SCI_Design

chief forum temp.plan yeah for some reason the plan files fail every time i try to upload. Not sure what is going on here.

I am not sure what is up with my model but if anyone could help troubleshoot with me that would be greatly appreciated. That would actually save me the trouble of messing with wall schedules at all which is ironically the name of this feed. I am not sure however how to post the plan file so if any tips on that are around that would be helpful! thanks again everyone for your insight and helpful comments.

I have, it is quite complex, hard to troubleshoot and usually very much inaccurate -not even ball park range. Calculating these takeoffs manually is my only solution to try and figure out how to use the automation better. trial and error. We are working on getting our models more accurate also which I know will help.

This data can be useful for calculating material takeoffs because with height and length you can then calculate area and have a more accurate number than most 3rd party estimators can give, (and cheaper).

There is a way to add a comment box into the table. Then you can open the walls and go to object information and under the comment section you write "%room.height.ceiling%" and then it will populate into the table with (most of) the correct heights showing. still a work in progress needing some more finagling but I hope this builds upon our previous information together.

Hi fellow Chief Users, I am wondering if anyone has any info on populating wall schedules with wall heights as well as lengths and types. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

Is there ways you have had to adjust when creating your model from the start, that you may have not had to worry about before the materials list was a function?

Does anyone out there actually use the materials list to estimate their takeoffs? And if so, are you able to get an accurate estimate that makes it worth your time to use rather than doing by hand? Just seems to be real finnicky but if in the long run can save us time and money then it will be worth it to us to invest more time into materials list training. Thanks in advance!

Why do some walls show up with siding in the material list but some walls do not? I have found that even though the materials are all identical, some walls do not calculate into the material list and hence the total number of materials comes back below what is actually needed. Does anyone know how to work around this in the model to get the list to be accurate in the future?

Doing all live elevations. It is a bit tedious at times to drawing in the detail we want, but it has been faster overall. I've attached a few examples of typical cross sections. These take about 20-30. min each and we do about 5-6 per plan for a average custom home. Has really saved us time in some cases where modifications are made to the plan and they automatically update with only a few adjustments. Once you get the first one done on a project, the following ones usually go faster since you can copy and paste a lot of elements over to the next cross section. We used to do all cross sections as all CAD lines, but going to live has cut our time in half at least. Example Elevations.pdf

My two cents would be to get the fastest gaming laptop you can afford... maybe Alienware, Acer, or similar. Even if you don't raytrace much, it will run the programs efficiently.

Great test! One interesting thing I noticed as I played with it - My computer would run it just fine with all 400 chandeliers in the plan as long as I was only looking at say 20-30 at a time. In other words, if my camera view only was viewing across the edge of the group it ran fast and smooth. If I zoomed out to include more chandeliers into my screen view it slowed down. The more I zoomed out, the slower it went. Also noted: I downloaded the plan and opened it from my regular drive. But when I "Saved As" the file to the SSD and operated the plan from that, there was a substantial improvement.

Depending on the render style that you used in sending the elevation to the layout (watercolor, painting, etc) the elevation will show really pixelated. It will actually print to a higher quality. This is done to allow the layout to still function at a fast speed. So the jagged elevation is simply a rough preview if you will. I've attached a few examples to show the difference.

Graham, Thanks for your detailed analysis. Its very similar to the experiences I've had... CA needing to rebuild with nearly every action really slows down the program. Bigger plans get worse and worse as detail is added or framing is generated. As you mentioned I've also seen good results with a bigger / faster computer. More CPU cores, fast SSD, and good GPU's will certainly speed things up. I've come to expect a $3,500 investment on a new computer every few years to keep things moving fast.