Alaskan_Son

To each his own. We all have to decide what's best for our individual businesses in this regard. In your case for example...Maybe you made him pay for the first one and maybe you didn't even get that first job. You could have effectively cut all the other jobs off at the source. Nipped that thing right at the bud!

You're welcome. I wouldn't quite say that the repeat is coming from the tub though. It's just that when you "paint" the wall with your material, you have to remember that the wall behind the tub is also getting painted. The main reason I mentioned it wasn't to explain the repeating pattern but to explain why Stretch To Fit wasn't working as you might expect--that is, it was stretching to fit that whole wall (all the way down to the floor).

Here's a crappy video thrown together on the spot. Sorry, it's not the cleanest or best thought out as you'll see, but contains a few useful basics. Hopefully it helps get you on the right track...

Black on my screen too.

It’s not upside down. It’s just the offset that makes it look upside down. just like in your other thread, adjust the horizontal offset.

That's so funny. I too have some very specific memories of a Chinese restaurant with mirrors on all the walls, but I was about 8 years old. It was a restaurant in a mall in New Hampshire that we would visit from time to time and I was fascinated by the way my own face was always in the corner no matter where I moved. It's one of my most vivid memories.

I'm curious, have you ever designed something like that before where there are 2 mirrors facing each other? Reason i ask is that I have, and after doing so decided I would try to avoid ever doing it again. That infinite mirror effect can be really unpleasant.

In this particular instance, I just checked it immediately because David pointed it out. I usually find stuff like that by systematically deleting things and/or by toggling layers off until I find a specific area or group of objects that seems to contain the culprit. Then I whittle it down further from there. It's the material definition. One of your "Textured Solid Neutral" colors is using a Pattern Type called 326 Peppercorn that is producing a ridiculous number of pattern lines due to it's very small scale setting. Remove the pattern and the problem goes away. I think its just greatly exacerbated due to the fact the robe has 110,000 faces. The question I don't have an answer for is this...Why are Pattern Lines affecting non-vector views?

It's actually the robe, not the hook, but you're right. It's that Architectural block causing the problem.

I personally draw trusses in my plans all the time for various reasons, but if I'm having trusses designed and engineered by others, one of the most important is this... Trusses aren't designed for a project until my job is all but finished and I can't effectively finish my job without having some idea of how the trusses are going to be built. I need to have some idea of HOW trusses will be used, where they will land, where girders might be located, where I need to put beams/point loads, and whether or not trusses will even be possible for certain areas. In addition, I can totally guide the design of trusses if I want to. There are commonly several ways any given job can be done and I want to communicate to my truss designer exactly how I want them done.

Those are just CAD Blocks. You should report it. You can still use them if you want though by placing them in plan, exploding them, and then clicking Add To Library.

AutoCAD is totally capable of producing 3D files which can be imported into Chief and used as is as long as it was actually modeled with 3D information, and so long as all the various materials have been appropriately mapped separately. Anyway, that’s a discussion that’s hardly worth getting into until you know what type of file they have. To answer your other question. I have shared many many large files with lots of people using various methods and platforms, and Dropbox is by far the easiest, most user friendly, least obtrusive, and least problematic in my experience and it’s not even close. Google Drive, One Drive, and iCloud can all be a major PITA.

There’s one major piece of the puzzle that hasn’t been addressed. Are you talking about 2D DXF/DWG files or 3D DXF/DWG files? Big big difference.

The house-wrap is NOT set to zero OOB. It only shows zero out of necessity when you have your Number Style set to fractional inches. You can however manually change it to be truly zero by manually entering zero. . I oftentimes switch my Number Style to decimal inches so that I can better see the actual dimensions.

From the perspectives of both a framer for many years and as a builder and designer, I say edges for walls hands down. Its not even close. Walls very rarely if ever are placed where they're at based on the center dimension so why would you dimension them like that? The vast majority of the time, its a specific edge or opening dimension that's so important. If someone decides to increase a wall to a 2x6 or decrease to a 2x4, I'd say it's probably only 1 time our of 20 that the wall should be adjusted about the center. Edges and openings are really what matters.

