Doug_Park

My conclusion is based more on the almost complete lack of feedback on some of the areas of this particular feature that if used regularly would more than likely generate requests for improvement. The posts here tend to confirm that this feature is only rarely, if ever, used. However, if we find that people really are using this a lot we will either need to find either a better way of doing this or make this work in the context of currently planned feature enhancements. After this feedback I'm thinking that the use case that Levis has outlined is quite compelling and may have been the motivation for adding this feature in the first place.

So based on this thread I conclude that 1) few if any people are using this feature. 2) It apparently doesn't work as expected. Which is consistent with what we had discussed internally. Don't be surprised if this feature disappears in X7. It is getting in the way of implementing an X7 feature that we are confident people will use.

As near as I can tell the names are not coming from Chief. I could speculate as to why you are seeing this, but since I'm not familiar with how the software you are using works I won't. I encourage you to learn as much as possible about how synchronization to the cloud works for the software that you have chosen. It is pretty obvious that if a synchronization on computer A is not complete before you start modifying the same file on computer B you will have a conflict. Since you are working with large files on a slow network you have to make sure that you give enough time for the synchronization to complete. In the past we had a fair number of issues with customers saving to slow USB thumb drives, getting impatient and pulling them out before the save was complete. Then calling us to complain that their data was lost. These slow USB drives are probably a couple of orders of magnitude faster than the synchronization to the cloud. You are dealing with some fairly large files, especially the libraries, they can take quite a while to synchronize.

Given that what you are describing is happening with a blank plan my best guess is that there is an issue with a printer driver. I would encourage you to contact our support team to see if they can help you get to the bottom of the problem.

Excellent!

Windows runs on many tablets. Mac doesn't run on any tablets. Chief runs really well on many Windows 8 tablets.

As far as I know there were a handful of reports on this when this thread was posted awhile ago. I was tangentially working with a customer on this but then the problem appeared to go away for them. As near as I can tell this wasn't a Chief problem. It may have been a networking issue or potentially malware. If you are still having this problem you should contact our support team and work with them to see if you can isolate the cause and resolve the issue. There is no evidence at this time that I'm aware of that indicates that this is a Chief issue.

Honestly I had no clue as to what PTP meant either. I'm not a fan of cryptic abbreviations. To my recollection this is the first time anyone has used it so don't feel bad about not understanding what it meant.

You should contact our support team to track down and work with them to track down the cause. It is probably something that can be worked around and is potentially something we need to get fixed.

I think we posted something a few weeks ago that indicated that the Android version of Room Planner would be out later in the year. I'm not sure exactly when, but I know we are working on it.

For the best results with shadows do a ray trace. This will provide accurate and as crisp as possible shadows. The other methods have limits as to what they can do.

What specifically is lacking? I'm generally familiar with differences between us and other CAD programs, but it is the specifics about what is lacking that I'm interested in. As I assume the original poster was curious about as well. We always want to improve the program, including 2D tools. While eliminating the need to use 2D to fix up missing elements in lines generated from 3D is an important goal for us, we by no means want to ignore 2D. Annotation is a major part of creating working drawings.

Working with networked computers has several possible additional risks that you need to be careful of. Chief works as well as can be expected in these situations, but occasionally we hear of people having problems. There are a number of shops that have multiple copies of Chief that successfully, most of time, share files on a network. Using the File Locking option is one thing that you would want to do in that situation. However, that will also prevent software like Google Drive and Drop Box from automatically syncing while you are working on a file. This makes combining the use of both local network sharing and the use of these synchronization services at the same time require even more care. If you are not comfortable or don't understand the issues of doing this I advise against it. In any case data loss in networked situations can occur even though Chief is working perfectly. That is also true in non-networked cases as well, but is less likely to occur.

The terminology for saving a camera is potentially confusing. It only saves the information of the camera view in the unsaved plan. You must then choose Save to save the file. Layouts and plans both use auto save. It would probably be nice to have a Save All Open Files option. From a software design standpoint I've always felt that Save is not something that one should have to opt-in to get. It is generally better to have that operation be an opt-out feature, but because software has done this so consistently for years, it is hard to convince people that a big change like this is a good thing.

There are two likely causes for what you are seeing. 1) You have forced two 3D elements to occupy more or less the same space resulting in odd problems with regard to the lines being drawn. 2) We have a modeling problem where one of our parametrically generated items is not working correctly. There is also an unlikely case of an algorithmic problem in the code that produces the lines causing a problem. Item 1 is correctable by you by modeling things as much as possible like they would appear in real life. Otherwise contact our support team and they can track down the problem.

You can use our services if you would like. http://www.chiefarchitect.com/training/ Also, don't forget the obvious things: - The users manual. It is often overlooked as a source of information, but is where most of the experts in the program started. - Training videos. Our SSA subscription provides access to many hours of training. - Practice with simple things until you understand how a feature works. - Refer to our many online support articles. http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/database.html Plus the advice that others have given can also be a good option.

The most common case of z-fighting that I see posted occurs when the terrain or other elements are so large that the house is positioned a long way away from the front clipping plane of the camera. The algorithm that is used to automatically calculate the front clipping plane is somewhat simplistic, partly for sake of performance, so it doesn't always do a perfect job. It is rare that I see postings where z-fighting is caused by a plan origin that is a long ways away from 0,0. In cases like that you are likely to see other more severe issues rather than the typical z-fighting as is shown in this post.

Usually the benchmarks at this site are a good indicator of the relative performance of cards with respect to Chief. That is to say if two cards compare more or less the same on this site they will likely compare more or less the same when running Chief. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

If everything else is still in the right location relative to the building, then you can simply move the lot perimeter.

Chief's solar calculator should be very accurate. The calculations done were the same as those used by NOAA for their calculator and we did comparisons to it when testing. I think their calculator is still using the same equations. If you do find an accuracy issue let us know. As I recall the calculations should be very accurate until the year 2100. After that the accuracy will drop off but should still be pretty good until the year 3000.

http://www.horsenation.com/2012/09/06/hn-safety-tip-of-the-week-if-you-want-to-take-your-horse-somewhere-put-it-in-a-horse-trailer/

If performance of Chief is a motivation to upgrade to more modern hardware you should really consider upgrading Chief itself. For many reasons modern versions of Chief are faster on modern hardware than older versions of Chief. For example version 10 doesn't support running on multiple cores which are common even on hardware that version 10 was designed to run on. Other factors, such as changes in how video cards work have been adapted to as Chief has evolved over that last several versions. There are also other factors such as supporting 64 bit that older versions of Chief can't support. Not to mention that there are new features that make doing certain operations much quicker. My sense is that many who resist paying to keep software current are actually costing themselves more in lost time than they are saving. Of course that may not be your case, but only you can answer that.

If you Save to PDF does it look right?

Check disk for errors, check for malware, etc. There are lots of possibilities, a bug in Chief is way down the list of likely problems.

Perception of what is seen varies from person to person. I think the angle is close to what you would see assuming you had blinders on and could only see what was in the scene. Viewing 3D scenes in a 2D medium is not something that everyone does equally well so results will vary. You can adjust the field of view angle if needed for your customer.