Designer1 Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Does anyone know how to 'clean up' cross sections? If I do a cross section of the middle of a house, there are extra lines that clutter up the cross section. Everyone in the office is an autocad fan and they are trying to make every argument to stop using chief as im the only one who knows how to use it and loves it. when they show an autocad file of the same cross section compared to chiefs, I can see their argument of it looking cleaner. Is there a way I can get rid of the excess lines and make this cleaner and more consistent? Thanks, Chad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chief58 Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 if you do a view to cad you can edit all of your lines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_Morrison Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Try a zero-depth back-clipped cross section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry_Sweeney Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 By "cleaner" I'm not quite sure what you're after. When you use "Cross Section/Elevation" you get everything from the section cut to the end of the model of what is turned on in the layer set you are using. You can get a "cleaner" look by turning off certain layers. You can also use "Backclipped Cross Section" and you get from the cut to the distance and direction you move your mouse while holding the left mouse button down. This can also give you what I would call a "cleaner" look. It all depends what you want to see or not see. Can you show the section using AutoCad so we can see the comparison between AC and CA? I and others will then have a better understanding what you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 also, X6 allows for cropping the cross-section by using the move handles Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidJPotter Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 I use the back-clip to bracket just as much of a view as I want and any extra lines that remain, you can use the "Edit Layout" tool to add or subtract any lines when the view sent to layout. View to CAD is useful especially for old AutoCAD users who find that sort of thing familiar, I just do as above mostly, Chief is flexible enough to allow for several different ways to arrive at useful end products-views. DJP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kMoquin Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 I use the back-clip to bracket just as much of a view as I want and any extra lines that remain, you can use the "Edit Layout" tool to add or subtract any lines when the view sent to layout. This is how I do it as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Take a back clipped cross section (extended maybe 24" to get a rafter and ceil joists.), and look at it, and then move it around to get a clean look while looking at the section view at the same time.Sometimes The footings beyond get in the way for a clean foundation so don't get to close to the end walls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted August 14, 2014 Author Share Posted August 14, 2014 Thanks for all the advice, I don't use this feature often so I will have to research some of these techniques to see what works best. Ive never done the view to cad before. Richard, what did you mean when you said a zero depth back clipped cross section? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 one consideration with "view to cad" is that the view is no longer "live" if anything changes then it needs to be re-done including all the manual edits Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted August 14, 2014 Author Share Posted August 14, 2014 Lew, can you explain the process of view to cad a bit more? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 See the attached - from the help manual in my earlier post I mentioned X6 allows for cropping the cross-section by using the move handles I should have added - "of the cross-section camera" if the "clip to sides" setting has been chosen Lew CHIEF_CROSS_SECTION.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_Morrison Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Thanks for all the advice, I don't use this feature often so I will have to research some of these techniques to see what works best. Ive never done the view to cad before. Richard, what did you mean when you said a zero depth back clipped cross section? Well, I meant taking a back-clipped cross section and setting the depth to 0. If you need to get framing in, as Perry says, you can make it deeper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Chad: see this thread for doing "section cropping" https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/1834-clip-to-sides-independence/#entry14096 works in X6 - not in X5 Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaskan_Son Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 A few of my thoughts on the subject... 1. If you build your model properly your cross sections may be a little "messy" looking compared to those of most AutoCAD users, but fact is yours will most likely be far more acurate. 2. View to CAD as Lew said turns your view into a series of lines and disconnects the view from your model so it is no longer "live". It defintely has its good uses...for example, I've started making copies of my cabinets, deleting the doors, and creating a CAD detail from view in order to dimension all the openings for "shop drawings". Its also a good tool when you need to heavily modify a view and gives you a lot more flexibility with dimensioning. Having said that, I would avoid using this tool for most elevations though due to the fact it doesn't stay "live" (after refreshing the view of course). 3. The Edit Layout Line tool can be handy, however I would only recommend using it for minor touch ups to nearly complete plans, or to make more substantial changes once plan is completely finalized. The view would stay "live", however if you make any changes that would affect those views and you want to refresh them, all your linework would be for naught. 4. What I've found to be the most effective for me personally is to use polylines to "mask" the elevations as necessary. Choose a solid fill set to Match Background and whatver line style and thickness you like (including the "clear" line option). You can break lines, reshape, create polyline unions, etc. to cover whatever you don't want showing up in the view. This way your view stays completely "live" and you have very little fear of anything getting messed up when you refresh a view. Just my $.02 Its not the most beautiful plan work (at least compared to some I've seen around here) but I've attached a link to a dropbox file with a plan and layout in it that I recently did for a big cabinet layout. Look through it a bit to get an idea of what I'm talking about if you like. And note that all the "detail" pages were done with "Create CAD Detail From View" https://www.dropbox.com/s/i2k5gkqafitspp7/ER%20backup.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 Nice, thank you guys for posting examples. This is a new part of chief for me I don't have much experience on. My question at this point is, now that I have some cad to views, why are some views saved on the plan that I can click on and have them retrieved and others are deleted completely and I cant find them? This one cross section that took me an hour to perfect didn't save and for some reason it was gone, even after saving it... is it saved somewhere else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 are you saving the cad detail or the camera ? check CAD Mangement tool to see which details have been saved check project browser to see which cameras have been saved Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 I like to keep all my sections live, to me it's a waste of this program to use "cad to view" unless you are drawing a detail. I hardly ever use it. After some practice you can use mask's to cover up errant lines, like a p-line with an earth fill. first thing to understand is to place your section line in the right place. then create your model as good as you can. I really don't ever have any problems keeping it live at all. That's as the program was meant to be. Can you imagine moving a wall or a foundation, or roof using cad to view. If you have already annotated it, could be a mess to fix. keeping it live, you just open it up and close it---FIXED. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicinus Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 4. What I've found to be the most effective for me personally is to use polylines to "mask" the elevations as necessary. Choose a solid fill set to Match Background and whatver line style and thickness you like (including the "clear" line option). You can break lines, reshape, create polyline unions, etc. to cover whatever you don't want showing up in the view. This way your view stays completely "live" and you have very little fear of anything getting messed up when you refresh a view. This is the way I usually did it in Revit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 Very interesting solutions, Im going to try a few of them to see what works best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumbleChief Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 This is the way I usually did it in Revit. 4. What I've found to be the most effective for me personally is to use polylines to "mask" the elevations as necessary. Choose a solid fill set to Match Background and whatver line style and thickness you like (including the "clear" line option). You can break lines, reshape, create polyline unions, etc. to cover whatever you don't want showing up in the view. This way your view stays completely "live" and you have very little fear of anything getting messed up when you refresh a view. My preferred method now as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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