Temporarily make one or more of the walls invisible and place the camera outside the room.

I don't feel I was denigrating anyone. Just trying to make a point. Offering solutions is the entire point and spirit of this forum. It was definitely suggested by the OP at the very least that perhaps offering "workarounds" (or solutions) was not in our best interest. What then may I ask is the alternative?? I'll tell you...whining and complaining only. No solutions allowed. Otherwise were hampering progress.

It sounds to me like 1 or 2 of you are suggesting we just sit around complaining and whining with you. No thank you. I want to get work done and help other people figure out how to do the same USING THE TOOLS WE HAVE AVAILABLE. And for the record most of us only discourage "improvements" when we see them as potentially counterproductive, when we forsee unwanted consequences, or when they are a smaller part of a bigger problem (simple prioritization). To fault "power users" from offering solutions is really not in the spirit of what this forum is here for and while I get what you're saying I believe you're just looking at it all wrong. The fact is that the vast majority of the time a true "workaround" is suggested that there is no argument from anyone that we could use improvements...the difference is that some of us just choose to roll with the punches in the interim.