johnny

I think the key for Chief, as it relates to commercial (like your example), is it can make quick presentation work but so much of the plan is "falsified" CONDocs will be an issue (unless you want to do a ton of CAD work). Commercial windows/doors, structural elements/connections, cladding, elevators, and other aspects in Chief would be an issue. I'm not saying it can't be done in Chief - but you'd end up spending WAY more time in inefficiencies and prone to a lot more mistakes. Lastly, Chief starts to bog down with some homes we do...and I feel it would absolutely choke on a tru

Yes, I would recommend looking at Archicad. A close 2nd for me would be Vectorworks - but if you want an environment similar to Chief than Archicad is a great choice.

I'm curious if anyone knows if we can make custom macro's to change "default settings" in the app? I'd then want to make a button to flip things on and off if that's possible. The issue is I like designing with full width framing but I like single-line display on the plans. It would be nice to flip that on and off as i need.

As part of my offering to larger clients I service, I have a PE and Engineer Tech that work for me full time. I've been considering offering these services outside my existing clients. We're currently licensed in WA, OR, ID, ND, LA, and CO. Depending on the scope and continuity of work we might be willing to license in other states. We're not really looking for one-off clients, and we'd only work with fairly competent architects/designers/drafters out there that gives us "thoughtful" work-product (as in we don't want to figure everything out on how the structure is built). If you can do t

Spot on Scott. A question i have for you if you're willing to answer is: Has Chief considered developing their Mac version in ARM so you don't have to use their built-in emulator (x86 - CISC) in the future? I realize its very difficult working around Apple's erratic path changes, but I do worry that in the future the only way to utilize the Apple silicon is going to be coding software to ARM (RISC - Reduced Instruction Set Computing). I'm sure a lot of Chief users don't understand that Chief may not be any faster in an M1 (or other Apple silicon) unless you guys modify/optimize y

You might be thinking about what he said about OpenGL. Its true Apple announced they wouldn't support OpenGL in the future which made Chief go another direction - but Apple's developing their own GPU right now and looking at ways to include Ray Trace tech that has largely been Nvidia's domain....since Apple's been sticking with AMD GPUs for some time they haven't had a good opportunity to support Ray Tracing. I see that changing in the future.

I think you need to be more upset with Apple than Chief. Its Apple who hasn't made this possible.

I would wait for the new pro-series I-Macs. The rumor's are M2 chip that has way better graphics performance and they're saying it will have a 30-32" screen. The current 24" I-Mac is more for home/personal use than a workstation.

Respectfully, unless the engineer fully understands you plan to use their work "prescriptively" thereafter i'd be careful doing this...its not typically how that works. Its like going to a doctor and telling him you only need one prescription written since you'll copy it for future refills.

This is exactly the case. The concept of the IRC is if your structure conforms then you can use it as an exception to the IBC and avoid an engineer. Anything not explicitly stated in the IRC then needs an architect or engineer to approve since you revert to the IBC.

Overall that is pretty good for Chief....especially in 2013. Although, since you brought it up the issue with Chief compared to other BIM apps is those steel columns and beams show as place-holders only unless you wanted to do a massive amount of custom modeling after your engineer was done sizing them - and then the beams/columns would be a shape or symbol rather than an actual structural member (from the apps point of view). In Chief we can change a post or beam to show as a Steel I-beam but we have no options for its actual sizing/capacity.

This is very true. I find myself often wishing one package had a feature the other has and vice-versa. It would be fun to pick and choose what features you liked from each to make your own....lol

Fully agree. Chief actually doesn't do modern homes well IMO.

Thanks! I do use Chief as well right now, but I am transitioning away from it. My team will be on Chief for the next year or so until we're finally moved over - but we'll still keep a couple copies for accessing older files etc. Chief is great for many people, but their speed of development was becoming a serious concern for us.

Are you sure they print "corrupted"? I've seen elevation and section glitches before but when I made the PDF it didn't translate to that document so I didn't really care.