MarkMc

I have no doubt that 3Dmax is better. I suppose if I did much custom upholstery it might be needed (once upon a time I did build it for several years). I don't really want or need to add in learning or supporting more software. I've taken the time to learn how to get what I need out of Chief with an occasional foray sending something from it to SU for an adjustment. I messed with FormZ occasionally over the last year thinking it might help but always went back to CA, uninstalled it a couple of weeks ago. It depends on what you need. For the attached I have access to all of the parts and generations used to create the parts. In many cases a generation amounts to 3 minutes and a save as. 1-Dermot mentioned curved case work and the OP asked about casework to begin with. Did this in about an hour tonight while watching the tube. 2- installing this week- this was the easy part. The custom radiator covers were a bear to work out-not Chiefs fault though. Fixtures and furniture are only meant to approximate what is there all made in CA.-light is two psolids and a solid cylinder and a bulb, bed is an altered bed, psolid, and altered posts, cabinet is custom turnings, drawerfronts, and hardware done in chief 3-The single handle was made from a Kohler faucet in CA, about 5 generations about half an hour since it was the first time I tried that and took me a bit to find the right faucet :)- I cheated at the end and sent it to Mesh Lab to filter.

I do lot of and with cabinets, those don't need to be in a room BUT once you start adding in primitives having four walls helps a lot. I have a template just for making symbols. Cabinet defaults are Blank with no separations on all sides with no toe, no counter, separations set to zero. It has a couple of dedicated annosets, and one view that doesn't show walls, floor, ceiling or backdrop. As Graham points out there are ways. For instance I make door symbol (which can be anything) from different parts, and have different textures on them before converting to a symbol, those parts can have individually applied textures. Export symbol and alter in SU, then import. Plenty of ways to hack existing symbols too.

open the room dbx, moldings, use default, change to 5" to match the other baseborad

3-Psolids, trace picture, subtract as needed, convert to symbol Delta Cover.calibz

I run into it often enough, same as others and I don't do as much heavy lifting as some.

nah, actually Yoda is the king of making stuff with cabinets. Couple of years ago he made a mess of unbelievable stufff-don't remember exactly what...hand crank washing machine? Lamborghini? ...some stuff anyway.

Yes it was, got a warning when importing the defaults into the new plan. I also create new templates. Size could be a factor of save as too, have seen plans grow as I do a lot of that so always at least start fresh. Had a few messy plans that I had to copy to new to clear up issues.

Good idea Joe- a variation.

That certainly would be nice in cases like this. I couldn't figure out why it behaved the way it does.

Nice stuff Graham. One thing I did last night was to take Larry's problem plan- I turned on "record timing log" prefs, general tab. Opened a new blank plan, copied the entire plan over. Then set both in 3D views so only the roof showed, and turned off auto rebuild, turned off all of the lights. Tried a few roof edits, then dug out the log.txt Save as and deleted. Then tried the other plan. I was surprised in both at the number of lines listed for rebuild. It was overall too damn complicated to add up the times though. The other thing I noticed was that the copied plan reduced from 17 mb to about 12 and was a small bit (though noticeable) faster.

