kylejmarsh

Yes It's somewhat of an annoying feature, but it's also somewhat of a lifesaver. There tends to be so much manual editing of the deck framing to get something that approaches reality that it is a real bummer to lose it (there are a few other threads about deck framing so I wont go into it here). But the problem is if you change the wall the deck is attached to, then your framing is wrong and then if it auto-regenerates, the old framing is still there so you've got to go through and manually delete it. There should be a third option, or a sub-option for what to delete when rebuilding the deck. something like 'auto-delete previous deck framing even when manually edited' or 'keep manually edited objects when re-framing' - the second item would be more like how the auto roof-planes system works

I've never seen it. But why bother? For windows/doors you don't really need to say it's the centerline do you it should be obvious to the framer. Only time I mark CL is with a cad object I made, and I mark CL for steel beams in the basement. But I've never had anybody complain that the CL isn't on my windows / doors, and that's how I dimension them on the drawings anyway (less liability than calling out RO's, plus often I don't know what windows they're going with). Just my 2 cents, I wouldn't waste time on that.

Uhoh - I have a Logitech too. Maybe I'll hold off on the update...

Too bad we need these workarounds - would be great if Chief would update the Retaining Wall tool to make it more intuitive / less buggy

The codebook has a detail for a basement wall of 10' CMU, no engineering needed. Check out tables in section R404 - here's the 10" block version for reference. For an unsupported retaining wall, code requires proper engineering calcs. But if it's supported, the codebook tables should be legally acceptable.

If you're using the 'keep the window smaller' method, does that mess up your sizes on the window schedule? Seems like a workaround that would not be worth it. Besides, if he's doing drywall returns there's no way he's paying you enough for a 3d walkthrough anyway...

Go on the SketchUp 3D warehouse they have a good selection, though it ranges from really detailed (and way too large / boggy) to really crummy. You have to sort through and find model files that aren't too high-poly - they exist if you look for them. Then import into chief as a 3D obj

Just put a corner cap on it. Other than that, it's got to be something with the wall layer extents. Or your railing is sitting just a bit further 'out' than the other wall maybe - make sure they're aligned? Sorry this does seem to be a glitchy item in chief

Do to drawing sheet setup, switch it to Portrait from Landscape. You'll have to do it in Layout view as well. Another way is to go up to Tools > Plan View > Rotate Plan View, which rotates your actual model. I always do it this way as I feel it is the more 'correct' way to build a model, even though that may just be my bias.

Having an issue with wall framing height. Never had this before and have recently upgraded to X11, so wondering if it's operatior error or the program, etc. Anyway here goes: This shows exactly what happens. The wall framing does not go up to support the plate height. Have checked the following to no avail: Verified ceiling height was accurate Wall is marked 'baloon through ceiling above' so we're not talking about a hidden attic wall messing this up - the wall actually does go up to the rafter - just the framing does not. Any insights?

I wonder if their stock layerset is better looking? I have fine-tuned my display layers quite a bit so they look really nice, but if you were just going from the basic blue/yellow chief walls, their stock dimension text, etc it can be a bit cheesy looking. I was turned off from trying SP because you have to like send in something via snail mail just to buy it. Thought that was a bad indicator of the software, they can't even get a website with a shopping cart thrown together...

Also, those aren't even for chief I realized - those were my old ones for SketchUp but it just shows how I mapped my most common tools or actions then lined them up to the easiest keystrokes. For chief my tool list would be quite different, but just wanted to illustrate the method.

Great Idea - I didn't know I could do that but I will expand it. I have a pretty efficient toolbar setup too, nothing like the original chief format, which keeps me rocking.

