jtcapa1

The cost is minor by comparison to the effect. I absorb the extra cost, as I rarely spend over $100 for 4 color copies of a complete set, edge bound and delivered to my front door. It only gets expensive if I have to do it several times. I'm using colored transparent fills more and more for some hatching area's as it communicates much better than a busy hatch pattern. Some sheets are still B/W with Grey scale, like elevations, but one CA changes their export to layout to include scaled color images, I'll stop using B/w there too.

That is very clever! Great workaround. Although I think the poster wanted something for the "interior" and shutters only work on the "exterior" right? Having more control over the casing would be a nice addition to the CA updates, I run into this problem all the time with oddball casing trim.

You raise a great point HumbleChief, the paper scribbles are a great backup which I use again and again to double check things, mostly to find out why something does not fit or dimension out. I'm assuming that if you took the time to draw it in the field right, you'd not need the dimension notes? Still, I'd almost want both. My thinking is that Room Planner is a bust, for those of us with CA already. We have what we need to draft up an as-built in the field, as long as that process does not make us look so stupid to our clients as we curse and fumble getting the devices to communicate to each other. There's got to be a better way. It is close, but I'd have to make a fair number of logistal adjustments in how I input data and work with a tablet to get it right. I did take my mouse and the detatchable keyboard on one project, but that was almost like bringing my full laptop. It is learning to draft using my finger or pen device that is my problem.

Thanks Jon, They have a great true 3d rockery wall that I just love using in my models, although I have reached a point of massive polygon counts which will slow CA down quite a bit. That is the danger with some of these cool Sketchup Models, they are memory hogs.

Sorry for the delay in responding, but I've tried many times to use the tablet running full CA and the Distro Laser. It all works fine...mostly. For some odd reason the Distro Bluetooth stops communicating with the CA program and I have to restart it all to get it to find the device again. Might go into some kind of sleep mode if I don't move fast enough. What I have discovered is that the accuracy of the Laser measuring device is too accurate, in that I get all kinds of fractional numbers I don't really want. When I measure a room with Laser and paper, I always round up or down before I write down the dimension. CA does not do that, but there is a setting in the Laser which allows for say 1/2" increments instead of 1/32" The real challenge for me is putting in the rough walls, windows and doors using a tablet and my finger or pointing device, it takes me two or more tries to grab, pick and drag those objects on a small tablet, then put in a dimension, the activate the wall I want to dimension/move and activate the laser. Those steps take me so much longer than just writing it down on paper, that I've always stopped and reverted back to my old ways. Maybe I'm just much of an 'old dog' to learn these new tricks, or they are not just as user friendly as I had hoped. It does not save me time, it actually takes at least twice as long to measure up something using this new method. Granted I've got and accurate plan when I'm done, but normally I don't want to spend 4 hours at my clients home doing this, when I can be done in 1 hour using the old method. I may keep trying though.

I had a client that wanted one in their custom house and I had to use Sketchup with a rotation addon in order to get it just right. Once the symbol was created, it imported just find and looked great. The rotation as the stair rounded a stairway could only be achieved with this tool It is basically a molding profile in the shape of the slide, but CA will not rotate molding polylines, whereas SU does have macro's which allow for that feature, so as it is turning around the outside curve of the stair landing, the outside edge needed to rotate to keep both side level with each other. This is not the first request for indoor stairs either. And yes Washington is a Legal Marijuana State.

It would be nice for CA to add this to their list up future updates. It would be a simple child dialog box when making a garage.

Does anybody have a good Rockery texture image I could use like I do with the Cultured Stone images for rock fascia? Trying to find a good looking way to create a fast rockery wall in the terrain.

Well MS is not very forthcoming about the bugs in this new OS. I ended up with the Login bug which gave a "Critical Errors" message asking to have you sign out. Its a recursive loop. Error message keeps popping back up, essentially making it impossible to log into your account or computer. Had to search the web for a while to discover this has been plaguing MS Win 10 for some time. You end up either having to revert back to your previous version, find a restore point, or create a new login user. My new recommendation is wait for MS to work out the bugs. You'll be much less stressed.

I'm not using Room planner, Just Full CA X7, but I'll try that. Thanks Perry

Let me know how the communication goes between the bluetooth and CA. Mine crapped out after about 15 mins. Not sure why yet.

I tried not to let my clients see my fumblings, and later when I came back to my office and used the Big Boy computer with a mouse, I manage to complete the as-built and send it along to them. Honestly though, the connection issue between CA and Disto may be an issue. Memory or Bluetooth connectivity? I don't know, but would like to hear from anyone else that is using CA X7 and a Bluetooth input device to see if they are having any connectivity issues.