I think the vid Chop mentions uses the principal- (I didn't check it though) but a week or two after I posted a plan with the method in it Mike did a vid having come up with it interdependently. Attached is a plan with one way to use some of what I did if you were doing a more complicated curtain wall than what I did above for the store front. I'd build the module with a cabinet, convert to a millwork symbol, place, then be fruitful and multiply. There are enough of the parts in there to get an idea of what you need to do-open the DBXs. Few other plans I've posted elsewhere could be of use- Sub Zero flush inset, and beaded inset, and some door kit plans for making cabinet door symbols. I also keep a plan template with framed cabinets (wall, base AND tall), separations set to 0", set to no shelves in front then change fronts to have "to side panel inset" (or blank area) backs and sides as openings, delete all separations. Just easier to start that way when doing complicated configs. Tips- when you get one area you're happy with copy and move to save that, you can't undo a step in the config so if you muck up you have to start over. Keep a second plan up with a 3d view-drag new door symbols from library to check that they do what you want. If they are off you can usually change stretches and origin in the library and try again. Setting stretches outside the symbol prevents doors from becomiing 3/4"thick when inserted Sometimes the answer is to add a new "layout" vertical or horizontal, or a separation and then change it to something else and resize. Chop is correct that I avoid doing vids. Partly I'm lousy at it, partly something Glenn said once that I took to heart (maybe not as he intended though) I took it as sometimes it's better to give folks enough work it out for themselves instead of "just do this". While I've learned an enormous amount from this forum there are a lot of things I wouldn't know if I wasn't in the habit of digging rabbet holes to crawl in. Here's one:) Forgot- one advantage of doing it this way is you can keep your members sized as you want but still tweak overall sizes. When working with a cabinet config keep an eye on what is and isn't locked. Curtain one way.zip

Being a cabinet guy I thought of cabinets. Inset, 1" thick, with inset side panel, back as an opening. Keep splitting. Made the doors first convert to door symbol. Do the math to figure members and sizes to get total first.

Thanks

Forgot and not sure it matters but I tried stretch planes/zones first so this is what they are set at in the image shown.

I somehow managed to answer in the wrong place Duh... Copy material, check global symbol mapping in the dbx.

Put in the macro, then hit the space bar. Chief will think the labels are different

Similar but less safer- specify label, insert, object specific, % automatic_label%, then just add a space. All information will be correct even with changes. Course you could add L or R instead of a space if it suits.

I started with a bunch of single letter keys but when I began to add more I ran into trouble. So made all of those doubles-text="t, t", point to point "p,p' ...like that. I like that since it takes up no extra room. I've got a loose keyboard and a number pad (not a gaming one) used them a lot at first but that has tailed off. I prefer having the real estate for papers. Just set one button for ctrl in Chief only- will see if I adapt, then will look at the other button-maybe ctrl +alt. That could become universal for all programs for my needs.

Yeah I remapped a bunch and cabinet keyboards are exactly what you are looking at. I exported the original list- moved it to a spreadsheet. Looked at what I want to change. Then put into word processor, color coded them and saved as RTF. Changed the RTF to wri and associate that with WordPad (which opens like lightning) set a windows hot key to open the wordpad document. Attached is what I have in a zip file. Think I've added a few since then so need to update the list.

I rarely get crashes- had a bad plan the yesterday. Turns out an arch block my assistant made didn't like the way I reset cabinet defaults. Tech is checking it. Anyway- I didn't get what I expected from the archives so I changed the autosave setting to 10 minutes. I'm not sure what happened since I usually have a twitch that goes "ctrl + s" Any way I checked the archives on project I was working on today and maybe I don't understand how they work? Pic is what I am getting with autosave set to 10 minutes- doesn't appear that way. I know my twitch was active today, does saving prevent autosave from happening?

Sorry, didn't see the plan- you had cad lines in your buildup. Those prevent blocking which requires ONLY 3D objects. I had to replace the stone texture since got an error message here. Can easily replace it on your end. For the block you have to tab the block to get at the underlying object. Library with symbol and block attached. Did not set sizing zones. column.calibz

You really are better off with Sketchup files than DWG or DXF. The latter have no textures and often no faces. I pretty regularly grab SU files from their site when I need them.

Didn't watch the vid (but then again you didn't post the plan Choices are select the objects ONLY- no lines, no dimensions, no text, and nothing you don't want- make an architectural block. OR take a 3d view, turn off layers for everything you don't want. Sometimes that means you have to place things you do want on a new layer (like moldings) then convert to symbol- select type and set stretch plane/zones, origin and see if your happy with the 2d block

Yeah, I must of just gotten lucky last year tracing the acrylic job, don't remember trying polished on the white.

Or do you mean this?