para-CAD

Wow......I would utterly fail. I was a framer for a couple decades and do not have professional electrician experience. In those cases, since I work mostly for builders, they hand off the plan to their electrical sub and they do those aspects under their master electrician license. Just imagining how I'd mess that up is sad and comical in my head.

I don't have a problem with a subscription as much as Chief needs to STAY IN BUSINESS. No software company can survive with one sale per person. Once they reach market saturation, there's no more money for the business......until they create the next version. At some point, the dramatic advancements that would entice someone to buy an upgrade become smaller so the user stays with older versions and the software company goes away. I would even entertain a per project license so during long dry spells, I spend nothing, but when I'm on a task I can factor the software expense into the specific project. I have no idea how to implement something like that, but it seems discussion-worthy. I want Chief to succeed. I also want more versatile software with greater native integration with other apps and tools. I recently sold my Matterport Pro 2 because as-builts have slowed to a crawl and 800/yr to host scans on Matterports servers seems wasteful until I have more projects come in. We're all making decisions on how to navigate this volatile economy. Transparency is best all around. and...Merry Christmas

It's a bit confusing......what is chief's long-term goal here? If you need more money to get more talented programmers, that's cool. Currently I pay $595 per year to maintain SSA. This includes the upgrade to the next version....no additional cost. So essentially a $595 per year "subscription". (I have only used tech support maybe 8 times since X7 so I don't see SSA as anything more than a discounted next version requirement.) Now new chief users will face $2k per year subscription? When does that rate transition to everyone else paying $2K/year in subscription? I assume that's on the horizon to streamline revenue at some point. For now, are you "grandfathering" the SSA rate as long as people stay current? I better calendar that SSA payment....and NEVER miss it. $600 per year works much better for me than $2000 per year in this housing cool off. For $2K a year.......................................chief would really need to bring that amount of value to my business. Now you're in the range of other apps with broader industry usage. You'll be about $700 shy per year of Revit (which both of my preferred engineers keep pushing me to adopt) I wish y'all every success with the direction you take chief. Great team. Great software. I look forward to seeing where this all leads.

Okay. Makes sense.

I have no ignored users so I'm wondering why I don't see the post you are commenting on. Strange.

It's working well except for the occaisional tool bar icons all disappearing. It's seems to be something to do with using external monitors.

Puget Systems will build a water cooled system if that's what you want, but I had 3 different people from their company try to talk me out of it....so I listened. I had a system built with a nocturna air cooler for the CPU. It works great. I even got a 3080TI to fit in there...BARELY.

Hire a drone business that does photogrammetry. https://www.photogrammetry.com

Bentley Microstation is common in oil platform piping modeling. $$$$ if you go that route.

I just copy/pasted your macro into the label of a 3/0-5/0 SH window and got this

If you want them as PNGs with the alpha channel intact here they are https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4jcchvwirmjdpsb/AABQWWDwKMSbWH2_cVcgNDExa?dl=0

I have been running the public beta for months...no issues. I hope this isn't in my future. My main display is a 34" ultra wide and to its immediate right is a 43" 4K. I keep the M1 Max laptop closed. Keeping fingers crossed. Thanks for the warning.

I recently did an on-site measurement / survey of a home built in 1901. I agree with the horizontal laser comment. It helped be locate the area where the floor sagged above and by how much.

I would like to try this, but only if I win the lotto. https://leica-geosystems.com/en-us/products/laser-scanners/scanners/blk360 https://shop.leica-geosystems.com/leica-blk/blk360

11x17 Inch Ledger Hardboard/Clipboard with 3 Lever Operated Clips and a Mini-Calculator, Either Landscape or Portrait Media Format, ECO-Friendly and Great Drafting Drawing Board Brown (1 Pack) https://a.co/d/5zUAXdZ

You can use Bring to Front or Send to Back, or incremental send forward or back to put the items on top or behind others.

There are all kinds of people on this site who share their experience and time…….for free. Not a sales pitch. Steve has many porch related free YouTube videos. No soup for you.

I've been playing with magicplan a bit and looking at arcsite. I even had a Matterport Pro 2....but that has been sold for lack of use and yearly server subscription. I like very precise measurements so neither of these work solo for me. Magicplan seems the most user friendly. Search up YouTube for tutorials on LiDAR apps, best in 2022. Then you can share your experience with whatever you have tried. 35' tape 150' tape (2) laser measuring devices (Bosch) a 3-plane laser (Milwaukee M12) GoPro iPhone for video and stills graph paper laptop with CA installed

Great list, Mick. Thanks for sharing.

I wonder why such a thing isn't included as a simple tool in chief. So much extra tinkering is often involved.

Search Chief Skills on YouTube. I pasted a link to his channel (Steve) and was given a NO - since the url did not directly link to a specific video. Steve has all kinds of porch related videos to get you past this hurdle.

Are you printing from layout file or from plan file? Are you printing to PDF first, to make sure everything is correct? Then you could send the PDF to your printer for the win.

CA seems very stable now on my MBP (M1Max) The only issue is I operate it in clamshell, connected through a cal digit hub to (2) different resolution monitors; one an ultra widescreen (Dell 34") and the other a 4K 43". Randomly the tool bar icons disappear. If I readjust the width of the tool menu window on the left, some of the tools come back to the top, but not in the same location/order that they were prior to the disappearance. Sometimes I have font issues when working with windows created files. I just make sure I have the main windows fonts installed on my mac. I have no need for real-time ray tracing so apple works fine. I have a 3080 TI in my windows desktop and since I don't get asked to provide 3D for permit, it's not high on my learning list. The studio seems like a beast.......enjoy!

Rene. Wow. I hope you develop a 12 week course on this kind of work. I know you share an awful lot of free content, but a serious training course would be killer. Thanks v/r, Mike