GerryT

I've done this about a year ago and made a video on this. Essentially , you take cuts through the foundation using p- solids and following the terrain contour. i added macros to add up all the solids volumes to eliminate math errors. Works extremely well, if your careful and have only one slope direction. Two slopes (left-right & up/down) need to use solids subtraction -- so not good in that case. Typically takes about an hour -- so may not be "worth it" over a good guesstimate. Other than that, this has been a long requested feature. Don;t expect it any time soon!!

FYI The problem with using the comment field is that if you make a change in the cabinet dimension, after the fact, it will erase the comment field. This is not a bug but the programed behavior. Better to use the subcategory field. After you make any dim changes,they will be retained. You can store the "typical cabinet in the library for re-use and your comments will be saved for reuse.

FYI --- You do not have to enter a data point as your origin. You can make up and enter any point that is within the range of your Dataset and Chief will locate the other points in relation to that new origin.

Under map to 0,0 , did you enter the data point to be mapped to? Just enter the first point. if not the terrain will be off screen. Do not pre-create the terrain or have one in your plan Chief will automatically create one in X6. The lot size for this data set is: approx. 1105' x 1354' if you want a small one just narrow the terrain created.

I would ass u me that this was a digitized topo run though some conversion utility to generate the CSV file(maybe topo to GPX then to CSV)? I agree, no one is going to pay a surveyor to generate 35000 points.

Thanks for getting back Ya I thought I remembered it and it is in the first page of the X5 dialog. It was removed in X6 and is the default now. Could be hiding somewhere else, but don't know where? Also, if you check, the surveyor actually did 35496 points and Chief does bring them all in. The 5300 number is just the number Chief uses by skipping points to generate the 3D view. Apparently, they have an internal limit. BTW, I filtered the file to only 1000 through Chief and it works perfectly and looks about the same. If you do a group select on the plan after bring in the points, you will see 35496 objects selected. Their just not all displayed. Probably in ft but could be metric if he was using a Total Station. and this was actually a converted GPX file. -- Good exercise.

They already do. Just use the total "Living Area" label. Of course, not "included areas" will not be included there, But changes of getting labels on all objects are pretty slim -- IMHO.

KBIRD1: Where is the "make terrain perimeter" checkbox? I can't find it and would like to turn it off! Thanxs

For one ---- Your points are so far off the grid - you will never find them. And at that scale they have no effect nor could you ever see them. Perhaps your coordinates and the elevs are not the same dims. You need to set the proper scale as your bring them in. You need to re map the distance to some reasonable value in scale or use the conversion to some reasonable value. Also, remap a point to the 0,0 origin so you can find at least one and keep the total plot on screen. Do not initially create a terrain. If not initially created, Chief will put a select box around the data. Be sure you have the elevation data layer turned on. Note that contours are only generated with a open 3D view or you regenerate the terrain. Be sure they are turned on. Not sure that Chief can handle 35000 points all clustered together. EDIT: It can but you'll get garbage Try for fewer points -- couple hundred. Note that Chief uses a 2" marker for elev data as a default so unless you know where there going to be, you're out of luck as you'll never see them. Finally --- clean your screen!!! Attached is a screen shot of your contour data at 2X scale and linear interpolation to spread out the plot. -- still unreadable - too many points. Other than that, the file is importing correctly.

I expect that if you just posted your data file, several people here would do it for free. Also what format are you using? delimited data or GPX? What is your reference Datum and where do you want 0,0 centered at, What are the dims (meters)? IAE- that data must be in a format acceptable to chief. If GPX, chief will only accept schema 1.1 and then only waypoints/track and no route points. if not in one of the above formats, someone would have to extract the data manually and create a new file or enter manually. If just in lat & long -- good luck with that. IOW - You wasted a lot of time in not posting.

Chief's Library files are located in the Program Data directory and consist of two separate files in to different sub-directories. A Zip file in the Reference Sub-directory and a calib (database) file in a category sub directory. If either of these two files is missing or corrupt for any Vendor or topic, the update will stop and give a error. The update makes no attempt to correct any corruption or missing files, it only updates files. Unfortunately it will not tell you which file caused the error. The only solution is to delete these directories and reload all your libraries -- Re-Start from scratch . DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS YOURSELF. NEVER DELETE THE PROGRAM DATA DIRECTORY ITSELF. Call Tech Support and have them walk you though it. They may be able to identify the corrupt file.

