Alaskan_Son

If you're using the Spiral Ducting Bonus Catalog, my advice is this: Activate either the Molding Line tool or the 3D Molding Line tool before clicking on the "Spiral Duct" molding object in the library. This will both ensure that the molding is being applied to your molding line as you draw it but also that you're drawing a manageable line rather than a closed polyline. Once you draw the length you need, simply click Convert Selected To Symbol. You'll have to reposition the symbol, but this way you get the plan view you want, it's a lot more stable, and you can more more easily align with your fittings. Now if only Chief would allow us to Convert To Symbol In Place!!!!

When you're defining the terrain, don't worry about too much about the building elevations at all. Define your terrain using any reference datum you wish. Maybe it's sea level, maybe it's the street, maybe its a stump where you're placing your transit, or maybe its a walkway. Doesn't really matter. Just use whatever works best for you and your specific scenario. The terrain elevation data has nothing whatsoever to do with the floor heights. The relationship between the terrain elevation and floor elevation is easily adjusted as necessary using that Subfloor Height Above Terrain setting. That setting just adjusts the 0" terrain elevation plane relative to the 0" subfloor height. This means if you're using sea level as your elevation datum and your flat terrain is 55' above sea level, you would set the subfloor height above sea level to 55' + the thickness of your floor system + the thickness of your sill plate + the desired distance to grade (typically about 6").

Yes. Using some custom macros it can be done so that there’s a live total in the schedule. I’ve set up a handful of similar systems for other users. It really kinda depends on what the end goal is as to whether it’s worth the trouble of setting up and maintaining said system.

You can just copy/paste the schedule into an excel spreadsheet and add them up in there. No macros necessary.

Sweet! Glad to hear it

Drop a room finish schedule onto Floor 0 and look at the areas of some of the rooms. Now use the Open Row Object tool to change the floor heights in those rooms. Your problem is that you have created rooms between your furring walls and the foundation. You may optionally want to read up on the Furred Wall setting (found in the Structure tab in your Wall Specification dialog).

Agreed. That's just how these things go sometimes. We shouldn't fault Chief because other apps can't get their act together. Read my second to last post again. It's not desirable for more reasons than post processing. It's a notable issue for sharp lines and curves since those vectors then need to be converted to pixelated images. We can already do this using another PDF generator. The problem as I see it though that is getting glossed over a bit is that the very reason Chief's PDF generator produces a better quality product in the first place is because of the transparency. Remove the transparency and you remove most of the reason for using Chief's PDF generator in the ofrst place.

There is none.

Are you talking about diamond bins?

Can easily be done with molding polylines as well if you want to keep your walls as walls.

No problem. I'll let you know if anything ever comes up. Thanks

Project Browser>Plan Views. Select desired Plan View, right click>Edit View.

Not something I have time to describe in great detail but it's totally doable. I offer custom modeling like this as a service, but here's a quickie on the house. Just take a look at the attached screenshot and plan to see roughly how I did it. Essentially though I just used a bunch of arcs, modeled a single quadrant, then copied/reflected, and joined. Tabletop.plan P.S. All those little + signs are Arc Centers/Ends

I actually have NOT run into this problem with any of our clients. If I did, I imagine I would just encourage them to print from a different app.

What a great idea!!

Nope, you're not alone. I have that setting turned off by default.

Uncheck Update Automatically and just click Update when you have your desired page selected.

In X10, the easiest thing to do is make those out of Doorways instead of using invisible walls.... fix.plan Perhaps even better though...just upgrade to X12 and it would be working fine as is.

Watermark not printing because you're not printing watermark perhaps?

By the way, my supposition is really more than a guess. I am almost 100% sure of why Chief maintains transparency and its exactly the same reason some of us use Chief's PDF print driver instead of others in the first place. Yes, the file size may be larger, but see what happens for example where this nice clean vector based circle overlaps an image with Chief's PDF generator... ...and what happens using another printer and no transparency... Here's the transition that must occur between raster and vector when no transparency is used... ...not very pretty.

Do you use any other CAD software that uses layout type viewport/image compiler that deals with both vector and raster based graphics?

Not sure I have much more I can add Kevin. I don't think it's anything we're going to solve here in the forum though. As I'm sure you've seen, it's a relatively well documented problem that arises with certain apps and their drivers and the solutions are all over the board, anywhere from adjusting color settings to adjusting the dpi output to needing to flatten the PDF and so on. I think reporting the problem to your PDF Viewer/Editor company and then simply using a using a different app till they get it fixed is likely the best solution though. I will leave you with a couple last thoughts though... I'm not exactly sure why Chief uses transparency but I imagine it has something to do with problems associated with generating overlapping viewports. Using image transparency in PDF's is actually quite handy if you're in the habit of post Chief PDF editing. Sometimes I edit the PDF file afterward and the ability to move images around without having the backgrounds cover each other is definitely a benefit. Just a random thought, but I've often thought that the transparency printing black issue may be tied to an underlying background/canvas color being used for certain apps during the printing process. I just know that I need to change the background/canvas color on some apps that I use or I can't even view some PNG's. I sometimes wonder if there isn't a similar background being used during the print process that just needs to be adjusted in some of these apps that are having problems...a color that users don't have any direct access to.

The reference grid is a non-printing item. Just make your own using lines and the Multiple Copy tool.

I actually agree with everything you've stated. The big difference for me though is that I only ever have to draw things once. This is especially a major deal if I'm taking time to actually model the site. Take something as seemingly simple as the driveway. If I'm using a Plan Footprint CAD Detail, and I move the house on the lot, even on a perfectly flat lot, I have to do one of 2 things: Either draw the road and driveway accurately in the plan (which means I'm still dealing with rotating 3D elements in plan), or... Model the driveway in such a way that it is synced up with the CAD version of my lot perimeter and roadway in my Plan Footprint CAD Detail. This has to be one of the worst things to do in Chief IMO. I personally think the trouble's associated with group selecting and rotating things in the plan are a pretty small price to pay. By the way, this can be sped up astronomically by just locking everything that shouldn't be moved in your Plot/Site Plan View. Simply Select All and Move/Rotate as desired.

I used to be a big fan of the Plan Footprint CAD Detail method myself, but since the advent of Saved Plan Views, I've found that one of the most effective and efficient methods is to do the entire site/plot plan right in the model and thereby avoid re-drawing and syncing up any site information. The key of course is to rotate and reposition all the site information instead of rotating the model. We've always been able to do this, but Saved Plan Views just make it a lot easier and more efficient. Specifically... You may want to set most (if not all) your Saved Plan Views to Remember Zoom/Rotation. This step isn't necessary as I'll explain in a moment, but makes things a bit easier to manage. Use the Rotate Plan View tool to set the desired rotation angle for your Site/Plot Plan. This one for sure needs to be set to Remember Zoom/Rotation. The problem that comes into play is that once you try to switch from this Plan View to another, if the other is not set to Remember Zoom Rotation, that one will end up being at the off angle. The workaround is to have at least one other normally oriented Plan View that is set to Remember Zoom/Rotation and to be sure and always switch to that one before switching to others. It really just depends on your workflow. I recommend making a note with that aforementioned angle and placing it somewhere off to the side in your Site/Plot Plan so you can copy/paste it into dialogs as may be necessary later. Once set up, here's a screenshot of what I see when I click on Working Plan View... ...and what I see when I click Plot Plan View... ...and they're both right in the model (no CAD Details) and using very little CAD.