TheKitchenAbode

We ourselves do not take on this type of construction work as our focus is on residential cabinetry design/installation so I am not sure of the minimums a GC would require. However, just for this we need at least $1 million in liability for single residential occupancy work and $2 million liability for multi-occupancy or commercial. This also applies to all trades. It would not surprise me if this will be increased shortly as a tar paper bulldozer shack in Toronto is going for almost a million $ now. If we have a kitchen to do in a Condo tower we must submit proof of insurance & workman compensation to the board before they will even open the door. I think the main issue for designers is that it does not have the same association power that the Architect and Engineering community has. Suspect there is might be some job protection going on there. Graham

Larry - It also surprises me. The state of California & New York (especially the city) are typically the most stringent and usually lead the rest including us here in Canada. At a time way back when I was involved in Code & Standards writing committees it was always these two States that were of greatest concern. The codes and standards here are highly influenced by these, we just had to creatively plagiarize things a bit to reinforce our independence. Graham

Robert - What mainly drove all of these mandatory designation requirements related to the City washing it's hands from any liability what-so-ever, it all falls onto the submitter. It was also a way to cut costs, the building department was spending way too much time providing advice & guidance to every renovator trying to get a permit with a chicken scratch of a drawing. Now as you said so politely they can focus all of their "expertise" on the professionals. Graham

Robert - It's more stringent here, the city will not even look at a plan unless it has been stamped by an Architect, PEng or Certified Designer. The only exception is for the residential homeowner who can prepare and submit drawings directly. If they think the homeowner is just acting as a go around for a behind the scene non-professional they will even refuse these. Best not to make the drawings look to good if this is what you are doing. Graham

There are no requirements or professional designations required to be a business owner/operator. Anyone can open and operate a business in any field of endeavor they choose. You just need the drive to do it. As other's have posted, there is risk involved in every aspect of life, business or not. Your potential to succeed, whatever that measure is, will be determined by your personal dedication, persistence and ability to understand the risk and to balance this against the potential personal and monetary rewards. This usually does not require an extensive costly evaluation study, it does however require one to dig deep within ones self to make sure that your business premise makes sense and you understand what risks are acceptable to you. Every business takes risk, the majority of successful businesses, small or large, take calculated risks. There's nothing wrong with improving your odds. Graham

Check with your local building authority. They should be able to tell you who they will accept drawings from, I am sure they would be more than willing to provide some valuable guidance. The other way is to develop a relationship with an already designated professional to provide this oversight, there are also independents who specialize in this. If you are checking out schools just make sure their program will lead to the recognition you are seeking. Many offer non-credit type courses that are more general interest focused, especially many of those questionable private independent learning schools. Graham

Can't answer all of your questions but you need to keep in mind that there could be legal implications if you are referring to yourself as a "Designer". This can imply or be construed by your client that you have a Professional Designation versus you do Design Work. Its important to ensure that this is clear, especially in any written documentation and if asked directly by a client or you believe that this is the clients expectation. For example, in my region permit submission, other than the home owner, can only be done by a "professionally" designated Architect, Engineer or Designer. They offer special courses and examinations for general contractors to certify them on an individual basis. Keep in mind that these professionals assume certain liabilities, responsibilities and legal obligations in the performance of their duties. If you are just doing interior design work then it may be less risky but it would be ethically inappropriate. Graham

I believe that the only way you can have a reasonable prediction of your B&W printed result is that you will need to set your polyline fill to 100% solid black and then the % transparency. I think if you use a colour other than black the printers gray scale conversion will be unpredictable, you will likely have to reduce the %transparency to print but then your plan view will most likely appear too solid. Graham

The "Material Region" is in reality just a polyline. You could use the CAD polyline tool instead or a polyline solid if you need it to show in camera views. Maybe I am misunderstanding what it is you need to accomplish. Graham

I have used the "Floor Material Region" tool to show tiled areas in a floor plan view. Open the region, assign the colour & set the transparency %. Graham

I tried again in E1 and it worked fine for me. Used "General", "End to End" & "Point to Point" all worked fine. Did this in the middle and both ends of the cabinet run, still worked fine. Also tried of the other elevation views and everything dimensioned. Only one that was E6, had to make sure to drag through the cabinets. If I only dragged through the overhang part with the "End to End" it would not lock on. If I used the "General" it locks on but the extension is on the cabinet, not the bottom of the counter. If I turn of the island counter top thickness in the cabinet DBX then I cannot dimension the counter top.

Hi Mark - I was able to dimension in both E1 & E4 for the counter top thickness of 1 1/2". However if in E4 I changed the base cabinet countertop thickness to 0" in the DBX I could no longer dimension it. Would only dimension the base cabinet height.

Sorry Mark, your confused.zip file unzipped with 0 bytes. I meant in plan view.

Mark - do you mean you can dimension in plan but cannot dimension in elevation? If so then this is the same for me.

Mark - Will take a look at your plan in a minute. Just tried a custom counter top floated in mid air without a cabinet, I cannot dimension it in elevation.

Hi Mark. I think it is working for you because you still have the counter top specified in the cabinet dbx. If I have this turned off and float a custom counter over the cabinet then it will not dimension in elevation. Using X7 latest update.

I believe this applies to all polyline objects, they will not dimension in elevation view. Just tried this, if you convert to a solid then elevation dimensions seem to work and snap properly. Graham

There is an automatic setting in X7, the help file indicates that this has to do with sending the view to layout. I believe Todd wants to set a default text line that would display automatically each time a camera elevation view callout is generated, like what can be done for a text callout. Graham

Just a thought, maybe the pixelated appearance is actually some weird reflection/shadow effect. Like having a perforated lamp shade that projects bright dots all over everything. Maybe you could post a jpg of this so we can see what it looks like. Graham

Agree, my suggestion seems to only work for a manually placed callout "CAD, Text, Callout" I checked the help file on this and it looks like you have to do this manually for each camera view. I do not see any reference to a global default setting. Graham

Is this what you are looking for? Edit, Default Settings, Text, Callouts & Markers, Callout, Edit, Edit. Graham

Hi Laura, Never really played with the "Legacy" option but this term usually refers to a method that is considered as a standard that has been around for a long time. Hardware edge smoothing relates to the camera view edge smoothing as you pan the camera. Hardware is faster than the software method but this should not impact on Raytracing as it is an independent program. Same goes for your graphics card, Raytrace uses your main cpu not the graphics card, it's really just a number cruncher. Suggest you check your lights. If any are point lights with shadows on then your trace times will be high. Photon mapping turned on will also increase the time. Keep in mind that the time degradation is cumulative, more lights more time. Suspect the pixilation is due to the photon mapping, 10 passes may not be enough to generate a clean pic. The Raytrace process is progressive, each pass refines the image. The visual impact of each pass follows the law of diminishing return, as the number of passes increase the noticeable improvement lessens. If you need this level of quality then you may have no choice but to let the Raytrace run overnight to see if a higher number of passes will produce the result you are looking for. One other item that will effect the time is the image size set in the Raytrace DBX, the larger the size means more pixels need to be crunched. Make sure the size is not unnecessarily high for the intended presentation. Graham

Edit, Default Settings, Camera Graham

3 hours seems like a very long time. How many passes are being done in this time frame? Graham

Double click the point marker for the DBX and change the radius to the size that suits. You can also click the point marker and drag the handle to reduce it's size. Graham