Doug_Park

Nice!

The parallel data access to memory is certainly an issue with multiple processors and cores. In our current batch of multicore hardware memory speed is a key bottleneck. Which actually means that in some cases one core in a multicore machine may be faster than a single core machine for the simple reason that they need to put faster memory and wider data channels into the hardware to support more cores. In addition there are on CPU caches that allow data to remain in the CPU for the duration of a task. You will note that new processors are sporting rather large caches these days. Finally, there are some process that require a lot of computaion with relatively little supplied data that make ideal candidates for parallel processing. Ray tracing is one of these. There are a lot of cases where there are N^2 computations for data of size N. So while to a large extent what you say is true, more cores can be faster. However, software needs to be made to support the cores in order for it to take advantage of the benefit. In Chief we do support more cores in a lot of cases, although not all that theoretically can take advantage of more cores. Ray tracing as I mentioned is one. We also do this in a few other computational bottlenecks such as generating lines when we send a 3D view to layout. You can easily test the benefit of this in Chief by turning off the "Optimize for Multi-Core CPUs" option in preferences and doing timing comparaisons of certain operations. While it will never be N times faster where N is number of cores, we often get N - approximately 1 or 2 for a few cases. Others are not as good but if you can get a 2X improvement on a 6 core processor, it is still worth doing. This is especially important in today's computer environment where processor speed improvements have slowed over time. Eventually they will still need to improve if we are going to make things faster because not everything can be done in parallel. But a lot can and we will certainly continue to improve performance where we can. What you have described is conceptially the big technical problem with parallel processing that has taken a long time for computer manufacturers to deal with. Some of the early hightly parallel super computer research done 20 years ago or so has made possible the hardware we have today that actually does to a limited extent overcome the bandwidth problems that you describe. No worries though. Your analysis is a valid concern that still limits overall computational speed.

Sorrry to confuse. If you are in a plan and choose backup entire plan, no layouts that you sent the plan to will be backed up because the plan doesn't know about them. If you are in a layout and do the same thing it should work because the layout knows about all the plan files it references. Does that make things more clear? The use of the word plan in the menu while in a layout is a poor choice. The menu should probably be changed to something like "Backup Entire Layout and Plans" to make it more clear when you are in a layout.

The C and , (comma) keys are hardwired in to be in concentric while it is down. It is not a toggle as such so doesn't seem like it explains the problem. It is also tied to the X1 button on your mouse. Try using a different mouse for awhile and see if the problem goes away. It could be a malfunctioning mouse button.

There certainly are no layouts in the attached zip file. Only 1 plan file and no texture or image files. Backup of a plan doesn't include layout files it only includes referenced documents, texture files, imported PDFs and pictures, etc. The plan doesn't know about the layout so it cannot back it up. The layout does know about the plans it is linked to so can back them up. I don't know why you don't have the associated images etc. unless you chose the "Backup Plan Files Only" option. Or maybe instead of zipping the folder you zipped only the plan file? It doesn't look like the zip file is corupt so it looks like only the 1 file is there. I can't rule out that there is a bug in Chief or some other software that is causing a problem. Was it the zip file that you put into your drop box or did you copy the whole backup folder to your drop box? Did your client have write access to your drop box? It sound's like at one point the files were in your drop box. If they aren't there now then something outside the control of Chief is occuring. I would suggest going back to the original files on your home computer.

We also offer online and other training services if you are interested. http://www.chiefarchitect.com/training/

1) Scan the disk for errors. 2) Scan for malware. 3) Do a backup.

When printing from PDF make sure you uncheck the option to scale the PDF to fit the paper when you print. I'm not sure about the HP printer issue. If it worked in X6 it should work in X7. Please work with our support team to make sure they have the exact specs for the driver you are using so that we can reproduce the problem. http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/

In X7 we changed the algorithm for how we determine whether an object is visible for purpose of providing a label. Because the doors are actually visible through the glass in the standard view they are detected as being visible in the scene and so the label shows up. In the vector view the glass is opaque so those doors don't show up. The new algorithm correctly detects a lot of cases where the old algorithm missed detecting that an item was visible in the view. This particular case shows up a situation that seems undesirable.

This is really confusing and something that we should make more clear. One way to think about lines and text in elevations is that it is being drawn in a 2D plane that lives on the front clipping plane of the view. That plane has a separate coordinate system from the view where the Y value is the same as the Z value and X tries to match up with the X or Y 3D axis depending on which direction you are looking. For items that are maintain in back you can think of them as living on the back clipping plane of the view with a similar X Y coordinate system.

