TheKitchenAbode

You need to check carefully within your jurisdiction, governing codes and professional authorities to get a clear understanding as to what you can and can't do according to your particular skill set and professional designation. Most regions have particular requirements based upon the type, size and accupancy designation of a structure concerning what if any type of professional designation is required for the preparation and submission of plans for permits. Even if a structure type does not mandate the use of an Architect most jurisdictions would still require an Engineers stamp for structural items and changes, this would be applicable even were the Homeowner is permitted to prepare and submit the plans. You should also be very clear as to what is legally required versus what might be going on. An example relates to the acceptance of Homeowner submissions. In my jurisdiction where this is permitted they are specific that the plans are to be prepared by the Homeowner and submitted by the Homeowner. If they suspect that the plans were actually prepared for the homeowner by another that the homeowner paid (contracted) then they can refuse the submission. This is similar to the situation where a homeowner who is not an electrician can perform electrical work in their home but if you are paid by the homeowner to do electrical work in their home then you the contractor must be a certified electrician. Graham

It's easy to have something turned off. When ever I am having an issue I usually use the turn everything on set in plan and camera views. Glad this solved the issue. Graham

There is something in your plan that is consuming the space. Click on the plan, you will see that the whole plan is highlighted instead of the room. Delete this and everything works fine. Graham

Richard - The problem I encountered is that main Catalog files do not like being synced while Chief is open. You could do this say at the beginning and end of the day once you are finished with Chief but you would need to do this on every system. Could always set up a sync schedule, I tried this but was not patient enough to wait for it to finish before getting into Chief. Maybe some other users have had some success at this and would like to share their experience. Graham

Richard - I discussed, post #37, my experience trying to sync these. Not sure you can do it without a lot of complications and unpredictable behavior. Graham

No problem - just make sure that your other systems also point to this new folder location in their Preferences. Once done then all of your systems will be sharing the same user folder, changes in one will be reflected across all systems. Enjoy! Graham

Here's a screen shot. Graham

Larry - the folder I changed was the first one in the list "My Data Folder". It was set to point to my OneDrive Folder. Graham

If this helps. I have the User Library synced in my OneDrive folder, just change the file destination under "Preferences", "General", "Folders". Everything seems to work ok. I did try about a year ago to sync the main Library, this did not work. The main problem was that Chief seems to need this to be in the main Chief directory "C:/Program Data" and as such it does not seem to be possible to relocate it to separate Cloud folder such as OneDrive or Drop Box. The only way I could get this to work was to run a separate file syncing program to first sync the main Library to my OneDrive folder and then sync the OneDrive folder back. This of course would only work if the syncing was done in only one order in order to avoid two syncing programs trying to sync at the same time. This also had to be done either before opening Chief or after closing Chief, it did not like the files being synced while in operation. After some thought I decided that my User Library was really the most important one to sync as it tends to change most frequently. Graham

When viewing the source code this message kept popping up. No idea if it means anything or not. DOM7011: The code on this page disabled back and forward caching. For more information, see: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=291337 index.php Graham

Just a guess, if photon mapping is turned on you need at least one active light in you scene. Can't read the error message you posted as it is blurry but a something like that will happen. Graham

Make sure you have "Shadows" toggled "Off" and in "Preferences, Render" the "Line Smoothing" is no higher than 20%. I have a laptop with HD3000 and it works just fine as long as I have these settings. Graham

Steve - You got that right! Fortunately for us there are some really great members that are more than willing to share their experiences and expertise. One thing to always remember is to post those pics and plans, you'll usually get the answer in very short order. Graham

That's the biggest challenge with Chief. It's a very, very powerful piece of software but it really takes time to discover what all of those tools and features are capable of doing. There's lots of examples in the reference manual, knowledge base and this forum. Even with all of these sources I strongly believe there is still a lot of functionality and techniques just waiting for someone to recognize them and how they could be used to get something done. Graham