Posted as a reply on another topic, but maybe worth it's own thread. I did a spreadsheet where I mapped all the possible combos for my left hand - including with modifiers, etc, and ranked them by how difficult they were to physically do. For example, 'F' would be probably the easiest key to press. Then I did another spreadsheet where I listed the tools I use in chief, and how frequently I use them. For example, I use 'open object' quite a bit. I also flip door swings, make dimensions, do point to point move, etc. I listed all these out, and ranked them by how often I use them. Remember to consider 3D views as well, and Layout - because you only get one set of hotkeys - they don't change based on the view. Then I mapped the two lists together. It took a bit of work. But I almost never put my right hand on the keyboard, and I never have to look at the keyboard, so I'm blazing fast and it feels very natural. It's a lot of work but was worth it for me. Image below is from back in my SketchUp days, that's when I first did it. Also, I'm a Dvorak Keyboard guy so AOEUI are actually ASDFG on the left hand home row - but you get the idea.

I have mine set-up for left-hand only. I did a spreadsheet where I mapped all the possible combos for my left hand - including with modifiers, etc, and ranked them by how difficult they were to physically do. For example, 'F' would be probably the easiest key to press. Then I did another spreadsheet where I listed the tools I use in chief, and how frequently I use them. For example, I use 'open object' quite a bit. I also flip door swings, make dimensions, do point to point move, etc. I listed all these out, and ranked them by how often I use them. Remember to consider 3D views as well, and Layout - because you only get one set of hotkeys - they don't change based on the view. Then I mapped the two lists together. It took a bit of work. But I almost never put my right hand on the keyboard, and I never have to look at the keyboard, so I'm blazing fast and it feels very natural. It's a lot of work but was worth it for me.

Wondering if there's a way to drop the '0' which is generated in front of the schedule numbers. It adds size to my labels and most of the time there are less than 10 items so it wouldn't be confusing - but I haven't been able to find any options where we can omit this automatically generated zero. Anybody have any tips or insight?

make sure 'rebuild attic walls' is turned on in general->wall settings. Also, open the dialog box about the wall in question. find the 'baloon through ceiling above' option and check it. then go to the roof tab and make sure the wall type is changed from 'hipped' to 'gable'. this should fix it

OH if you want to enlist his help, he's very easy to work with and can ship anywhere. The current model is basically your house with a removable roof - I printed the floor plans in watercolor view and pasted inside for a neat effect. His website is: https://aa3dmodels.com

Worked for a few iterations with a local 3D print guy and he found the chief export was just not a workable solution. Tried going through all the export formats, .stl, .obj, .dae, .dwg - nothing worked, even went as far to try opening them in sketchup and then export again through sketchup. This helped a bit but wasn't perfect. In the end, my guy found it was faster to model everything in his solid modeling software - since it was an 1/8" print the detail didn't have to be too intense. Still was pricy though - until this integration is seamless it's not worth it IMHO. Chief, how about it? OR alternatively, allow for 3rd party plugins I'm sure some company would write an export plugin....

Oh I should mention - I decided against the 2013 Mac Pro tower because it didn't have Thunderbolt3, it only had Thunderbolt2, which you can't run an eGPU through (unless you do some hacking, and I wanted to avoid that as I'm too busy to tinker with it - needed something off the shelf although I would have enjoyed doing a hack...). So that's why I didn't go with the tower setup - stared doing some research and the Mac Mini has great stats for being so cheap - in fact it's right up there with the new iMac Pro, except for the GPU (although it has a perfectly fine 1.5GB unit installed). Since I wanted to get my own GPU it was perfect.

So I ended up choosing the following, and it is so sweet, I wish I did it a long time ago (of course the tech to do it just came out): - New Mac Mini, 3.2GHz x 6 cores. Cost about $1800 - Exterior enclosure from OWC with the ATI Radeon RX580 GPU @ 8GB . Cost about $500. So using the Thunderbolt3 connector to utilize an eGPU, which then connects to my monitor. I still have my old Macbook Pro for working away from the desk (couch, cafe, etc) and it's plenty good and runs Chief just *fine*, especially if I avoid using Layout which speeds things up - so fine for basic modeling. But wow - what a difference this has made. I can bounce back and forth between layout and the model file very quickly. In layout, the views update way faster. I can run full shadows and lights on my 3D camera when modeling. It just feels very 'snappy' for everything - and I love it. Oh, and I can run stacked / tiled windows with elevation cameras, section cameras, plan views and 3D together and it is still fast enough to work that way. Pretty cool. Best $2300 I've spent yet.

