Dimensioning

[SNestor]

14 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

Hmmm.....I think you should check again.  Your picture shows that your Default Settings dialog is open and that the Select Objects tool is activated. 

 

Well...if you look at the screen capture...the dbl click opens "dimension defaults"...then I clicked on "auto exterior dimensions"...I don't think I was stating that you would automatically get to "auto exterior dimensions"...just a step quicker than opening defaults. 

[SKB-ChiefUser]

So,

I ran into another issue.

 

When I try to start my Exterior walls, the system insists on snapping the framing to the Grid, though I'm trying to tell it to snap the outside of the sheathing.   Again it's a local standard and I don't want to restart that conversation, that that isn't the right way to build.  It's how its done here by a significant amount of firms and more importantly its how we have built for decades...  It's our standard and I need the program to fit us, not us fit the program.

 

I've gone in and edited my wall info but what should be dimensioned to 22'0" ends up with the OSB added... and becomes 22' 0-7/8", etc.

 

One other thing, can you globally change the wall designs and make them stick?  I seem to have to go in and change materials repeatedly everytime I start. We use 16" oc Framing as default, not the listed 24" oc.

 

I'll keep looking for these answers too, just seeing if I am missing spots to change these as I am looking through the software.

 

Thanks all.

 

Steve

[SKB-ChiefUser]

Thanks Eric,

 

I hadn't found that yet.

[parkwest]

IMHO, you are going to have to watch a lot of training videos, starting with the quick start video series, to get a grasp of Chief’s capabilities.

 

Curious, what software are you currently using for your design work?

[SKB-ChiefUser]

I'm going through the the Quick Start stuff now, but clearly I have drawing/construction standards I need to meet.

I am currently evaluating Chief Architect as a Potential product for our firm.   I have a limited amount of time for that Evaluation.

 

Currently we use an older Program called Cadvance which is essentially an Electronic Drawing Board.  It lacks significant paramentric and 3D capabilities, however it's simple, fast and we have 35 years experience with it.

We also are using Sketchup/Layout successfully, but we are considering alternate products now.  (The attached images are 5 years old.)

[parkwest]

From my experience, you can get CA to do just about anything using work-arounds or whatever.  I'm sure there a couple guys on here who can get it to sing the National Anthem if they wanted to.

 

The real question is: Is Chief Architect right for you?

 

Some questions that need answered:

Are you a production builder who uses base plans with a list of building options?

Do you build on a single lot? Or, do you need to show your whole subdivision?

Are you semi custom builder using base plans with extensive modifications to your plans?

Are you a custom builder doing "one of a kind" buildings?

Or, are you a remodeler?

 

Will the design work be done solo?  Or, will it be a team effort with several people in your office working from the same file?

Do you need high resolution renderings for sales and marketing?  Or, do you need construction documents only, and let the design center figure out the finish details?

Will you be working with Interior designers, structural engineers and architects who may require multiple round trips between your software and theirs?

Do you have a high turnover rate of drafters?  Will continuous training be required? 

 

I assume you have answered these questions before you began your search for a new software.  If not, you should.  It should you save a lot of time than what you are doing now by asking a bunch of basic questions.

 

I hope this helps you...

 

Good luck in your search!

[SKB-ChiefUser]

2 hours ago, parkwest said:

From my experience, you can get CA to do just about anything using work-arounds or whatever.  I'm sure there a couple guys on here who can get it to sing the National Anthem if they wanted to.

 

The real question is: Is Chief Architect right for you?

 

Some questions that need answered:

Are you a production builder who uses base plans with a list of building options?

Do you build on a single lot? Or, do you need to show your whole subdivision?

Are you semi custom builder using base plans with extensive modifications to your plans?

Are you a custom builder doing "one of a kind" buildings?

Or, are you a remodeler?

 

Will the design work be done solo?  Or, will it be a team effort with several people in your office working from the same file?

Do you need high resolution renderings for sales and marketing?  Or, do you need construction documents only, and let the design center figure out the finish details?

