Chief equivalent of TrueView or TrueConvert


madcowscarnival
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I have what is now an older version of CA, X6, and don't currently have plans to upgrade.  I have a couple of builders that have different versions (one older, one newer) of the program.  Does Chief Architect offer a viewer or conversion program that would permit me to convert from X7 or X8 to X6?  It is rather inconvenient for the builder to convert files when I need them (during the day) as he is out on the job and is typically doing his drafting work overnight.  I would pass it along to the other builder when he may get files from designers that he would be unable to open.

 

AutoCad has something similar with their DWG TrueView which permits any file conversion from one version to another.  This is especially helpful with autocad as there are many people with many versions (from the very early R14 to 2015+).

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6 minutes ago, madcowscarnival said:

I have what is now an older version of CA, X6, and don't currently have plans to upgrade.  I have a couple of builders that have different versions (one older, one newer) of the program.  Does Chief Architect offer a viewer or conversion program that would permit me to convert from X7 or X8 to X6?  It is rather inconvenient for the builder to convert files when I need them (during the day) as he is out on the job and is typically doing his drafting work overnight.  I would pass it along to the other builder when he may get files from designers that he would be unable to open.

 

AutoCad has something similar with their DWG TrueView which permits any file conversion from one version to another.  This is especially helpful with autocad as there are many people with many versions (from the very early R14 to 2015+).

 

This is not something you can do with Chief.  In fact, I don't know of ANY 3D architectural modeling programs that are truly backward compatible.  If I'm not mistaken, TrueView won't work for any of AutoCAD's "intelligent" 3D objects either. 2D linework, text, hatches, etc. are one thing but once you get into 3D objects and all the embedded information and intelligent behaviour then you're dealing with an entirely different animal. 

 

The only backward compatibility you can get with most 3D is simply to export as a 3D symbol of some sort but then you lose all the intelligence. 

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Michael,

 

Thank you for the reply.  That makes enough sense.   I've never had need for more than 2-d drawing conversion in AutoCad and thus never thought about smart objects or even 3d. 

 

I opened up Chief to look into saving backwards from inside the program.  It appears that may not be feasible either?  So a later version can open and earlier version but cannot save "to" and earlier version.

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29 minutes ago, madcowscarnival said:

Does Chief Architect offer a viewer or conversion program that would permit me to convert from X7 or X8 to X6? 

No but the Chief Architect Viewer would at least allow you to open the file and see the changes, just not edit it there. I don't know if you need to be on support to request it though? 

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1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

In fact, I don't know of ANY 3D architectural modeling programs that are truly backward compatible. 

ArchiCAD always allows you to save one version back. So, if you download prior versions, you can get back any number of versions, but it's pretty tedious and you lose any intelligence from later versions, of course. 

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"AutoCad has something similar with their DWG TrueView which permits any file conversion from one version to another. "

 

You can do that in Chief too.  Just use the export DWG tool and choose which version of autocad you want to use.  As long as you choose a compatible autocad version, then a person using an older version of Chief should be able to import the DWG and view it.  Unfortunately, this will just be a "dumb" cad file with none of the smarts that are built into the actual Chief model so you won't be able to create any camera views or modify any of the original objects used to generate it. 

 

As noted above, the free Chief Architect Viewer would allow you to actually view files from any version of Chief Architect from X9 back to Version 10.  You won't be able to modify the model but you could at least create camera views.

 

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