Joe_Carrick

I'm like Brian, I don't get the slowdown at all. It has to be system related.

I don't know. But personally, I've found very few cases where I needed a "3D Molding Polyline. I can see a use where there's an exterior railing wall that goes up along a stairway, then continues horizontal for a few feet and then turns at an angle left or right. In that case if I wanted a molding cap to follow the top of the wall I would use a "3D Molding Polyline" but otherwise I always use the "2D" variety.

Larry, If you made that in an elevation view - just use a "Molding Polyline", not a "3D Molding Polyline". You only need a "3D Molding Polyline" when all points are not on a common plane. IAE, moving it is as easy as selecting it, click on Transform/Replicate and Move it. Note: To move any Polyline you must be in the View in which it was created - unless you use Transform/Replicate. Note 2: You can "Convert to Symbol" in any 3D View, including Elevations/Sections.

Check your virus settings. Make sure that Chief and all Chief folders/files are exempted. You probably did that for X6 at some point but X7 resides in different folders. Virus checkers can really slow things down.

Is this what you are looking for? Note: I did this with 3 Molding Polylines, not a Polyline Solid. The Molding Polylines are drawn in Plan View and each is assigned a different height and Molding Shape to fit: 1. Below the Window 2. At the Window 3. Above the Window If you need something more complex then I would model it using Primitive Solids and the Boolean Operations. Since I don't know exactly what the end result should be, it's difficult to give you the best possible way of doing it.

Greg, Chief doesn't do "Sloped Walls" but you can use a Roof Plane. However, there's no way to insert a door or window into a Roof Plane. Attach a pic of what you want it to look like and we can help. Otherwise we can't help you do what you want. Even better, also attach your plan.

If just the Exterior is to be sloped, you can use one or more molding polylines with a triangular shaped molding profile. If you can attach the pic I can be more specific.

Glenn, Yes, it can be done and Yusuf showed us how to get a curved handrail - but both are extra work. You can control the Top and Bottom of the Stringer but not the width. Sometimes I want a thin (1/4"-1'2" metal) closed stringer at the outside edge of the spiral. Opening - No Material is a possible solution but might be a problem if I want a Stringer on one side only. CA could do this with some changes to the current Stairs Tool.

Now, if we could just get: 1. Curved Stair Treads 2. Curved Handrails 3. No Stringer 4. Outside Edge Stinger with size control. Then it would be almost perfect.

Yusuf, Suggestions like the object origin point and showing stretch plane locations in the 3D View of the dbx should be posted in the suggestions forum and/or sent to suggestions@chiefarchitect.com

Sometimes we need to modify one of Chief's Library Symbols --- Core, Bonus, Manufacturer --- but Chief doesn't give us access to that directly. There are 2 ways we can make such changes and have the modified Symbol available for future use: 1. Place the Symbol in the Plan - make the changes to the Symbol dbx - Add the Symbol to the User Library. 2. Copy the Symbol fro Chief's Library to the User Library - make the changes to the Symbol dbx directly. The result is the same in both cases. In some cases you might want to add more 3D objects (shapes) to the symbol. In that case you would place Chief's Symbol in a blank plan, add the 3D objects and "Create a new Symbol". You will need to set all the Symbol parameters in the dbx since they will not automatically be transferred from the original symbol.

The answer is partially, but most cabinet makers would just make it square at both ends and provide a filler at the right side.

No, it isn't. I must tell you that even the cabinet companies don't do that. 99% of the time you would have a series of cabinets (square sides) and only the top would match the wall. End panels could be added to be perpendicular to the wall

I think there's another option in the wall dbx to "Dimension to this Layer" without changing the "Main Layer". OTOH, I'm curious as to why you would want to dimension to the "Surface".

I've done some snow scenes using some small symbols made from custom countertops with quarter round edge moldings (white for snow) which I used in a material region. By setting the spacing and offsets you can get very smooth and/or lumpy snow. For the Roof, I made a similar symbol which was set as "flush mounted on roof" (2 options for exterior fixtures). By using different thicknesses you can change the snow depth. The material regions allow you to limit where the "snow" exists and where it doesn't. If the symbols are defined on their own custom layer you can simply turn of that layer to change to a different season.

Doug, Here's my situation on the Intel HD Graphics: If I have a 3D view open and then select an opject such as a door, window, cabinet, etc and then open the dbx - Assertion Failure If I have a 3D view open and then scroll in the Library with the selection panel displayed - Assertion Failure This did not happen with X6. Dermot indicated that there was some work done to speed up the Render Engine so maybe that's where the problem is. My other systems with NVidea Graphics Cards work fine. Let me know what other info you need and I'll try to get it for you. Here's the Video Card Status on the system that has the problem:

Yusuf. A curved railing wall that is assigned to follow stairs. That's great. Now if we could get rid of the stringers for the spiral stairs and get the outside edges of the treads to be curved as well.............. What you've shown us is that Chief has existing subroutines that could be used to enhance the Stairs Tool. I missed this because I was looking for the true Spiral Stair, not just a Circular Stairway as your video shows. I agree that the railing can be done using your method and applied to a Spiral but we still have the issue of stringers and the outer edges of the treads not being curved. We really need CA to do all of this in the Stair Tool. IAE, thanks for showing us how to do this. Much appreciated.

Joey, Try turning off the Selection Pane in the Library and see if that fixes the problem. You could also check to see if there's a newer driver for your video card. One other thing to check just to see if it's the same problem I have - select a door and open the dbx. If that also causes the problem then it's the same as what happen with my system. btw, I'm also running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit on the system with the problem. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this and figure out what the real cause is. Neither of us had any problem running Chief X6 on these computers.

Joey. I've had a similar problem with one of my systems. That system has an Intel HD Graphics card and the problem occurs when both a render and vector 3D view is displayed - usually a result of opening an object dbx or selecting an object from the Library. While a new driver for the Intel HD Graphics might solve the problem, i'm going to just bite the bullet and get an NVidea graphics card. That might not be your problem. I don't know what your hardware configuration is but at least that's what the problem is on my system. BTW, I have 2 other systems using NVidea Graphics with no problems.

Thanks Dermot, Hopefully those things will make it into the final release of X7 - If not all then at least most so that there will be little or nothing to fix in this tool in the future. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

Dennis, I have requested several times that CA add a "Heli-Coil" Solid (basically a spring that has a constant cross section perpendicular to the slope of the coil. Maybe they'll do it for X8. In the mean time, I use a set of 4 short tubes (7.5 degrees each) copy/repeated/rotated as Jim does to create a 30 degree section. I then convert this to a Symbol and adjust the smoothing angle. It's not 100% perfect but it get's close enough to appear smooth in a render or ray trace view.

Installation clearance (probably a setting in defaults) so that the window will actually fit in the RO.

Sherry, Were you "Country - when Country wasn't cool"? That couldn't really be because Country was always Cool!

Perry, I will agree to having an option to display the size either way. But Chief didn't give us that option.

One key element that hasn't been mentioned is the maximum resolution of your video card. If you're using a Laptop that has a video card resolution limit based on the laptop screen then any external monitor will be limited to that resolution. My Laptop has a maximum resolution of 1900x1080 (basically 1080p) so using a 4K TV would be a waste of money. OTOH, my Desktop System has a video card that supports much higher resolutions.