The crown disapearing and the reapering happens a fair bit. Believe this is a rebuiding thing, just open and close the adjacent cabinet and things usually reconnect. I think something was off by 1/16" which is why it was not looking correct in the inside corner between the tall and regular upper. I always use a molding polyline for this. Only use the cabinet molding feature for the light valance and just because it is often awkward to click on this when using a molding polyline. Graham

You forgot to post your settings, how long did this run for? How many passes? The 2nd image, what is this for? Is it to demonstrate the look you wish to achieve? Graham

Posting a pic would really be helpful so we can see what is happening. You can also change some settings in the Raytrace DBX that will alter how colors appear. Use "Uniform Intensity" instead of "Ambient Occlusion", turn off "Photon Mapping", set the "Direct Sunlight" to 0. This should help but it will also affect how other items appear as they are global type settings. Graham

An identical colour can raytrace a different shade if it is on horizontal and vertical surfaces due to light striking and reflecting back at a different angle. Assuming that there no material painter issues you can use a different white on each surface and adjust to compensate. Graham

Looks like you are using the sun to crank up the overall brightness. Suggest you back off on it's intensity, this will reduce what we call light bleed where wall and ceiling intersects have strong halos. You can use additional light fixtures or those invisible 3D lights to bring up the overall interior light level, adjusting the ambient occlusion can also help, it's a bit like a shadow/highlight control. Getting the best light balance for a given scene can be very challenging to say the least. Concerning quality, not sure the Raytracer in Chief is capable of producing so called photo realistic renderings. I am convinced it can produce much better results than we tend to get but the effort and time may not be worth it. You may have to go the next level with a specialized renderer. Graham

There is a significant amount of new capability built into Windows 10 in order to accommodate future features. Of course you can hang on to Windows 7 or any other older version but you will be on your own. Microsoft is and has started the process of dropping all support for these older versions. Graham

Have four systems, all with Windows 10. Converted them the first day it was available. It is the best widows to date, just takes a bit of getting used to. Don't fret about the privacy fear mongers, Windows 10 is more secure than the other versions. You can control the auto- update and other privacy settings if you wish. Graham

You may wish to read this article. Not to say this is 100% accurate but you may need to change your analogy in the near future. http://www.businessinsider.com/porsche-suv-sales-game-2016-3 Graham

Facer_03 - Sorry don't have a name. I'm certain your post will invite considerable comment. There's no doubt that there is a lot of advancements coming to the forefront and in such a rapidly changing (dynamic) market it has always been a major challenge for established businesses to predict, prepare and respond within the most opportunistic window of opportunity. One of the greatest difficulties is sifting through all of the hype with the intention of identifying opportunities that are realistic and achievable within a businesses available or attainable resources. Yes, there is a significant amount of talk about AI and 3D printing technology and yes these will come to fruition. The challenge is to identify specifically where they are most likely to be adopted and their rate of adoption. This of course will also be highly dependent upon the technologies capability at a given time and the cost of implementation in order to derive an attractive cost benefit. One thing for sure is that the Construction/Building industry will likely be one of the most challenging of industries. From a Global perspective just about every structure is unique in style, materials used in it's construction, the degree of embodied technology, cost and required service life & conditions. Add to this the fact that existing structures far exceed the number of new structures and that much of this new technology may not be particularly well suited to this massive existing stock. Just touching the tip of the iceberg. Graham

You can also change the fixture to mount based upon floor height versus the ceiling. Graham

I believe you may have touched on an interesting point, the market for Chief. Not sure they could ever penetrate the major Architectural firms, they have way to much money and time vested in software such as AutoCAD. This market was secured back in the 80's when CAD systems were first being adopted by the industry. My sense is that Chief's market lies within the small independents who need a reasonable priced package that they can get up and run with without extensive training that can serve a wide range of purposes. Let's be fair, it's not really that difficult to build a complete house including fixtures and landscaping, material schedules, plan sets and renderings, all for about $2,400. I am not aware of any other package that can do all of this for that amount of expenditure. Graham