AvoyeDesign

I've done it with a roof plane, and removing all non essentail layers, fascia, soffit, gutters, etc.  This way you can add a slight pitch as well.

9 hours ago, ED-209 said:

Chief is good for 3D concept art and for interior renders, but for creating site maps it's terrible. What's a good software to use that isn't super expensive?

 

Thanks!!

I do all my site plans in Chief.  I can imput bearing and lengh of property.  I can even import topo lines and model the terrain accuratly.  I'm not sure what you are missing.

53 minutes ago, Chopsaw said:

 

In my neck of the woods the city building department wants to see the truss engineering for review before issuing the permit.

 

So sometimes the owner has not decided on a contractor at that point and I send in the drawings for truss engineering often or sometime just as a service for the contractor.

 

If it works that way in Cali then maybe you can blame them for issuing the permit with the wrong truss engineering.  But good luck with that.

Hmm, around here the GC has to be named on the permit application.  In any case, if an owner was pulling a permit without having a GC on contract I'd be a little concerned.

14 hours ago, glennw said:

Or...if you don't want to create a room, you can control the stairs in the stair dbx.

On the General panel, you can control things like Top Height, Bottom Height, Riser Height, etc.

Uncheck Automatic heights first.

You can also Ctrl drag stairs and they will draw down from a floor instead of up.

"Lock Top" to the floor and then change some of the parameters. 

Considering the stairs access a basement, you will want retaining walls anyway, so the room option is perhaps the best bet.  Setting a room above that on the main floor with railing walls gives a guardrail at grade height to protect from falling into the stairwell.  This room is then set open below, and floor height set to grade height so the stairs automatically meet grade.  The railings and floor height of the open below room also set the top of your retaining wall.  Dont designate the foundation walls as retaining though.

OK, I see your problem now.  Because chief only allows one room on each floor (i.e. you can't stack 2 rooms on the same floor), you either get a hole to the garage in the study or a hole to the study in the den.  You are allowing chief to create the hole to the study in the den, and creating a room on the 3rd floor and dragging it's height down to match the level of the den.  The wall that appears is apparently not being trimmed properly by chief, and this type of buggy behavior is to be expected when chief is jurry rigged this way.  In all fairness this isn't a condition that the developers have really acocunted for in the program, but that is no help to you. 

My suggestion would be to go to preferences>architectural and make sure that "select room before wall in 3D" is unchecked.  Then you can select the offending wall and drag the top below the floor.  But since you are stretching the intended funciton of chief I would expect to see this type of persistant behaviour in other areas of the plan.

Alternatively, I've attached a mock up of another way to tackle this.  Basically I've treated the floor of the den and the floor of the study as one assembly, with an air gap in the middle.  I've had to add finish layers between the two structural layers, but with some calculations I was able to perfectly align them.  Then I added a door to the wall between the study and den, and adjusted its height, elevation and width to fit between the two floors, and removed the casing.  I had to add a couple of polyline solids to fill some side walls, and a manual room molding, but it is pretty close.  A little bit more patch work might be needed.

3 rooms 2 floors.plan

Regardless of all that, pick a default for each floor that matches the most ideal room you have and go from there.  Chief does not ignore defaults unless you tell it to, and even then I'm not even sure.  The defaults you have don't make much sense to me, and if you are not using them, it is best to pick proper ones any way.  Rule that out, then begin looking for other problems.

Hi Doug,

I just took a quick look at your plan, and the first place I wanted to check was your floor defaults.  And quite frankly, they are a mess.  Remember that chief follows these settings first for all rooms on a floor, unless you manually change it.  I would suggest going through your defaults for each floor and setting your levels for the most common areas.  Then go back and make all rooms follow these defaults.  Then go to rooms that dont follow those settings and make the appropriate changes.  Based on the floor default settings you have, I don't know why you would want any one room to have those defaults.  Yet they appear to be set by you.  It would be a good idea to thorougly review in the help section the purpose of floor defaults and how chief builds floors and rooms.

Also, you have described the design, but left it a little vague what the problem is you are having.  Some more detail on that might get more responses.

Please be patient with the kind folks here on chieftalk.  We are all busy people and you have thrown quite a complex problem out there.  If you need help right now I suggest calling technical support.  I would offer one on one help per my hourly rate, but I don't know if I have time this week to set aside on short notice.  Be patient, someone will respond.

Ask your client if he doesn't mind a nurse performing his open heart surgery...

I've noticed this too, but never had an issue with it.  I guess I don't demand the same level of accuracy as others.  But if it causes an issue...

So no X10 fix.  Well, at least it is a high priority for X11.  Thanks for the update.

1 hour ago, Chopsaw said:

 

Yes that is the problem. Plot Lines with Color Fill.  Can't really tell from your screen shot but if you have figured out a way to make it work properly please do tell.