This isn't necessary. I almost always leave Print In Color unchecked and all my drawings are in Grayscale.

Speaking on the issue of placing dimensions to centers vs. edges... To me, it really depends on the plan, how detailed it is, how much information is on it, and on the specific purpose of the drawing. In addition, it depends on the reason I placed that window where I did. Unless the edge of a window is the controlling factor for some reason though, I don't see how anyone could argue the inherent benefits of dimensioning to centers. It results in a cleaner plan with less jumble, and it allows for rough openings and even window sizes to be changed as necessary without needing to change the dimensions at all. . Again though, it depends on the plan. If I need an edge located at a specific location, then that obviously changes things. I think its tough to argue that measuring to center is cleaner and leaves less room for doubt though.

I would recommend investing some time in learning how to use and control line weights in general, but in the meantime, open your layout, go to Print>Drawing Sheet setup and (going from memory for name here but...) under Advanced Lineweight Options, change the number to something very very small (or large...I forgot which and I’m not at my computer). That should have a similar affect to turning off line weights. While you’re there, double check, as I recall, there might even be a legacy setting to use only a single line weight.

Without studying and troubleshooting the plans and macro code, there’s not much I can offer, but for whatever it’s worth, the most powerful refresh you can run for schedules is Cut/Paste Hold Position or Undo/Redo. They’re something I have to do for a few specific types of object attributes, and they’re the ONLY things that consistently work for those items.

Some of the best renders are done by people who rarely or never even post here, but there are a few regulars who do beautiful work in 3rd part apps. @Renerabbitt and @Chiefer come quickly to mind. Maybe one of them will chime in.

You are always welcome Charles. Thank YOU!

This is not true. I'm not sure of all the differences but 2 really big ones jump out at me right away... Truss Base Truss Detail ...both major enhancements for anyone actually wanting or needing to draw trusses to any degree of accuracy. Just because it doesn't do what you would like it to doesn't make it a joke. That's a little harsh.

To add a couple notes/tips of my own on this subject... 1. Don't forget that Chief actually loads the entire PDF file every time you import one and it's not just that single page that gets loaded. This alone is a common reason for the slowdown and can have a massive effect on file size. A quick test with a 40 page PDF Saved In Plan... All 40 pages being displayed separately: File size ----> 143,119 KB One single page being displayed: File size ----> 6,114 KB One single page saved as its own single PDF file before importing: File size ----> 2,899 KB 2. Don't forget that simply saving as a JPG doesn't mean you're going to get the same end results. They're different file types with different behaviors and as such, they will often display differently. A very quick comparative example using OOB settings with a common photo editor to convert a PDF to a JPG. Notice the quality difference between the way the 2 files display and print in Chief... 3. Depending on the reason for using a PDF file in the first place and on whether or not you are going to re-use it again later, I would strongly suggest considering just creating your own CAD or text rather than using the PDF at all. It will look better, the file bloat will be reduced or eliminated, and you get a lot more control over the display. These are obviously just quick examples but they're not contrived and just using the first multi-page PDF I saw and using OOB settings.

I haven’t watched that video since I made it (if I even watched it then), so I don’t remember if I made any mention of it or not, but I very rarely use window symbols for anything (except creating curved objects). They have too many weird issues to contend with. Most notably, the cutout shape is severely limited, the 2D block options are severely limited, and they don’t actually insert into walls like they should. Instead, they behave like a surface attachment. They’re really not very useful for their intended purpose in my opinion.

Quite a few ways to do that. It’s a bit easier in X11 and X12, but here’s a video I made a few versions back that you might be able to glean some tips from... ...Just make the desired shape while the window is standing upright and then use the other tips in the video to get the rest of the way there.