When you run out of memory you might not get a message saying that you did. The problem with running out of memory is that there may not be enough memory to provide a meaningful error message. While running out of memory is a high probability crash in the 32 bit version it won't be a crash in 64 bit. In 64 bit instead of running out of memory the system will get slower and slower until you either close the program or you are forced to kill it because it is unresponsive. Other crashes can happen and should be reported even if you can't reliably reproduce them. Sometimes we can reproduce them in a debugging build of the program. But even if we can't knowing that a crash exists is the first step to finding and fixing it. Thanks for reporting your issues.

All input about how to improve Chief is welcome. BTW. I talk to Wendy on a regular basis. Her lack of posts here is probably due to her business taking more of her time. She has expanded quite a bit so has been a lot busier lately from what I gather.

Often this is caused by using a USB stick and not properly ejecting it. Some USB sticks are very slow at writing so you need to make sure that if you are transfering a file in this manner that you always wait for it to finish writing by telling the OS to safely eject the device. There may be other causes as well, such as some sort of network failure or disk corruption.

Uncheck "Use Maximum" under the ray trace preference panel and drop the number of cores used by 1. This will be equivalent to the "Optimize for Chief Architect" setting that you have in your X7 preferences. It gives up 1 core in raytracing allowing the rest of the computer 1 core to work with.

Two possibilities for you. 1) You might be running out of memory on the 32 bit version. 2) The openGL video card driver may be having issues.

Antialiasing and endcap control are both nice features that we should consider.

The early estimates that I was given back then turned out to be more optimistic than expected. Software, especially complex software sometimes takes longer to develop than we expect. The estimate of Q2 of this year is likely fairly realistic, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility that we run into issues that cause it to be delayed beyond that point.

There are some things that you can do to get things to draw in a precise location. 1) Set up your grid so that things snap where you want. This won't always work. 2) Drop temporary points at the location you want and snap to them. You can type-in the precise location when you create them. 3) You can also type-in lines as well. But, as Joe has pointed out Chief makes it so easy to change things after the fact that is allows for a creative process of quckly sketching a shape and then fix it up to align to dimensions that make sense. However, I agree with you. I tend to have a more precise picture in my head of what I want before I start drawing so I want to get it right from the start. I also don't want to force that precision on those that don't want it.

I'm not sure if this is what you are after. But you can set your General Wall Defaults>Resize About to Inside Surface. Then walls all draw relative to the inside surface measurements that you are taking.

The send to layout / CAD Detail from view does have a known random crash that will be fixed in the final release. Let our support team know about any problems you have, especially crashes. If you can reproduce the crash that is ideal, but if you can't reproduce the problem let us know anyway. We want to hear about all your issues so that we can fix as many as possible before release. Thanks for looking at the beta.

One other thing that comes into play when printing can be when going out to a PDF. At that point if you choose a low DPI setting for the PDF otherwise thin lines can become a lot heavier. In that case if you use a weight of 0 it will go to the PDF as 1, but if your PDF is set to 300 DPI and your printer prints at 600 DPI then you would end up with a weight of 2 pixels at the printer. If you are print via a PDF this might account for 0 not being as thin as you would like. There is no right or wrong with line weights. If you find a system that works for you that you understand that is good.

I would suggest doing an internet search. Since this forum is not for AutoCAD most of us would not know where to start.

Good points. If you don't do full basements then ceiling height for a craw space doesn't make much sense. And crawl space doesn't make much sense if you are doing a full basement. I suppose we could try to detect the difference or use a more generic term.

Legacy shadows use a very old and very slow technique that works pretty well, but has a number of issues. There are a number of cases where shadows don't cast or cast in the wrong place using this method. The newer shadows have the main advantage of being very fast, but will tend to produce fuzzier edges. But otherwise they tend to be more accurate than legacy shadows. Ray tracing is the best way to get accurate realistic shadows, but is slower. Other techniques do exist to make better looking shadows. However, those have not yet been incorporated into Chief. They would likely be a little slower than our fast shadows. It is a good suggestion.

The out of box settings for line weight are in 1/100ths of a mm. Controlled from the Sheet Setup Dialog. A standard common mechanical pencil will have a lead of 0.7 mm which translates to a line weight of 70. In typical CAD standards 18 is considered to be a fine line using those settings. A line weight of 1 will be very narrow, but isn't the finest line available. A line weight of 0 will draw as 1 pixel on the device you are using. On a printer that prints at 1200 DPI this will almost disappear. A line weight of 1 will be 1/100th of a mm so would be a lot wider when you print. I would suggest doing a print test. Draw a series of lines and assign them various widths, 0, 1, 18, etc. Print them on a printer with the same DPI that you plan to print your final drawings on and then keep it as a reference until you intuitively know what line weights you want. Line weights can be hard to understand, but with a little bit of work they aren't as mysterious as they first appear to be.