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I like the ease at which this can be done for sure. We already take copious photographs of the existing home, so this is a small step in a slightly different direction. I like the "augmenting" the flow by taking some critical measurements, so that the 3d scan becomes more accurate. Just a couple of quick X,Y & Z measurements of some of the rooms could get the accuracy much closer. But right now you've got a disconnect that could easily be overcome: I've seen other recent software measuring tools that incorporate inputting on the fly measurements while you take those Lidar images. See the new Houzz Pro 3d App That would put those critical measurements into the scan, saving time and money on your end. Question: Is there another device one could buy that is not an iPad or iPhone? Some kind of handheld Lidar attachment?

That is why we come here to pick the brains of all these experts that have been making CA do what it was never designed to do, since it was first created. I love and hate 3d CAD; in that I love the visual end results but hate the amount of time I spend monkeying around with it. Or as Glenn might say: "it was a dog's guts of a problem, brought in by a chap that's Few roos loose in the top paddock, but with a little encouragement and a zoom lesson, he'd have a go, ya mug, who in the end was a fair dinkem Shark biscuit, and went straight to the pool room" So in the end Glenn helped me suss it out, and he's a top bloke in my book. :-)

Sure. I've played with that and you can if you want to spend more time. It is a fun exercise in geometry to get everything lined up.

With Glenn's help I created a video tutorial on how to do a spiral stair, or at least the one I'm showing. Due to size limits here on chieftalk, I'll host this on my drop box account so this link should get you to the video How to draw a spiral stair

Thanks Glen, I struggled with CA and could not get what you did. Any chance you can either do a quick video of the steps you took? Or at least a description? Maybe a Zoom call. I could not get a smooth rail, nor glass. I've got some banana's I had to grab a model off of the sketchup warehouse to do this, but it is limited to the model created.

I agree, CA should have a better spiral stair tool. Can you do this one Glennw?

I too noticed a new library called Chief Gear, and it made me think I should buy some of that swag. Guess what? They don't sell any Chief Gear, just reserved for their design competitions.

You might update your codec also. I remember having a similar issue that was solved by doing that. I also changed the video format I saved to, so you have a few options.

Your welcome Perry. I have always included as much 3d information as possible on my permit documents for the benefit of the Contractors and subs. I've actually had one building official ask me to take it off because it confused her?!* I know it is not to any kind of AIA standard but in this brave new digital world it is just another small step in the direction of clarity of intent and purpose. I spend so much time making accurate 3d model's it is a shame not to show. Now we can also distinguish between existing and new! Love it.

Thanks Doug, I finally got serious about making video tutorials for CA as a very fast and informative way to show what I'm trying say with words. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a video is worth much more. :-)

Thanks for that simple set of solutions. I create and use terrains and often generate them before I do a foundation plan, so pushing it down is more trouble than I usually want to undertake. So I made a quick and dirty video of my preferred solution. TerrainClipping.mp4

Okay. I am basically just putting out a thank you to CA for adding more flexibility of the object boxes we send to layout. Instead of just being a 4 sided box, we can now break them into any shape we want. Why is that so COOL you ask? Let me show you via a video tutorial I made for my draftsman. MultiColor3dIsoNew_Existing.m4v

Blake posted 5 months ago so he most likely bought something and plus technology has changed since then. Since CA's ray tracing uses CPU cores and virtual cores, then the newer i9 CPU is the way to go...for now.

I hate to admit this but I tend to do way too many project specific detailed sections cuts. I do have about 30 basic details that I can reuse, but on most of my remodel projects I just use CA to draw a section, and if I've taken the time to make a near perfect 3d model I use the live image to draft a 2d looking detail, so it is updated when the plan changes. I'll fill it with custom boxes with different fills as needed and populate it with the text needed to explain everything. I prefer custom details over the canned ones and so does every contractor that builds from my plans. Rarely have any questions or problems in the field. It just takes a lot longer to complete a set of plans as each one is very customized.

I avoided all the surgeries until my "floaters" got so bad that the (3)27" bright white Samsung LCD's were driving me crazy wiping my eyes constantly to try and get rid of something that was not on my eyeball but inside. The bright white screens made it so bad I had to tilt my head and shift it constantly to view around the floating halo inside my eyeball. My main eye doctor just said you have to learn to live with it. I tried for two years, but this floater was almost dead center in my right eye. Imagine swatting at flies in front of your computer monitor all day long! I did not give up and finally found the ONE local doctor that was doing the new YAG laser treatment for floaters. I took 3 visits and about 5000 laser zaps, but he finally got rid of 90% of the Floater giving me grief! Now I want to get a 60" 4k curved monitor, and work from about 4' away. I saw this setup at my local granite cutting company and ended up with Monitor envy!