rlackore

Chief's Reference Manual implies that if it's installed on your system, it should be available:

Have you tried rebooting your system after the codec installation?

Goldhunter, I wouldn't get wrapped up in worrying about modeling the details of the Quadlock system. You could use something as simple as a general framing member with the correct width and height and a concrete material, or a polyline solid, etc. This should be enough for general design purposes - eventually Quadlock will produce shop drawings which you can review to ensure they meet your design intent. The same goes for the ICFs. Where you cut sections you can use some CAD work to indicate the components if you need the extra level of detail. These are some of the techniques I use for concrete plank, ICF, and SIP design.

26 minutes ago, goldhunter_2 said:

rlackore, I see the CA import DWG but when I import CA opens but never opens file ............. sounds like I probably am doing something wrong and will need to work with it some more

There are two DWG import options - Import Drawing will only open 2D data; Import 3D Symbol will import 3D data:

So, the lesson is that you have to be sure what kind of data is contained within the DWG file.

.RVT = AutoDesk REVIT project file; contains 3D data but also BIM data and other project information

.RFA = AutoDesk REVIT family file; generally contains 3D data that defines an object or group of objects

.DWG = AutoDesk AutoCAD

.DWF = AutoDesk Design Web file used to display CAD data on web pages and within web applications

Of these file formats which support 3D data, Chief can import only DWG files. Converting RVT/RFA to DWG is possible but requires REVIT.

Rectangles are polylines, circles and arcs are not. I think you'd have to convert it to a polyline to assign it a label.

8 minutes ago, robdyck said:

My own opinion: why not just buy a light fixture? Then, you can have light in the room at night as well!

You could make the same arguments about skylights, I suppose. Why put in a skylight when a 2x4 led or fluorescent fixture could be used? The major reason is the quality of the illumination. The Velux sun tunnels have an option to include a light that can be turned on when it's dark outside; combined with a fresnel or prismatic lense they provide illumination when the sun goes down. I'm not discounting any of your concerns - just pointing out a popular option.

32 minutes ago, architect said:

Sorry to off topic a little... but has anyone had any real world experience with one of these tube skylights.?

I would like to put one in my home but have never seen one out in the wild.

Thanks,

Eric

Sure, we include them projects all the time. We specify the Velux sun tunnels and have good luck with them; they are useful for bringing light into hallways, interior rooms, etc. Sometimes the roof flashing is challenging if you're using a metal panel roof.

Chief is not suitable for the precise modeling of small objects - you may want to investigate other software. A program like AutoCAD (and the AutoDesk suite of products) gives the user much more control over the drawing units and precision, as well as the ability to assign an arbitrary scale factor to the dimension tool. For example, here are two boxes in  AutoCAD, the dimension on the left box is set with a dimension scale of 1.0, and the dimension on the right box is set with a dimension scale of 0.5. Same box, same drawing units, just a different scale for the dimension:

If you want this kind of functionality in Chief, make it a Suggestion. Maybe when they finally decide to give us a user-defined coordinate system they will also give us dimension scaling.

Manual only AFAIK. A proper breakline in Chief is so tedious that I now just use a heavy dashed line:

Maybe this helps?

Remember that if you change the material definition to suit one room, all other rooms that use the same material definition will be affected. I recommend creating a separate material definition for each office area that will have a unique ceiling grid layout.

This is from awhile back: https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/22567-floating-shelves-with-hangers-not-brackets/?tab=comments#comment-183913

Your questions are best addressed in the General Q&A forum, but:

1. I don't know why, but a Road either has a Curb, or it doesn't - individual control is not possible.

2. Roads and Sidewalks are Terrain objects, so they don't (can't) exist outside of the Terrain Perimeter.

Can you be more clear about what your trouble is with the placement? Vertical? Horizontal? Size? The options in the Soffit Specification dbx provide lots of control:

Bottom chord bearing for the interior walls is no problem - you won't have to mess with the walls at all. Too easy.

I'm not smart enough to evaluate your current rig, but the best "upgrade" I ever made for renderings/raytraces is to use TwinMotion - I believe it's still a free download. TwinMotion is far from perfect, but it's a heck of a lot faster to set up a quality scene, the results are real-time, and the animations use keyframing. The export/import using .dae isn't fullproof, but I seldom run into issues, and refreshing the TwinMotion file after a change in Chief works well. The biggest advice I have for anyone using Chief with TwinMotion is to save any material tweaks you make in TwinMotion into your TwinMotion user library so you can quickly re-apply them if they are lost during the model refresh.

Or define the those brick walls as Foundation walls and adjust the footings as required.

Wherever you have a floor cantilevered (like at a balcony projection) don't set the wall (or a portion of the wall) to hang:

Interior bearing walls will not respect the bearing height - you need to drag them up manually:

I assume the floor trusses are hung off the masonry wall on a ledger, correct? If so, set the exterior walls to hang the floor structure, then set the the floor levels to your 9'-4" increments:

With this method the actual floor system doesn't matter. This is my normal method of working with cmu, tilt-up, panelized, etc.

1 minute ago, solver said:

 

How do they look in Vector view?

Like crap. But, in my defense, the OP's picture appears to be Standard view.

Corner cabinet with shelving, all components except shelves set to an invisible material, with the end panels created from partitions:

SketchUp Pro 2019 provides geolocation:

You can plop the mass model down over the imagery. The Origin is the referenced lat/lon, which provides a reference for drawing/importing/locating the survey data. If you know the lat/lon of one of your survey points you can manually set the geolocation as well.

Corner windows still work the same for me in X11:

Everything Glen said; plus if you don't want the annoying return (on the right-hand side of the gable), then open the garage wall and uncheck Roof>Auto Roof Return:

Adjust the line weights in your Wall Definition, which currently has the interior layer weight 5 points greater than the exterior layer: