Alaskan_Son

A few of my thoughts on the subject...

1.  If you build your model properly your cross sections may be a little "messy" looking compared to those of most AutoCAD users, but fact is yours will most likely be far more acurate.

2.  View to CAD as Lew said turns your view into a series of lines and disconnects the view from your model so it is no longer "live".  It defintely has its good uses...for example, I've started making copies of my cabinets, deleting the doors, and creating a CAD detail from view in order to dimension all the openings for "shop drawings".  Its also a good tool when you need to heavily modify a view and gives you a lot more flexibility with dimensioning.  Having said that, I would avoid using this tool for most elevations though due to the fact it doesn't stay "live" (after refreshing the view of course).

3.  The Edit Layout Line tool can be handy, however I would only recommend using it for minor touch ups to nearly complete plans, or to make more substantial changes once plan is completely finalized.  The view would stay "live", however if you make any changes that would affect those views and you want to refresh them, all your linework would be for naught.

4.  What I've found to be the most effective for me personally is to use polylines to "mask" the elevations as necessary.  Choose a solid fill set to Match Background and whatver line style and thickness you like (including the "clear" line option).  You can break lines, reshape, create polyline unions, etc. to cover whatever you don't want showing up in the view.  This way your view stays completely "live" and you have very little fear of anything getting messed up when you refresh a view.

Just my $.02

Its not the most beautiful plan work (at least compared to some I've seen around here) but I've attached a link to a dropbox file with a plan and layout in it that I recently did for a big cabinet layout.  Look through it a bit to get an idea of what I'm talking about if you like.  And note that all the "detail" pages were done with "Create CAD Detail From View"

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i2k5gkqafitspp7/ER%20backup.zip

Can you be a little more specific with what you are trying to achieve? To me your question seems a little like "How can we create dimensions without using the dimension tools?"

Good idea for a post Joe...simple and to the point. Until a few days ago I didn't really know what anno-sets were and

I'm sure there are a ton of people in the same boat. As I see it, it saves me from having to put CAD and text details on their own custom layer for any given plan view or elevation and saves me from having to adjust the settings (especially for dimensions and text) all the time. I've been wondering lately how much time it will really save, but the more I think about it, taking a couple hours to set them all up will likely pay off fairly quickly.

I only recently started to realize what anno-sets are for. I'll likely start using them here shortly and I am fairly certain I will only use 1 or 2 of the OOB sets and will probably end up with around 20 or so of my own. I guess I'll have to see and then check back in. I'm not altogether certain how much faster anno-sets will be than just continuing to use custom text and CAD layers.

I'm looking at buying CA possibly, I need to someday draw plans and build on to my house, so looking for something to do that as well, but for now, I'd like to get something that can do simpler things too, like my shop, pole barns, etc.  Shop's are probably a no brainer, but the pole barns may be different.  I saw one place somewhere say that it's doable with CA, just have to stand on your head.  I guess the biggest question, does it have the capabilities of computing the engineering aspects?  And that goes for regular designs too, can it give me beam sizes, joist sizes, etc.

I think there is a pretty big misconception of CAD and 3D design programs out there amongst those who haven't delved into them much...

None of the programs really DO anything for you (much like a router won't build your cabinets or teach you how to).  They simply make drawing and figuring things a little quicker and more efficient.

In short, and for all intensive purposes; if you don't have the knowledge, expertise, and general ability to draw something up by hand and do the calculations on paper, a design program won't make you any better at that and most certainly won't draw up plans for you.  It will making general and basic ILLUSTRATION possible for your average user, but as far as construction documentation goes, engineering, calculations, specs, etc...thats still all on you.

LiteMari,

The subject you bring up is rather involved and requires covering a broad range of topics to answer acurately.  I don't have a lot of time so I can only briefly touch base on a couple things...

Chief Architect and SketchUp are really not very similar at all and I honestly doubt you'll find many (if any) architects who actually use it for construction drawings.  In fact, Nick Sonder is the only one I personally even know of.  While Chief Architect is an awesome tool and in the hands of a good user will leave most other programs in the dust...it also is not as commonly used by architects as several other programs.  In short, I wouldn't really use SketchUp versus Chief Architect as much of a factor in deciding which architect to hire.  In my opinion it really wouldnt be a very good tool in deciding who to hire.  It may be worth considering as a tie breaker, but I would recommend that you put which software they use much further down your list.  Things like reputation, referals, rapport, quality of product, level of creativity, etc. are much more important factors.  It would be to me like picking a builder based on which brand of air compressor he used.

Similarly, with regard to ray traces and renderings, I would focus much less on the tools and techniques and just try to work with who you think will do the best job based on examples of their work, their ability to clearly communicate in such a way that YOU can understand it, etc.  Many times (depedning on the situation and the person) a simple black and white sketch can be a much better way to communicate an idea than a photo realistic rendering would be.  A good designer or architect should really know what works best for his/herself, their clients, and the specific project or design feature.  I might add that you will find VERY FEW people who can turn out anywhere near the quality of renderings you'll find on the website you attached, and I would venture to say that some of the people who CAN turn out renderings of that quality may be terrible designers. The abillity to do good renderings and to design a home do not necessarily go hand in hand.  I could easily see a person passing up the better architect by placing too high a weight on their renderings and overlooking some more important strengths.

