johnny

On 3/19/2020 at 6:10 PM, Boogdaddy said:

Will CA be customizable enough to satisfy my particular taste? Are things like how dimension lines and tick marks appear things that I can customize? I do not like how they look in the default mode. The arrows are a definite no for me. The super thin tick marks that are the same line weight as the dimension line are also a no. Can I go into CA after I get some training and time under my belt and change the way things are to make my drawings appear just slightly more like quality hand-drawn plans?

Compared with other applications in the market, Chief is the least customizable of any i've used.  However, nothing you specifically mention can't be customized.

There are going to be some 2D visual preferences you'll give up in Chief, and because we are limited to rounded line edges the drawings don't look nearly as sharp as other apps who either use square line edges or give you the option.  There are several other visual issues I have, but I still use Chief since it does so many modeling things well (particularly for Residential) that it outweighs the negatives thus far.  It reduces steps in other apps by a factor of over 50%.

Lastly, I do want to make sure you understand that Chief is designed to work primarily in BIM, and is geared to the type of output product others above show off.  Chief is, without a doubt, the worse 2D CAD app i've ever come across - ultra inefficient and frustrating.  The same could be said about its generic 3D abilities (thought got better in X12), but by contrast it shines in its data driven 3D, and is truly unmatched there.

Looking into the Chief folder it appears my core textures are 0 Kb.  That can't be right obviously.  Can I ask has anyone else downloaded the core catalog recently and been successful?  

I'm starting to think this is a problem with those catalogs from Chief and I might need to contact them.

Im not sure you can change the auto -toolbar, but you can change your other toolbars.  You might be able to make a new toolbar and then move it down where you want, but it won't be the same thing.

For me, I just setup my hotkey so that Ctrl+D is duplicate (Copy/Paste in place).

10 minutes ago, solver said:

 

Yours are not.

I think he means yours LeRoy - your lines are not all connected.  There is a great Chief video on this subject here:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/5444/editing-cad-polylines.html

Convert to polysolid is a method i would use.  See below.  The lines need to be a single poly (connected).

I upgraded to the latest version of CA the other day, and all my library textures went missing - the entire catalog.  So, i simply reinstalled - but that just placed the structure of the library in the folders, but the textures are still missing.

I've installed the core library items 3 times now and the same each time.  I can install bonus catalogs and it works just fine, but the core textures are all missing for me.

Yes, i've had this happen often.

11 minutes ago, wjmdes said:

I can usually fit the whole garage, elevations, framing, schedules on a sheet or two so they DO have separate schedules than the house, but it works.

You're saying by adding it to Layout - but I guess for us having a single window/door schedule for the project is fairly important.  If you can break it out into separate schedules then you're idea works all the way around.

From my perspective working in other apps like Vectorworks I can have any structure - group it, and ungroup in any other plan file and its seamless.  So Chief feels unnecessarily burdensome in this regard - and its something I run into often.

The same principle for this concept project below....a 4-plex in concept stage I didn't want to have 4 different model structures in the same file - so I tired the symbol solution and you see the lines between the units i couldn't get rid of.

krieger_concept_townhouses.pdf

9 minutes ago, wjmdes said:

Yes, you can make a symbol of it and insert it into the house plan.  That is how I do it and then do a rendering.

 

That is the way I do detached garages.  It makes things a whole bunch more simple.

That kinda works for a render visual, but doesn't address the plan aspect with schedules and data reporting for the structure.  Honestly, this is an area Chief really doesn't have any good answer for since they don't allow blocking of certain objects.  I wish Chief would find a better solution for multi-structure plan files.

I figured Id report back another anomaly..which i believe nearly guarantees the problem is with Apple or driver. 

My favorite scale setting was the second smallest.  When I change to a larger text, or even a smaller text, things smooth out for me greatly.  Going larger (smaller resolution) would make sense I suppose, but going smaller (greater resolution) also works, and that is really something bizarre.  I'm just reporting my experience in case it helps someone else.

Lastly, if anyone is thinking about buying a 16" MacBook - its a great machine, it really is.  17" monitors are a bit too large for me since I travel a fair bit - 15" is too small at HD scale to draft effectively.  This 16" Monitor and the resolution it can handle is really a treat.  I do think I made a mistake not maxing out the Video Ram - and that is one thing I wish i could do over....and will in future models.

Its possible, but GoToMeeting is far better for that sort of thing.  I think its free under a certain number of people.

16 hours ago, wjmdes said:

I have to ask, what is with the 47.80 degrees?

That is the golden ratio/angle for deflection of water - most people know that.

---

not really   Again, i was just quickly sketching in 2D and eye-balled it...and didn't bother fixing it.

9 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

That's strange, now when unplugged running on the battery things run smooth but when plugged in the video performance is degraded?

 

Would first suggest checking to make sure that Chief is seeing the discrete card under both situations.

- Close Chief, boot mac pro while plugged in, open Chief. Check "Preferences" "Render" "Video Card Status". Not the card it sees, driver, driver version & date.

