Demo Plan

[Nicinus]

I use both CA and Revit.  I'm trying to find myself just using one program, and i wish CA was more like Revit in the renovation area.  In Revit, walls are simply tagged as Demo, and then you just filter them on or off, in a Demo plan.  For making a Demo plan, you show the New phase, and set the filter so only previous phase (existing) and walls to be demo'd are shown.  You can make the existing light, and the demo walls dashed, or whatever.  This is the only stumbling block for me using only CA.   

 

This is for me the most serious deficit in Chief, and I have no way around it. I make a rough as-is to get critical measurements, but then I want to start playing with design ideas, and end up having to update and maintain two different plans. It gets even worse if I want to try another design option so I get three plans. I end up copying layers between plans but it is time consuming, easy to make a mistake and quite frustrating. I've discussed this with Chief in length and we can only keep repeating the request and hope to get traction. Unfortunately it is probably a substantial rethink of the code, and many existing users are either to used to it to be bothered, or haven't experienced any alternatives. In all fairness I guess, it's one of Revit's true strengths.

[lbuttery]

Ncinus:  I do things "backwards"

 

I create the remod plan first as the clients usually want to see the options soonest

 

before creating the layout I then clone the remod plan as the existing plan

and rip out all the new stuff - this usually goes fairly fast

 

In the existing plan I set the demo walls to be hatched

 

then send both plans and views to the layout as needed

 

I did advocate for the ability to all versions/alternatives in one plan

that I think could be controlled if we had total layer and layerset control

 

but I no confidence CA will ever move in that direction

 

Lew

[TomBiggs]

So I wanted to revisit this topic.  I've now done quite a few project in Chief and still wish the phasing was automated like in ArchiCAD or Revit.  In ArchiCAD, I believe the earlier versions required two separate plans for existing versus proposed.   

 

And then they came out with the Renovation Filter tool.                                      

 

If Chief had this , then it truely would be a game changer, becuase you could roughly and quickly layout the building, start working, and if you need to correct existing later, it's not an issue, becuase it's coordinated by the software, much like other things like walls to roofs, framing, or cabinet tools are coordinated.      You don't have to worry about Existing/ Proposed wall types  and Layer Sets, Proper Layer Filters or Saved Views.   The probably for errors due to this is all but eliminated, so we can worry more about design and not have to constantly be on the look out for errors from misteps within this workflow.  This isn't to say we can't work like this, as we have no choice, but I'm just saying it could be better with automation.   

 

It's time for Chief to get its own Renovation filter tool!    

[Chrisb222]

25 minutes ago, TomBiggs said:

You don't have to worry about Existing/ Proposed wall types  and Layer Sets, Proper Layer Filters or Saved Views.

 

I'm sure there's a good explanation for this alternative workflow, and that I'm dense, but I have no idea how these various elements and phases can be "automatically controlled by the software" without some user directives that I would think would require some amount of setup work and diligence, not greatly unlike the directives we assign with Chief...?

 

25 minutes ago, TomBiggs said:

It's time for Chief to get its own Renovation filter tool!

 

If you want a chance at catching lightning in a bottle you at least have to hold up a bottle (i.e., nothing will change by posting here, head over to the Suggestions forum)

[SNestor]

I'm surprised that using a custom "reference" layer display set hasn't been suggested.

 

I don't do a lot of remodel work...but when I have I create an "as-built". Then, I copy the "as-built" plan to create a new plan called "demo plan". I either create a unique saved plan view...or just a unique layer set for displaying the walls that have to be demo'd. I use the "wall hatch" tool to fill the walls that need to be removed. This fill is on it's own layer. The walls for the as-built typically are white...and I've turned off framing of these walls. It seems to work well enough. 

 

Example Demo plan;

New Wall Plan;