Well I prematurely tried my first "as-built" with the Asus Tablet running X7 and the Disto installed. I spent some time pre-drawing the outline of the house before I went to the site, which can save time. But all in all it was a real mess. It did not help that the Real Estate agent had a 1 hour time deadline either. Everything started out well, but here is what my inexperience discovered that was difficult. 1.) The ability to actually draw walls by picking the icon then pressing the stylus down and dragging, did not work as I'd hoped. The touch pad is sensitive and my technique is flawed, as I kept either falling short of the target, or short of the wall I was trying to connect too. Plus my fingers flying way from the stylus and nicking the screen caused all kinds of oddball walls to appear. 2.) My ability to pick an errant wall and grabbing an end point to create a new wall or drag it one direction left or right, up or down, was dismal 3.) Once the walls were roughly in place, I attempted to measure the inside wall to wall lengths by picking the wall (then hit select) then tapping the dimension I wanted to highlight and change, go to the Disto and take the measurement, which would put in the surface to surface length (I forgot to set up defaults to dimension to the surface). And this worked for about 15 mins. I then got some kind of error message that told me to call Chief Architect and the Disto stopped working to transmit the dimensions to CA. So from then on out I had to take the laser dimension and use the popup keyboard to type in the dimensions, and I discovered that keyboard does not easily have the "feet" and "inches" characters available, so I had to mentally convert the feet and inches from the Disto to all inches and type those in. That was not easy. I finally ran out of time and had to resort to paper and pen to quickly finish taking all the dimensions. This is going to have a steep learning curve.

Any idea how to fill in numbers on a tablet? If there is no keyboard attached?

Thanks Perry I'll have to jet to Office Max and pick one up

Great Scott, I think I'll call support. I've never tried creating a plan with my fat fingers and I'm struggling with how to grab walls, type in text and dimensions using a touch screen. Anybody have experience with that? So far though I've gotten X7 installed on this little 10.1" Asus T101TA, then the Disto software installed, then the Bluetooth enable and got it all to communicate! Yeah. For only $130 on a Woot Sale this handy tablet with a detachable keyboard, running windows 8.1 works great! Perfect for field measuring. Can't wait to try it once I get the basic finger drawing method down.

Anybody got a good Douglas Fir Tree?

I did get it all to work together with Chief Architect and the Disto with software installed. Works pretty good with the exception of the fractions. When I measure by hand or with a laser not connected to the computer, I would round up or down by 1/2" before writing down the dimensions Disto and CA communicate the dimensions down to 1/16" fractions and I can see that will end up making a very accurate but difficult as-built to work with. Also there are dimensions like floor to ceiling which I don't want to communicate to CA, or can't (I think) so you have to be careful when you are just checking dimensions with the Laser, as it wants to send the data to CA. Time will tell. I can see that the software has some macro's you can tweak that might adjust the fraction limits. Will have to test it out more.

After reading the posts, and looking back over a 30 year career as both and Architect and a Building Designer, I can see where Johnny is coming from. Architects are trained to think with our hands on paper, at least before computers took over. We fondly refer to that old dusty role of tracing paper you forgot you had, as "talking paper". We simply could not have any kind of design discussion without it. Fast forward 30 years and we can see that the next generation of Architects and designers are thinking more digitally, and us old dogs are really trying to commit to thinking digitally but it is a double edged sword. All the time we would lovingly dedicated to thinking and sketching by hand has been replaced (mostly) with thinking and designing in our heads, while trying to quickly output those idea's into a digital CAD format that is both 2d and 3d. The goal is not to get lost in the transition. Paper and pencil is fluid and lets the creative idea's flow out nicely. Mimicking that in 2d CAD has come a long way, and can end up with beautiful results like Johnny's work in a lot less time, than the old hand method, whereas creating in 3d is much less fluid for me. I save time by skipping some of the design culling steps and jump directly into 3d work, but it still does not feel as creative and clean as the old methods. I have to get the design model worked out in my head first before committing to a 3d model. As you all know that is not easy. But it can be very quick.

Wow. I had no idea that some of you guys got into that much detail with cabinets. I've always just used CA for the basic layout, style and look, then let the Contractor, Owners work directly with the Cabinet supplier. I guess that is why there are Kitchen and Bath designers.

Like many, I tend to use the program in its out of the box mode, and once I get used to using it that way, I don't tend to change easily. But, we all know there is a bunch of time wasted doing simple things that could be done faster or automated. Libraries are a big one. I've been lazy in creating my own user library and then not organizing it until it gets to big and unwieldy. The cut/paste and create sub-directories has been very useful and would have been smart to do from the beginning. Going back and organizing feel like doing my taxes. I really hate it.

Thanks Mick!

Oh. Basically this forum post has been answered. Yes the Leica Disto E7100i does indeed work with CA X7 running in Windows 10!

Okay. I purchase the cheaper Leica Disto E7100i and downloaded the Disto Transfer software, paired the Disto with my PC/laptop. Launched the Disto transfer software and changed the pairing code's as recommended by the CA tech article, launched CA X7 running in Windows 10 and tried a simple box. Set up the internal wall to wall measurement dimensions, click on the wall I wanted to measure and move, aimed the Disto at the target wall and hit the Dist button. It immediately measured it, and I heard a beep on my laptop and the wall and dimension changed to what was displayed on the Disto window, along with a simple dialog box in CA. So far it works like a charm. Now I'm going to try installing all this on my cheapo Tablet and see if I have a field as-built measuring device that works! Very cool!

So what did you guys discover? Can you CA on a PC communicate with the Disto if you install the Disto transfer software? (does not mention support for Windows 10)