There's probably many ways to do this manually. The easiest is to just let auto roof do it.by adding a third floor and a room above the garage and set the height to some small value. Hawthorne Park Estates Lot 65 #3.zip

FYI -- Perhaps for those not aware -- You can have Chief automatically add additional info to your schedules via Ruby. As you know, info to Ruby is limited so I don't know if this would be of much value. Here's a video describing the method. Somewhat cumbersome - I'm only suggesting that with better access to Chief's internal data and a few changes so could provide better service to our customers with little effort. http://youtu.be/Er12GqxxKk8 Made a few mistakes -- so if you can't follow, post you questions here. If you have any interest - Please post Chief as they don't think you have any interest in this topic and probably little will be done in the future -- Up to you?

yep - was able to also reproduce -- but only with outlets -- Meters works ok - Hope this narrow it down a bit?

FWI -- If your interested in showing grout lines, the easiest method I've found is to use a program like Gimp or Photoshop or even Paint.net. Basically you take any stucco texture and overlay a colored hatch pattern on a alpha layer. The advantage is that you then have both a hatch pattern for Vector and the texture for Raster. Fairly quick to do once you figure out the hatch line spacings. Playing around with the thickness of the hatch lines and some shading/blurring effects gives some realistic textures YouTube has a number of videos on the subject using these programs. Gimp & Paint are freebees. Hardest part is learning the nuances of the programs as each is slightly different in available tools.

The system works very well on auto as mentioned above, if you have a SINGLE, square or fairly regular shaped building on a reasonably contoured lot. Everything quickly breaks down if you have multiple buildings or out-buildings, irregular long shapes or bad contours. The reason is basically in how Chief calculates the Terrain height at the center point of the building (which building? – usually the first, but not always). Chief will state that it uses the Terrain elevation at the center point of the building and adjusts from that. But what are they using as the center point of an irregular shaped structure? Is it the centroid, the bounding box center, intersection of dimensions? Are they indeed using a selected Terrain point or some area average? Even most of Chief’s employees do not know. Just check the archived posts or sent a request into Tech support – you’ll get back nonsense – guarantied. Most likely this area has a bug. So if Chief does not know how this feature actually works – only how it’s supposed to work, any usage is certain to fail as you cannot predict any outcome. Fortunately, on a reasonable contour, offset errors are usually minor. The only solution is the obvious one. Put the building elevation on manual and adjust the pad elevation up/down until you get the effect you need. At least until Chief decides to “Man-Up” on this issue. No squeaky wheel here – just hundreds of complaints and misunderstandings over the years – guess it’s all in the definition of squeaky? In Chief’s defense, using the building elev on manual is not a real burden; the calcs are simple math for any of Glenn’s approaches. AFAIK, levels within residential buildings are always referenced to ground level, anyway. Construction does generally need a reference to a on-site marker but only for the largest of projects. Only manufacturing uses internal sea-level references – so internal conversions are not needed. An authority may ask for a sea-level elevation at the peak – but come on? There’s more confusion and irritation then a problem here.

Softplan allows control over Material quantities and Material calculation formulas. So it's somewhat easy to include ancillary items based on other material listings. Chief limits access to their internal data. You basically get what they think you should have, in the format they think you should have and their material descriptions (often wrong) and formulas are fixed and VERY generalized. Some calculations are just wrong in some circumstances and there are few options to change for unique situations.Adding adjunct material is tedious in Chief and involves several steps. You also risk having this data wiped out if your not careful.Lastly despite many suggested requests for improvements in this area Chief has not responded and has given no indication that they will in the near future ---- Neither has Softplan, but their pattern has been to make one or two token improvements with each new release.SoftPlan does provide direct access to a external user database for materials which can be a HUGE help. -- overall this area is pretty static for now in both programs. Chief's coverage is spotty at best. Lumber listings are mostly complete but their listing format is extremely rigid. - You see it the way they want and no other. Moldings are dismal. Everything else is in between. Pricing/cost in Chief is elementary and manual. There are no scheduling/phase capabilities in Chief with respect to material. SoftPlan also allows better control over building phases and organization, material listings, classifications, descriptions and markups. And all are easily re-usable Checkout their Videos if interested. Their formula system is somewhat cumbersome to use but easy enough once you figured it out. Support is minimal but it’s logical enough that it’s doable with some effort and easy after that. I do all this external to Chief, with my own custom software program so not a big deal to me. Also not a problem if you’re dealing with builders who have their own internal estimator (usually a relative) and aren’t going to change!! Note that Material control is an additional liability to take on but can be an additional area of service and charges. If you’re not experienced in this area, or don't want to learn – Don’t go there.

yep -- Thanks Lew

I agree with all of the above. I recently upgraded to SoftPlan 2014 from an much older version – more out of curiosity than anything else. I consider Softplan superior only in the area of Material control although they don’t make it easy. Chief does not seem to be into detailed material management as they have for some time neglected some needed and easy improvements. Their off into other areas now. Other than that, Chief will speed though all of the features you need in in your plan and probably is your best choice. Their moldings/millwork feature will address most your concerns – check into it? Also, with SSA, their support is much, much better.