Will you be working with Interior designers, structural engineers and architects who may require multiple round trips between your software and theirs?

Do you have a high turnover rate of drafters?  Will continuous training be required? 

 

I assume you have answered these questions before you began your search for a new software.  If not, you should.  It should you save a lot of time than what you are doing now by asking a bunch of basic questions.

 

I hope this helps you...

 

Good luck in your search!

These are all great questions, and yes, most of them are what we are considering.

 

We are a large local builder that builds everything from Townhomes, Entry-level Production, Semi-custom to full-on Custom homes up to ~$2m+.

 

We have a very small drafting department with very low turnover.  Design Center does some, if not most of the finish details (depending on the product).

 

There is little needs for cross-discipline work; generally our plan may go out once for use as backgrounds, but 95% of the work gets done in-house.

 

We do need graphics, and have a reasonably priced outside source for them, but getting them as part of the drawing process is a bonus.

 

Which of these does Chief Architect seem to be the best fit for 'in your opinion':

Production builder who uses base plans with a list of building options?

Semi-custom builder using base plans with extensive modifications to your plans?

Custom builder doing "one of a kind" buildings?

 

TIA  

Steve

[Nicu101268]

How to make interior dimensions to fit the default dimensions for rooms displayed by the CA?

Why that is not by default?

[para-CAD]

A was a framer for a couple of decades.

 

The dimensioned plans I hated were:

 

 - inside of finished wall to inside of finished wall (as in 4 1/2" thick 2x4 wall)  I would have to account for GWB.

 - walls that were called out at 4" thick.  I only remember a couple like this.....not sure why they did this.

 - walls dimensioned to the center.  Very odd to me.  I like beams centered sometimes, but not walls.

 

My favorite:

"Over-to-it"  dimensions. 

I can pull my tape one time and catch many walls in that one pull.  Some framing plans were really good that way....helps to locate the lines exactly where I need them without me having to add or take away some amount to find the framing edge bent over all day in the hot sun or cold wet rain.  (Not the ideal time to be having to figure out such things)

[rgardner]

3 hours ago, Nicu101268 said:

How to make interior dimensions to fit the default dimensions for rooms displayed by the CA?

Why that is not by default?

Please start your own question instead of hijacking another one.  It will get you better results as well as not cause problems for the OP’s questions.

 

btw the defaults are what you set them to be.

[GeneDavis]

Strategy for keeping all your frame carpenter employees from leaving you and going to work elsewhere:

 

1.  Make them lay out for all interior walls from the centerlines you give them on the prints.

 

2.  The exterior walls?  Dimension them on plans not to the framing line, but to the sheathing line 7/16" outboard.  They snap the inside lines at 5-15/16" in from those building lines dimensioned on the floor plans.  But of course round up to 6.  Keep your thinking cap on if you are cutting plates from the paper plans, not from what the chalklines tell you.

 

Guys working this way a couple years will need retraining to go to work elsewhere.

 

I framed three houses from plans done by Minneapolis architects, and all were dimensioned the conventional way, to stud faces.  The situation you describe must be a small alternative framing universe, and I'll bet the world outside it works with plans dimensioned conventionally.

 

I'm curious, do your foundation wall lines flush to the stud face, or to the sheathing face?

[SKB-ChiefUser]

Gene,

I do apprecitae your comments and perspective, but I guess I'd like to say we need to agree to disagree.  I believe a lot of what we are discussing are Regional differences and personal preferences....

I've confirmed with both carpentry crews working for us today that the dimensioning methods I described above, our methods, are preferred by Them.

 

As to your issue with 'Architects', I've noticed that most do not have field knowledge to help them draw plans that Field Crews can understand and use efficiently (I went through both an Architectural Technology program (basically how to build buildings and draw plans to build buildings) and a fully accredited College Architectural program.  The Architectural program focused on design and artistic quality and had little to no information about how to produce working drawings).  I ran into many people in these programs that had a variety of knowlege and experience.  The ones who were most successful in the real world after school were the ones with field knowlege.

