Lighthouse

It's been really interesting to read all the responses, and I feel less crazy knowing that others would like some of the features I'm looking for. I want to clarify that I agree it makes sense to create a detailed as-buillt model before starting the design of a renovation. I was asking for schematic design modeling tools for massing that would be quicker and more intuitive than what Chief offers now. For massing, it is not critical to work with "walls" and "roofs" which imply a hollow volume. It is quicker to work with solid volumes that can be pushed, pulled, extruded, and cut away. Yes, this could be done in another program, but if it were done in Chief then at least some of the intent and effort could be captured in a conversion to a conventional "hollow" model. For example, I could establish some default characteristics of walls (2x6, sheathing, etc) and roofs. Then I could create a massing model out of solid primitives (in Chief, using the soon to be invented tools) and "convert" it to a hollow model based on the defaults. I think Chief is fast enough with wall creation, but drawing individual roof planes, or defining gablle lines to generate roofs, is too time consuming in the massing stage. I agree with others that polyline solids have the potential to be much more versatile in this respect. An impressive part of the formZ example was the hip roof extrusion created by placing an X on the roof plane and pulling up. CA has always suffered from a bit of a bad reputation as a "builder's" design tool. As a builder I appreciate what's great about the program, and I don't think the criticisms are fair, but the prejudice against pure modeling makes it easier for architects to reject. Chief has matured to the point that it should go head to head against any architectural software. There has been huge emphasis place on photorealism and presentation tools, but not enough on pure design. As Gehry has shown, people are ready for canted walls and parabolic roofs. Why can't Chief go there? Chief would gain broader acceptance by architects if some unusual and cutting edge homes and buildings were created and showcased, rather than just fancy builder houses. Maybe it just the ethos and values of the company- are the lack of modeling tools a technical issue or a cultural one? Is modeling for snobby architects and not practical builders?

Also, re SU- I saw a demo years ago where they took a house photo and pinned it to a primitive object and the object "snapped" to the geometry of the house in the photo. It seemed like an incredibly powerful tool for working with a client on preliminary design where you could photo their house and instantly begin to show design possibilities- has anyone used that?

I remember formZ from many years ago- was popular with furniture designers. I'm glad to see they are still at it! I think you are right- a pure modeler is probably the way to go, and then recreate in CA once design forms are decided on. Certainly it can be tweaked in CA for finish details and client changes. So painful for an old dog like me to learn a new program. I'm curious if anyone has used both SU and FormZ- I'm interested in your comment that it seems more intuitive- they seem very similar to me, although SU seems to have more of a line and plane basis, and formz is maybe more form oriented? I do love the powerful "follow me" tool in SU, I wonder if formz has something similar.

the audi commercial reminds me of one of my favorite cars, my audi "super 90" sport wagon. there were only a couple hundred imported to the US back in the early 80's, and only to the west coast, so I never saw another one in the Northeast where I live. It had a center brake rotor for both front wheels, which befuddled many a mechanic when I would go to have the brakes done. They would come back with a serious expression and tell me that the reason my brakes didn't work well was that I had no rotors! I think audi gave up that particular innovation fairly soon

I think some of this could be addressed by the programmers at Chief simply stating what the organizing principles of the software are, and how they can be worked around. Obviously that could get complicated fast, but I would appreciate a list of basic principles baked into the programming. What I'm suggesting is a little different than reading the manual, which of course is an expression of the programmed principals. But for example, the statement could say something like (these examples are not meant to be true, but just examples): 1) the primary function is drawing walls, which create rooms 2) rooms are understood to have walls, floors, and ceilings 3) ceiling heights determine floor levels based on platform thicknesses, which default to X unless changed etc etc Then the more interesting part would be: 1) a ceiling will always overide a wall change 2) walls will follow a roof up or down in these particular instances (give examples) 3) a manually created roof will not form a proper valley unless x or y Clearly the program has a particular logic based on choices that the programmers made, but the logic is not visible except in practice. The logic is discovered by users, who often post both the limitations and useful work-arounds. However, this is a somewhat ad-hoc, hit or miss way to inform all users. For example, Scott seems to suggest that a complete understanding of the program would enable me to work in the way that I would like. I would like that to be true, but there must be a more efficient way to get to this stage of advanced knowledge than simply spending thousands of hours making mistakes and then learning how to fix them. Does anyone else beleive that a concise, organized statement of the programming language and assumptions, apart from the user's manual, would be useful for them in order to develop a working method that enabled them to use Chief to it's maximum advantage? To my mind, this is similar to any design program I encounter- my first question is: what do I want to acheive and what are the parameters and limitations that would inform my choices? If I knew for certain (and not just because someone posted it on Chieftalk) that I should always establish floor heights higher than I might want, because it's easier to move them down than up, I would do that. But I tend to see things offered as "best practices", which imply that better outcomes are more likely with this method but other methods might still work. This is not as specific as actually describing the logic assumed in the programming. Is there a reason to not clearly state the programming logic? Is it too complicated? Trade secret? Not good from a marketing standpoint? Time consuming and not interesting to most people? To be clear, I'm asking Chief Arch to do this, not the user community