I'm interested in building a new Mac setup for running Chief. Currently I have a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro, 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7, 4 Cores, w/Nvidia GeForce GT 750M 2048MB GPU. This setup will run Chief Models well until they get to about 3000 SF - by 'well' I mean they are pretty lag-free in 3D mode (with optimized exterior camera i.e. cabinet, interior casing, plumbing layers 'off' to decrease total modeled polygons). I've noticed that on a recent 6000 sf project, I was often waiting for the model to 'rebuild' even getting a dialog at times - my productivity was way down, and I was frustrated (and bored at the same time - waiting for all that refresh time.) In Layout, I'm often waiting for views to refresh / render for me, especially 'plot line' views - even when I'm working with a smaller model, in order to make a set of CD's it seems that I wait just a bit too long for everything to happen - especially if this is my business. So it seems I've located a place where my current setup is lacking. I'm committed to running a Mac - although the concepts of a setup should be similar even if you're planning a PC. Mostly I'm using Chief to create models of homes and renovations of 1500 - 4500 sf, and to create Construction Docs from the model. I do a few renderings through the course of the process, but no video exports. Mostly I'm interested in a model that rebuilds quickly, and layout views that update quickly - and if I could eliminate that tiny lag that happens with pretty much every operation - then I'd really be happy. What do I need Chief to do? 1. A model that rebuilds quickly 2. Layout views that update quickly What Computer do I need to make this happen? I'm tempted to get a Mac Pro tower from a few years ago which has twin 3GB video cards, bumping me from 2GB to 6GB. This also would have 6 cores, each running at 3.5 GHz - vs. my current 4 core / 2.5 GHz setup. I can get one of these for $1800 - so as soon as it saves me 18 hours it's all gravy after that. In regards to the Model Rebuilding time, it seems like the video card upgrade won't do much to help my cause. From what I can gather, the model rebuilds itself using only one core, no GPU, and so is entirely dependent on the clock speed of your processor - so going from 2.5 to 3.5 would be almost a doubling, which is nice - but not the kind of gains I was hoping for (but I may just have to settle for). // I read something recently by a Chief Programmer which said the model had to be rebuilt in a certain order, and thats why they couldn't split it across the different cores. I wonder why they can't at least split each floor level on a core, and the terrain on another core - but I'm not a coder so I can't answer why not. There's probably a good reason. My question is - and I haven't been able to find any info about it - is what effect does the video card have on Layout Views updating? I did some basic testing using the Activity Monitor utility, watching CPU and GPU history as wall as CPU load graphs, and got the following results: Creating Plot Lines (Layout) seems to rely on the CPU, but seems to split the load across all the Processor Cores. So for this, I assume more cores is better, as well as processor speed. GPU seems to be idle during this process. Working in Elevation View (actually an orthographic camera of the 3D model). Zooming in and out, the load split across processor cores. Manipulating the model and waiting for the model to update, we also get multi-core activity, and little action on the GPU. The only time we get GPU action is when we look at things in the 3D exterior camera - standard rendering style. So I guess that leaves me with some answers. It basically seems like: 1. The GPU isn't a big deal, and even my 2GB card is pretty good 2. More Cores + more speed are my friend. Although the graphs don't have a number, watching the percentage on the processor shows that it was hitting 100% during the layout zoom operations - so I'm out of processor. So this changes what I buy somewhat. Guess I'm looking for Cores + Speed instead of upgrading to a massive video card. Does anyone else have insight to this?

Great help - I've avoided the %area tag because it was too precise

I'm not sure if this is related but sometimes I find exporting to pdf at 144dpi keeps this shift from occurring.

It does work! Wow I've been thwarted by this issue so many times - never new how to work through it. Never again! Thanks Alaskan Son