In short, a good architect or designer needs to know their strenghts and weaknesses, which tools work best for them, and how best to communicate each unique detail and with each individual client.  The best choice may end up being an architect who uses AutoCAD and draws his/her 3D details by hand. 

Definitely an ongoing problem.  Happens with cameras quite a bit too.  I just use the same technique mentioned above to address it.

Sheldon,

You should probablyu start a new thread for your question, however...

What I have done in the past is simply import the survey image and trace over it with CAD lines, arcs, boxes, etc.  You can adjust for the correct proportions once you have the shape drawn up. 

I think this can almost be done entirely within Chief although you may have to play around with it a bit to get good image quality for the 2D drawing.  One approach...

1.  Create a solid that is the correct shape and size of you desired 2D plan.

2.  Resize that solid proportionately so it will fit under your 3D model appropriately (it will essentially be a terrain).

3.  Export a picture of your desired plan view or layout page.

4.  Crop the picture as necessary so it is sized correctly (proportionately).

5.  Create a new material using that picture and set it as "stretch to fit"

6.  Apply that material to your custom solid from step 1.

Just one idea.

No problem.  Glad I could be of assistance.

See attached screenshot.  Hopefully this works for you.

Can you elaborate on what you're looking to accomplish?  There is no way to rotate a window that I know of but there may be other ways to reach your desired outcome.

It looks like a lot of that is in the 3D warehouse...

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search.html?q=Thermador&backendClass=entity

Les,  if you properly adjust BOTH the texture (standard view) and pattern (vector view) for the copied material you should get what you're after.

You bet.  Glad I could help : )

You should move this to the General Q&A section.  Attaching a plan as well would help you get a much quicker and more acurate answer.

There might be a better way, but the key combo Control/Shift/Tab followed by Enter does the trick.

Hitting tab while dragging an object is an absolutely fantastic function and works wonderfully.  Like Scott, I also do not see your point (or problem).  A little clarification maybe?

Joe,

You can use the control key to insert objects into other objects (cabinets into cabinets, symbols into cabinets, symbols into other symbols, symbols into walls, etc.)  which solves some of the issues you bring up. 

The problems that could arise with adjusting the origins to match have to do with the fact that in order to do what you want, you will essentially have a "place holder" for your symbol that is offset from the 2D AND 3D representations.  That place holder would stop placement of other objects (without using the control button override), will screw up snapping (which would use the place holder and not your 2D OR 3D representations) would make it difficult and annoying to select nearby objects that overlap into its territory, would make dimensioning to your symbol annoying (you would likely have to just use temporary points)...the list goes on.

I have no problem with your suggested solution (so long as its offered only as an option and not as the default), however I don't believe its actually the real solution, just a sloppy workaround.

What we have now, you DO see exactly the same in plan view as in 3D view UNLESS you adjust the origin (which works exactly as designed and SHOULD cause the 2 representations to be different).  What you suggest is just a way to override existing placement limits but causes a whole list of other issues.

My conclusions are:

1.  Some additional bounding box options are definitely a good idea (perhaps an adjustable bounding box origin).

2.  Window symbols just need to allow for a custom window to actually be inserted into the wall.  Simple as that.  No origin adjustments necessary.  Currently they only allow mounting TO the wall (essentially a window covering) which cuts an opening of the same size.  You only get the illusion of inserting into the wall by offsetting the origin of the symbol.

3.  The added option of aligning the CAD block origin with the 3D origin would be okay, but not a real solution in my opinion.  Adjusting the origin of both the 2D and 3D representations of a symbol adds a whole plethora of other issues and doesn't really solve anything.  I suggest that anything you can't solve by holding down the control button needs to fixed another way  and that if you adjust both origins to match you will end up with issues placing measurements, centering objects, point to point move (any kind of accurate moving for that matter), placing other objects in the adjacent areas, selecting objects, etc.

I'll have to respectfully disagree Joe. If you could in fact insert the symbol into the wall like you want, the origins would be a moot point. I believe that the only reason to do what you are saying under ANY circumstance is when an object will not go where you want it to go because of a software limitation (inserting an item where it is not permitted to be inserted). I hold that the origin settings work exactly as they should and that you're looking to fix a problem with the wrong solution.

You know...I've thought this through quite a bit and played around with all the scenarios mentioned.  I think the problem you are trying to solve really has nothing to do with the symbol origin at all but rather with limitations of window symbols.  Having the origins of both the 3D and CAD representations match will mathematically put you back at square one and therefore would be of no use.  What you are really looking for is for the ability to insert a user defined symbol into a wall (right now all we can do is attach TO the wall).  Until Chief allows us to do this, I think the only real solution is a CAD patch. Recessed Bookcase for Scott.zip

On second thought...I'm pretty sure I'm not missing anything. I was thinking about it and realized I change the origin for other reasons as well (when I don't want the 2D and 3D representations to match). In particular, I use it for furniture...especially chairs and stools...I like my seating to be all lined up, square, and uniform I plan view, but I like it to be a little more random and realistic in 3D which is why I adjust the origin and why I think it is working exactly as it should.

Please forgive me if I'm missing something, but isn't the whole point of adjusting the origin to be able to do exactly what you're describing? I've always used it to adjust for differences in symbols that do not display properly...when the origin does not match the 2D representation.

I think it is working exactly as it was designed to work. Otherwise, what would you expect adjusting the origin to do??

Am I missing something?

You really need to use bump maps and ideally a different rendering program to get realistic grass.