paper! radical Well, I don't know if I'm out of practice or was just never a great sketcher to begin with, but I find it much easier to visualize complex 3d with Chief than trying to draw it. So maybe SU is the way to go. My problem is that if I'm not using it (SU) every day, I forget how to do it. Too bad Chief doesn't have a 3d modeling mode similar to the 2d room planning bubble diagram, where you could easily manipulate shapes and then turn them into more defined elements

I'm interested in the insights of advanced CA users re their workflow in highly custom designs. Part of my work is designing very modern houses that are somewhat sculptural in shape, with may different floor levels and unusual roof lines. The interiors often feature clerestories and lofts. Sometimes I'm starting with an existing house which is incorporated into a new building, sometimes it's from scratch. The common demoninator is that I have no idea what the house is going to look like when I start designing. My process is to iterate very quickly, essentially sketching with Chief like I used to do on trace years ago. I want to pull and push on the walls and roofs while constantly viewing the model from various angles until the shape I'm looking for starts to emerge. Typically I'm doing "save as" when a plan has a few elements I like but I want to try another direction on some part of the house, while retaining parts I like. On average I usually go through 10-20 major iterations and maybe another 20 minor ones. The problem with my method is that all this pushing and pulling on the model (manual roofs, manual wall edits) leaves me with a hopeless kluged-up model. A couple of Chief wise men (I will let them identify themselves if they so choose) have told me that my method is fundamentally incompatible with Cheif, because I am not establishing defaults at the outset, and all the manual editing of roofs and walls creates screw-ups that can't be undone. Accepting the wise mens' word as gospel (which I do), what is to be done? I can only think of three options: 1) use my method to arrive at the design, then start from scratch and recreate the entire model with defaults and auto-roofs derived from the finished plan info 2) do my initial modeling in sketch up or another program, if it has to be recreated from scratch anyway 3) continue my method and accept the fact the my finished model is going to be full of patches and polyline solids masking the kluged up parts Anyone have any suggestions or insights as to how to address this problem- in other words, how do you use Chief if the house is going to be uncoventional and you want to sculpt the shape as you go? Thanks for your thoughts! camera.pdf

Right, looks good but PITA, particularly if there is going to be ongoing design modifications and I have to keep moving two sets of roofs around. From a programming standpoint, this seems like an easy feature for Chief to add, since they could just cut a paste the code for creating wall types (I'm sure all the software engineers are getting a good laugh from that statement) :-)

I'm trying to create an accurate model of a house with a variety of roof structures, in particular a plane that has 4" rigid insulation above the roof sheathing. The entire plane is: 1/2" sheetrock 3/4" strapping 2x10 rafter 3/4 sheathing 3 1/2" rigid insulation 1/2" roof sheathing shingles If this were a wall I could create a new wall type with these exact layers, but I don't think there is a similar way to create a roof plane. I know I could add polyline solids on top of an existing roof to create some of these layers, but I will have to keep track of all those layers as I continue to change the design. Is there a way to create such a roof plane?

Ah, finally got it! Thanks all who replied for your patience

Richard, I did that, and I got the fillet tool, but it does not fillet the corners of the box. Maybe we are talking about different boxes- I don't mean the layout border, I mean the bounding box that surrounds a given view that is sent to layout. The box that you can "crop" the view with.

I tried selecting the layout border box, then going to edit behaviors and choosing the fillet tool. So far, so good. With the tool I'm able to fillet cad boxes that I have drawn on the layout sheet, but NOT the layout border box. I thought I had a smart idea and changed the layer of the border box to the default CAD layer, but that did not solve it. Joe, how the heck do you do it? Now I'm obsessed! btw, Richard thanks for your fence select suggestion- I do use that a lot, but it's still too slow to do each time I send something to layout.