Can you show me the result you are getting and what isn't working for you?  I'm to clear on what your problem is.  

Also, you are not the original poster, but you seem to be answering for them.  I'm a little confused...

1 hour ago, DRAWZILLA said:

It does attach and do it all the time without any issues, don't know why you have problems

If you are suggesting that I select and copy the dimensions on the first floor, then paste them in place on the foundation, chief generates points for the dimensions to locate, they do not attach to the walls.  I've never seen chief do as you suggest.

If you are suggesting something else then I am not clear on what that is.

Got a reply to the tech support ticket:

Hi,

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. I believe that other participants in the ChiefTalk thread you mentioned have also contacted us as well, and we appreciate your taking the time to do so. I will make sure our Software Development team knows that this issue is of particular concern to you.

Cameron
Chief Architect Technical Support

Lets keep this up so our concerns are heard.

have you tried this?

On 7/20/2018 at 12:16 PM, DRAWZILLA said:

You can always just copy your floor plan dimensions , go down to the foundation level and paste there.

I would suggest not doing this, as it could be misleading.  Always best to have the dimensions attach to the actual object to give accurate feedback.  And if that means the user has to learn how to properly generate and edit a foundation to get the results they want with the auto dimensions, all the better.

10 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

I understand that this is a major issue to some of you guys and I sincerely hope it gets addressed for you, but I don't see how its above debate or how it deserves a higher spot on the list.  There are plenty of us who have major issues with countless other things in Chief.  This particular one is a non-issue for me and many others who take time to report our concerns so it needs to be fairly prioritized accordingly. 

 

By the way, I'm kinda curious...why do you guys insist on using modified PDF's that have the same name?  I'm honestly not trying to be argumentative.  It just seems like good practice to modify the name if the file has been changed. 

The problem with this issue is that it is silent and deadly.  While I can see problems with stair tools and door/window header framing right in front of me, and deal with them through frustrating workarounds, there is nothing to indicate that there is a bug or a shortcoming in the software when a PDF doesn't update.  It is not a corner of the room you are stubbing your toe on every time you walk by, it is a silend and deadly cancer that you won't see until it is too late.

And you are correct, that best practice would be to save each PDF as a new version, for proper archiving of records, and that this would fix this problem.  But when does everyone follow best practices for every part of their work?  You should have seen my bookkeeping practices from the last 10 years!  Relying on best practices from users to fill the gaping hole of this feature is dangerous.  If one party, Chief Architect, fixes this isssue, it is done, instead of relying on 10,000 parties, individual users, to get it right.

I remember there was a huge change to stairs somewhere in X3 or X4, I don't recall which.  Some basic functions were added that I think allowed more flexible control of heights.  Not near as much as needed, but at the time it was an improvement.  Later we got break lines and tread/railings drawn on plan.  Small improvements.

I recall somewhere someone at chief saying that the stair tool went back to the earliest code for chief architect, and was a rats nest of crazy that the developers were scratching their heads over.  Sounds like they cleaned it up a bit, but I'm thinking it would be better for them to start from scratch with a new stair tool from the ground up.  These stairs are seriously lacking in features I don't even know where to begin.  Ah well, I guess I'll just go and do another 3D VR walkthrough and it'll be all ok...  (does anyone use that?)

I've sent a message back on the support ticket emphesizing the imortance of a fix for this, quoting Richard from above.  If they don't take it anywhere I'm going to call tech support and discuss it over the phone, and talk to whoever I need to.  Everyone here should submit a support ticket for this as well.  They need to know that this is a big deal.  Who knows if a developer has even read this thread yet.  Nobody at chief has responded to this...

On 7/21/2018 at 10:16 PM, Richard_Morrison said:

The PDF failure to update is a scary issue that could cost us some major embarrassment, if not some serious money. This is in a whole 'nuther league of potential liability, and I can't understand why this is being ignored.

This can't be emphesized enough...

1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

My thoughts exactly.  I personally never expected any of my picture files or PDFs to update automatically.  That’s just me though.  Having the option is a good suggestion but I certainly don’t think it qualifies as a bug just because SOME people expect something different. 

The problem with this is that I expected to have to update the PDF myself.  I did so by deleting the PDF in my layout and importing the updated version.  However, this due diligence isn't enough when chief just pulls the old one from cache until you restart, and doesn't warn the user.  If I were to make a PDF of my layout at that point, the drawings could go out for permit with outdated information.  I bet many users will do the same and believe they did enough.  No, this is an oversight that the developers need to fix.

Sooo, X11 then?  X12?  Kinda vague response, but it looks like maybe the ball is rolling.

Just now, HumbleChief said:

It really is no less important than your description above....

And I would say that if someone in an E&O suit could demonstrate this fault with the program, they could drag Chief into the suit as well.