I’m surprised at the confusion here. In simplest terms: Mainstream support, as I understand it, per the referenced articles, means the end of service updates or program improvements to us the users on Jan 1, 2015. Not mentioned, is that with the release of Windows 8.1, Microsoft is EXTREMELY unlikely to release any improvements or bug fixes to Windows 7 anyway. This would be akin to expecting Chief to fix bugs in X5. Not going to happen anyhow. More important, is that if a bug is discovered in Win 7 after next year, which may affect the operation of Chief, Microsoft will no longer help, try to fix it or even assist Chief. This really affects Chief more than us so it’s to their advantage to have all their users, and perhaps us, on the current supported system. Rarely does Microsoft fix past bugs on past OS, other than to admit they exist and advise an upgrade – so I think this is mostly a “Red Herring” issue. Extended support mostly means a continuation of security updates which do not alter the OS features – so you’re still protected until 2020. Personally I don’t plan on updating until I see Windows 9.0. I’m guessing you’ll have more of a risk with unknown bugs in the current OS rather than Windows 7 which is pretty stable now. I don’t really see any new features in Windows 8 in which Chief can take advantage of. Also, since Chief relies on third party utilities, it always takes a few years to work their way down the line. I think your safe with Windows 7 for a couple more years --- IMNOHO.

"Well, thank you," you're probably saying. "That's as clear as a new industry acronym." http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010820/how-long-will-microsoft-support-windows-7.html

AS david mentioned, you should post whatever you have attempted of your plan as I doubt that you have correctly discribed your effort(s). The Terrain can be modified in various ways to create a ditch in Chief. The easest is to use a stream. However, a driveway or road will follow that depression (ditch) so you're trying to use conflicting features as you described. One approach would be to create the depression (ditch), then fill in the driveway section with a solid. The culvert through it could be simulated by subtracting out a horizontal cylinder section. if you used a stream it's height could be adjusted to the bottom of the culvert. The reamining problem would be the crossing driveway. Unfortunitely the driveway will follow the terrain even through the depression is filled with a solid (culvert and fill)., so you could use a polyline. But then if the terrain was sloped on either side, the polyline would not follow the terrain slope. So the conflict. IOW , I believe this could only be done on a flat plan which is probably not your situation. A workarould would then be to use a polyline aross the culvert and then driveways on either side connected and blended together to look like one road. No good solution here.

Hmmm - I would of thought this would have elicited more responses as this is basically a variation of the coffered ceiling of which Chief has a couple of videos and some help articles. Another approach is to use elevated overlapping distributed regions at 90 angles. But the math is cumbersome because you have work out the spacing vs size of the panels/rails. The advantage is that the panels & rails will report to the material list if defined properly. A disadvantage is that it covers up the floor plan so probably needs to be on a detail.

You can also use the supplied "Living Area" text box as ruby has access to the same room values as a normal room except this is for the whole house area. Just make up a one line macro using either standard_area or internal_ area with the equation = glazing area/standard_area. (your number in glazing area) however these fields do exclude any excluded room areas from living area. Ruby macros always report the last value calculated. Then add the macro to one line of the "living area" text box.

I pretty much agree with Joe. It's really not a good (productive) idea to try to extend Chief into areas that Chief has "Signaled" that their not likely to support. You'll only run into road block after road block. However, Joe is on the right track, To do this you need to use global memory as temporary storage. In addition, you need to assign a ID to each object through the reference macro. The result then is quite easy to accomplish. Since you must use a reference macro for each plane, this is easy to do. BUT 10 roof planes == ten unique macros, although they will be identical except for the ID in each one. Overall , you'll find the set up will take longer than just manual cals. If your still interested, I'll try to find and attach an example late tonight as I have done this before ( unless someone beats me to it). BTW, references are not really reliable in Chief for reasons Chief is well aware but not likely to change..