I don't get it. I can draw a cad box on a layout sheet and edit the cad box, but I cannot edit the "layout box border" that surrounds a drawing that is sent to the layout sheet. This is the one that I need to edit, because this one restricts the view of the drawing, which is what I want to do. Is this layout box editable? When I select it, my fillet tool is not available, but when I select a cad box on the layout sheet it (the cad box) is editable.

how do I change a layout box to a circle?

I like to draw sections in CAD and then show the details at larger scale on a different page. I would like to put a circle or box around a detail, and just copy what is inside that circle or box. I can do this in a labor-intensive way by selecting the box and then individually trimming each line that intersects it, but that is too slow. Isn't this a common operation that other people do? I can't find anything about it in the manual. I can use "edit area" in a plan view, but not in a CAD detail, which is where I want to do it. Thanks

I'm missing something obvious about how to use Alt behavior. I've tried on my laptop and desktop and can't get it to work. I'm trying to use different multiple copy intervals of 16" and 24". When I choose multiple copy the 16" works fine. Then when I hold the Alt button on my keyboard nothing changes, I still get the 16" interval (the alt behavior interval is set to 24"). I thought maybe my keyboard Alt button wasn't working, so I put the Alt tool on the toolbar. That also doesn't work, but has another issue in that I can't turn Alt on and off with the button, it just stays on. The only way I can get it to revert back to normal is to go to edit behaviors on the menus and select default. I've read a previous forum post about Alt behavior but it doesn't answer my question. Can someone tell me how this is supposed to work? Is the Alt button on your keyboard supposed to work? Does it do the same thing as the Alt button on the toolbar? Are you supposed to be able to toggle Alt on and off like other buttons? Thanks!

Thanks for all the feedback, I will modify the specs as suggested. Y'all are a great resource!

I'm finally giving up on trying to get my Thinkpad to run x6, and going with a desktop instead. A high school kid put together these specs for me- Anyone care to input on whether this machine will have the power to run the newest and greatest Chief releases? Much appreciated, thanks (pdf with specs attached) desktop specs.pdf

Hi, I've designed a contemporary house with some clerestory areas that need some modeling help. I've got it to look reasonable from the outside by using the wall editor, but the interior is totally kluged up. I would like to hire an expert to clean up the model. I have other similar projects so I would like to form a consulting relationship. I'm not looking for a deal, but do want someone who is expert at the work-arounds inherent in this type of model. weston.pdf

wow, thanks for the quick responses, I'm grateful! The thumbnails were key to explaining it!

In X5, when I create exterior camera views, one side of the house is heavily shaded, where the other side appears fine. It seems to me that the system is using some default sun angle, but I haven't been able to change it. Is there a way to adjust this in a given view, or globally? Can I just turn the shading off entirely? Note this is not in ray-tracing or rendering, just a standard (non vector) camera view Thanks!

Alan, Given that we've had about 4' of snow in the last week and are getting another 2' this weekend, I'm pretty tempted to take you up on those ledgers! If I can just find someone to take over the three jobs I'm running at the moment, I will be there in a heartbeat. Perry, re best place to eat: I'm sure I haven't been to the best place (more than I can afford), but I used to take a nice couple from Canada to the Chart House every year to thank them for saving my life in a climbing accident. Nice atmosphere right on the harbor

Over the years I've received valuable hellp from others on this forum, and feel kind of guilty that I never answer anyone's question. The truth is I'm just not good enough at CA to be helpful (even though I've been using it since the very beginning!). However, I do have 40 years experience designing and buiding high-end homes and renovations in the Boston area. So if I can be of any help to anyone in solving a design or construction or business/legal problem, feel free to shoot me an email @ Davidhornstein@verizon.net.

Wow, never knew that was there!! You are the best, much thanks

In X5 I've created a pretty complicated two storey plan with lots of weird roofs, and I'm getting attic walls all over the place that I don't want. I thought it was due to the complexity of the plan, so I tried playing with lots of variables but cannot get rid of them. Finally I tried creating a very simple test plan with an auto generated roof, and discovered the same problem in that plan. So maybe it has nothing to do with the plan complexity, since the test plan is a perfectly simple box. Obviously I'm not understaning something about attic walls. I do realize that I can choose not to display them in plan and camera views, but they still affect the plan whether displayed or not. I would like to be able to permanently delete them, or better yet understand why they are being created. In the attached plan, I'm simply trying to create a "notch" in the bottom right corner of the second floor, as if there was going to be a roof deck. Even though the interior walls of the notch appear to hit the ceiling, it keeps generating outer attic walls to fill in the notch. Can anyone explain why this is? I've already wasted a few hours on this. Thanks! test plan.zip