WhistlerBuilder

@robdyck@JiAngelo Thank you both for the help with this. Turns out I was not inputting it wrong or missing a setting, I just needed to be manually adjusting after the fact like you mentioned. While not the solution I was hoping for, at least I know I was inputting the information correctly. Thank you everyone for trying to help! Have a wonderful weekend. Cheers,

There is no e / w / n / s notations on the source material. There also is no POB noted on the source material. Adding a N/S to the input line sent it sideways instead of up/down. Even with the north arrow defined in the plan.

I followed the instructions above by Rob, and immediately had the same problem. I drew the first two lines, with the first one drawing in the correct orientation, then the next one drew north when it was supposed to draw south. Exact same problem I always have.

Hello Chiefers, I am having trouble getting property lines from surveys to draw correctly using the Input Line tool. I have been having the issue for too long now where when inputing lines from a pdf to do a preliminary site plan a few of the lines draw backwards or in the opposite direction they are supposed to compared to the source plan. I have been just disconnecting the line and flipping them or manually relocating them to close the polyline, then ensuring I have the correct outline when I get a DWG from the surveyor later in the project. I assume I am doing something wrong, or is this a common experience? I live in Canada so the plans come in Meters with the line orientation coming in this format: 269°55'44". I seem to have this issue no matter what Angle Style I use for the Line Input. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I feel like this is likely something simple that I am just missing. Cheers,

Hello Chiefers, Does anyone know how to do a volume calculation for cut/fill areas on a site plan? I have a large multi lot site that needs some roads built and certain areas cut/filled to achieve flat lots. I am looking to do some basic rough volume calculations on how much I need to move in different areas. My original idea was to try and copy then convert the terrain perimeter into a 3D solid somehow, then use negative polygons to subtract the converted terrain shape from the proposed cut/fills I want to make. I cant figure out a way to do this currently, but I am willing to bet that there are plenty of people around here that are better at chief than me. Maybe someone has a suggestion for me? Looking forward to hearing from anyone on suggestions for this. Cheers,

Hello Chiefers, I am having a weird issue where the size column in the window schedule is rounding up to the whole inch. I need specific measurements to the fractional inch. The RO category can do this, but for some reason the size column reports differently. Is there a way to change this? Also... is there a way to get the window size reported in mm scale in the same schedule as a plan set using imperial? Canada has this weird hybrid system in construction where we use both imperial and metric. It gets confusing and silly sometimes. It gets even worse when you are ordering high performance windows from Europe for your project in North America... Any help here would be appreciated.

Getting the architects to work in chief is not really an option as they do not have the software and are used to making everyone work for them. Like I said... ego's. It is good to see that people can make it work though. I wonder why others are struggling so much with the 3ds exports. 2D exports to JPG and PDF still have the tesselated fill for solid shape issue. It is not a "them issue". It requires fixing chief plans in photoshop or other software to produce marketing ready images.

I was exporting 3d dwg's for use in 3d models by the architects so they could attempt to add stylistic elements to the designs. It has almost always been a waste of time, but when you require an architects stamp for multifamily part 3 buildings you need to waste time and money massaging their ego. If it was just for an engineer of course 2D dwg's work. Yes, chief has wonderful 3d rendering capacity. It is the main reason we went with chief originally over other options. However, tesselating 3D exports and 2D fills is annoying and I would love to see this addressed in a meaningful way. In regards to .3ds exports not working. I was never provided clarity by either rendering subcontractors or any of the architects I shared the files with. Merely that it did not work in any software or application. Not using 3d studio myself... I never had the opportunity to test it to figure out why. I would love to hear from anyone who has been on the other side of chief exports to see if all software importing chief 3dDWG exports has the tesselation issue. Because that would be a pretty large defect in my opinion.

@Renerabbitt I exported in a variety of formats and my collaborators were using Sketchup, archicad, and Revit. 3DS exports appeared to not work across most platforms, and 3D DWG's had the tesselation issue. (As reported by others) I would use 3rd party rendering services to create marketing images most of the time and they never complained. It has mostly been issues collaborating with Architects or other drafting firms where this issue is reported. When I work on producing marketing plans I would have to adjust in Photoshop to create smoothed 2D images with proper fills. I find that annoying, but I guess its a common issue?

Hello Chiefers, I have been trying to export 3D models for some collaboration with people working in other software platforms. All my models are getting tesselated (see images). I have noticed that chief also does this with 2D fills of solid colors in plans. I find it annoying in plans (particularly when trying to export for marketing purposes), but it is a real problem with 3D exports, making them pretty useless for marketing 3D's without re-skinning or re-drawing whole sections of the model. Has anyone found a way to deal with this? Cheers,

@talockSorry for the late reply. I had similar issues in the past. I have recently been using floor 0 as the footing layer, floor 1 as foundation layer including below grade parking, then the first above grade floor would be floor 2. I put the terrain on floor 1 (parkade) layer. Sorry for the slow reply. I am not on this forum often and just took a week off for summer holiday. Cheers,

So easy... now I feel silly. I did not even know there was a tool to edit that. Cheers,

Hello helpful designers, I was wondering if anyone had a clean way to deal with terrain grading for an underground parkade entrance? I have tried a variety of configurations over the years and it always ends up being a super messy process with lots of terrain points and breaks while still creating lots of visual glitches. The terrain always wants to slide up in front of the garage door, and the breaks on retaining walls always bleed through. I am looking for a way to extend the "terrain intersected by building" break to include a descending driveway "room", and then cheat the driveway with a 3d solid set at the desired grade. But I cannot figure out how to get it to apply properly. I am open to suggestions if someone else has a cleaner solution. Image and sample plan attached. Thank you in advance to anyone who might have a solution to this. Cheers, Parkade Entrance.plan

Thank you for looking into this. Quick question on your solution. Did you try "printing to pdf" with this? Do the cad overlay for hatching show up as outlined boxes or visible elements? Chief seems to have a very difficult time with shading solid shapes. It fills solid shapes with thousands of lines, and often leaves visible artifacts in what are supposed to be solid shapes. I made the assumption that doing a cad overlay of the hatching would leave visible blocks where I tried to fill the hatching tools errors.

See attached. Copy paste a portion of the plan showing multiple fails. Hatching Fail.plan