- Close Chief, boot mac pro while unplugged, repeat above.

 

Does Chief report the same card and driver details or is something different?

Yep, that is exactly what i'm experiencing.  It seems completely opposite to what I should experience.

Chief does report the correct card, and I even use a monitoring tool to verify that the discrete graphics card is being used by the OS.  This is why i am starting to think this is a Apple driver issue.

20 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Johnny - This may help.

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043

 

Yeah that was on and I turned it off - thanks.  Though I did have the Macbook plugged into power when having these slow issues so technically it should have only been a problem.  HOWEVER, i just did a test where opened Chief with the MacBook unplugged and with this option on (so it should be using the integrated graphics when unplugged) and tested the video inside Chief and it was as smooth as butter.  This means for some reason when I have the Macbook plugged in ...the model view gets all jankie.  That is REALLY odd and makes me think this is an Apple driver problem for this new video card.

I'd love for someone at Chief to go get a 16" Macbook pro and let us know how it performs for them.  I remember seeing this thread thinking the OP had a problem related to the size of their model file, but now I understand what they're talking about.

Thank you to everyone who gave input here - helped a lot.

17 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Could be, not familiar with Mac OS but in Windows you can open up the task manger and see right away which graphics is being used. The integrated graphics will be identified as GPU(0) and the dedicated one as GPU(1). In most laptops that contain both chips which gets used is usually determined by the graphics cards settings program and the laptops power settings program, both need to be correct. What laptop producers have done in order to maximize battery time is to set the power plan so as to only use the dedicated GPU when absolutely needed, otherwise it uses the integrated chip. From what I can determine, Chief does not like this back and forth switching and I also think that when Chief starts up it looks and only sees the active GPU and uses it by default.

Yeah it shows both in the "About this Mac".... but I can just say the AMD 5500M should run Chief like butter.  

9 minutes ago, rgardner said:

So not sure if it is this way with the dual video onboard but I use an external gpu with my MacBook (2017 13”) and when you select the Chief app icon and right click get info you need to select the e-gpu to use it when available.  This made the difference for me.  
 

Maybe it could it be that is the issue with your guys’ MBpro 16?

I've not used Mac for yeas - so im having to relearn.  When I right click on the app I don't see where that is located:

So I just bought a 16" MacBook and I have to report the same slowness in the video on the 3D model.  What I feels like to me is that Chief isn't using the dedicated graphics chip but the integrated Intel UHD.

Why I think this:  I had a 2015 MSI laptop with both an integrated Intel and a 1060 GTX - and when I was using the integrated graphics the visual was exactly the same as what I am getting from the MacBook Pro....very "stuttery" graphics in 3D view.  Since in Windows you can manually switch between those graphics sources I could dictate.  In Mac OS you don't really have that control.

On 1/25/2020 at 10:30 AM, parkwest said:

Why is the concrete stem wall offset on the footing?

Honestly it was just a quick sketch and I never re-aligned the footing since I was trying to focus on the upper area.  The real footing would typically be centered unless the wall height increased and we needed to cantilever the footing.

I'm sure the new Mac Pro will be fast, but the main problem will be with Chief itself.  Unless an app is designed to take advantage of certain things like Apple Afterburner (which is mostly related to Video) and other aspects of this beast, the increase in performance simply won't begin to justify the cost.

If you do a search on YouTube about people disappointed with the Apple Mac Pro - you will see they say a similar thing.

As an unrelated point, I really wish the folks at Chief would find a away to align the app for use with Nvidia's Quadro products.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/quadro/

15 minutes ago, solver said:

awesome - thank you.

Hello - I have a project I am working on where we've conceptualized a concrete skirt (exposed) around the perimeter of the house - its a modern design.  I feel the only way to make it work in Chief is to just falsify the visual and then make 2D adjustments for sections/details.

I was curious if anyone had an idea to make this actually work with the wall tools.

Interestingly - i haven't actually messed with using the Square Pad tool since we've been able to control the layer sequence.  I filled the pad with "background" and adjusted the layer stacking order...its not too terrible anymore (still not perfect, but i think doable).  What they do need to give us is the offset ability so we can properly center the point load in certain circumstances, but 99% of the time i just center it on the wall anyways.

11 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

The walls aren't actually getting joined.  The coplanar line is just getting removed which I would personally prefer most of the time anyway.  It happens with normal walls too.

I used the term "joined" loosely....i thought it was faster than saying "coplanar line getting removed".

...and yes, that is the action id prefer too most of the time.  The problem being if this is really how Chief wanted us to deal with this common condition its kinda a PITA due to this rule of thumb.  Id personally rather use the Square Pad tool but have it graphically cut the footing line (maybe a checkbox option) so it shows properly in 2D plans.

What I find odd is a foundation wall with a different footing width, yet will still auto-join with adjoining foundation walls.  Changing the footing width should be enough to make the walls "different".  Doctrinally speaking, Chief should only auto-join with objects of the same settings - right?