Chopsaw

JK, I also struggle with dimensions but here is something that you could try that may get it done in two clicks rather than the 3 required in brand X. Simply set your Snap Grid / Snap Unit to what you would like your offset to be 12", 18", or 24" or whatever and then set your Reach to be about double that to give a little margin for mouse error. Also set your Separation the same as your Snap Unit. Get that manual out later when you have time and stick with the forum when you need help in a hurry.

Nice observation Michael, Not sure when or if I would ever use that personally but always good to know just in case. My grid is really just meant to be a visual reference to keep things square and oriented but if you needed snaps a quicker way would be to adjust the "Snap Grid / Snap Units" in General Plan Defaults as they also work in 3D but should not be necessary when using the Tab entry method depending on the project.

Michael, Nice to see you got some family time in. Are you teaching him about code? Very good job on the terrain and landscape.

Ok I got it, It just did not like my shortcut with quickie trial plan. It will place outlets over the cabinets and they are GFCI just not over the sink cabinet. Thanks Guys.

Joey, It is included in the help file but still does not seem to work. "For example, GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) outlets are placed over cabinets in Kitchen, Bath and Master Bath rooms." So as I see we are faced once again with using workarounds. Hoping that Chief gets this right in the next version. But until then thank you for the workarounds Michael.

Thank You Joey,

David, This seems to be more complicated as my "Auto Place Outlets" do not place in the Bathroom at all and even manually placed outlets in the Kitchen are not GFCI.

Not quite sure if this covers everything that you need to know or not but please let me know. If you like my grid please help yourself to a copy but it only fits a default sized Terrain that is 15x30M with a 1M pattern. Also if you think this is cool put your ideas in the Suggestion Forum for CA to see and maybe they could give us an auto 3D grid. 1M Grid for 15x30M Terrain.calibz And before anyone gets "Frustrated with Chief" here are the Terrain Specification settings that I used.

This can be done in Chief. Is there something that can be learned from SP that you can share that would make Chief better?

That makes sense to me but ........ shanecarman said in post #2 : " I moved the program to my SSD 1tb Samsung when I recently purchased the SSD. My operating system is still on the original, 256GB drive. " I thought that Chief was supposed to be on the same drive as your operating system. Can anyone confirm this? Could this be the issue?

Shane, Watch this video and all you need to know for now is the basics of how to turn it on and you can learn the fine art of it later. Monitor with Task manager when the Ray Trace is running and you should see 100% or more for the CPU. Mine ran at 95-100% and used 11GB of RAM also during a long Export Preparation process it ran at about 16-18% with a couple of short spikes to 25-30%. This will be a good test of your CPU. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/20/creating-photo-realistic-renderings.html?playlist=103

Ok I got your plan loaded and it is HUGE and running fairly slow on my machine. You can likely speed things up quite a bit by turning things off that you are not using at the time. Anything like symbols of furnishings and such can have their layers turned off as soon as you have them situated. I don't have time right now to comb over the whole plan but it seems similar to the last one I looked at with the same issues. My Task manager readings are static at about 24% for memory and 15 -25 % for CPU. I will get back to you after dinner. Anything with a high surface count you should try to turn off. My GPU load is about 27% in Perspective Full Overview and 1-2% in plan view.

And is that live while Chief is non responsive? Because if it is there is a major problem with 0% CPU usage.

While you are watching that little blue circle go around and around pull up Windows 10 Task manager or Resource Monitor and it will give you a real time readout of your CPU and Memory utilization. I suspect that this will not be running at 100%. If you run a high quality ray trace that will give you a good comparison for performance vs. the plan file.

I would not mind taking a look at your plan file if you can upload it to a cloud service and post the link or try to put it in a zip file and see if it is 25 MB or less to post directly on the forum. I looked at a plan file for a friend in a similar situation and it choked my computer down to a slow speed but was only using about 20-25% of my computers resources. I have talked to tech support about this situation and they are looking for plan files that cause problems like this. Your processor may be holding you back a little but there should not be any issue with your RAM or SSD. The other trick that I have seen work before is to do a "save as" with the file and it may clean out any unnecessary stuff.

This type of question would normally be posted in the General Q & A forum but it seems like maybe it would help if you watched a few training video's. Maybe this one would help for starters. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/386/exterior-stairs-from-a-deck-to-the-terrain-custom-stair-railing.html?playlist=89

Last time I looked at this tread there were only positive comments and points so I am not so sure that errors are made very often.

Sorry I should have explained. Import Your PDF into plan view and then draw a Rectangular Polyline over it. Open the Polyline and give it a solid white fill style and set the transparency to somewhere around 25% and then set it to back group and draw walls over top. I suppose the nice part about this method is that you can put the Polyline Cad mask on it's own layer and turn it on and off.

There may be other ways but you could layer in a semitransparent cad mask.

Maybe assign a hot key to one of the existing tools on the toolbar.

I think that I may hold the CA record for this as I once accidentally launched a Polyline solid by scale 2/3 of the way to the moon. Check this thread here:

If you like I could give you a quick demonstration to get you started on Skype later this evening with the above suggestions. Just send me a PM ( Personal Message ) if you are interested. See the black envelope at top of page for PM's.

This should be posted in the General Q & A Forum. Just copy and paste it over to there and you should get a quick response.

Link to teaser above: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00467/troubleshooting-missing-toolbars.html

I sent you a PM