Dimensioning to Stud Faces was taught as a method that fit Commercial design better than residiential; though as long as the sandard used is noted on the plans most carpenters will work from whatever they get.

 

In this area our sheathing is generally flush to Foundation BUT, here in the frozen North (both Minnesota and Wisconsin) we have another wrinkle;  we are mandated to have Exterior Insulation of R15, 3" thickness (it can be reduced to R10, 2" thickness, as long as certain other specs are met). A sizable percentage of Builders here hang their Walls/Sill over 1-1/2" which further complicates the dimensioning process; Sill plates here are also 2 x 8 in this situation instead of the more normal 2 x 6.   The perfect dimensioning situation here (in Our Business) is to dimension Exterior foundation walls to the outside of the Rigid Foam which then equals the exterior face of the Sheathing.  Essentially the plans dictate a 'Framing Line' which is equal to the outside of the sheathing, and the outside of the foam.  Those locations dictate the outer shell of the home the Surveyor need to properly site the home and the lines the Foundation and Framing crews need to work from.  Generally those are always whole numbers, and also normally even numbers based on multples and divisors of 4' in order to be efficient with standard materials.   

 

Again, I think these all boil down to regional and personal standards, and I'm not here to debate them.  I am here to find out how to make the program fit my standards, not change my standards to fit the program.

 

Steve

[Alaskan_Son]

On 3/7/2021 at 5:21 AM, SNestor said:

 

Well...if you look at the screen capture...the dbl click opens "dimension defaults"...then I clicked on "auto exterior dimensions"...I don't think I was stating that you would automatically get to "auto exterior dimensions"...just a step quicker than opening defaults. 

I got it now. It all started to make sense after Glenn pointed out that you were using child palettes.

[HumbleChief]

1 hour ago, SKB-ChiefUser said:

I am here to find out how to make the program fit my standards, not change my standards to fit the program.

Long time user of Chief here and can appreciate the difficult learning curve but all the things you are asking about can be done with Chief. Finding where those changes need to be made can be daunting at first look but once understood Chief can be very powerful for the needs you've outlined above. The advice given above to check the help files and to learn the specifics more on your own is given knowing that when a user dives in and learns Chief's nuances without absolute specific help the user is better served long term. Frustrating because Chief's learning and programming paradigm is very specific to Chief and can defy logic (or some people's version of logic, mine included) at many turns but once understood, as alluded to by many within this post, can be very powerful.

 

One distinction that any Chief user should understand is the 'defaults', mentioned above many times, are plan specific and 'preferences' are global and affect every plan. The 'defaults' are where you want to create and save your plan specific dimensioning preferences as well as many other specifications, then use that plan as a 'template' for future plans as it will retain your default choices. Many of us revisit those 'templates' and update them with any modifications as needed, resave and use again. 

 

Hope that helps and good luck.

[Alaskan_Son]

6 hours ago, SKB-ChiefUser said:

I am here to find out how to make the program fit my standards, not change my standards to fit the program.

I don’t think anyone here was suggesting that you change your standards to fit the program. I know that I for one was only offering my personal advice from the perspective of somebody who has laid out thousands of walls as a framer and I only chimed in because the topic was already being discussed. I probably wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.

 

Anyway, as others have already pointed out, dimensioning to the center of your walls is totally doable in Chief. Shouldn’t be a big deal at all.  
 

I did want to take a moment to re-visit the wall centerline dimensioning standard again though— this time completely in your defense.  During my commute to work this morning I gave this subject some brutally honest consideration and it occurred to me that even in my own practices, centerline dimensions would have one major advantage that until now I had never considered or even heard mentioned...They allow for both verbally communicating and remembering a dimension without having to also communicate/remember which side of wall A and which side of wall B are being referenced.  Only thing to communicate and remember is dimension and framing thickness.  I can’t say that I’m planning on switching my drafting standards anytime soon because I have other reasons for marking edges as well, but I can finally see at least one completely logical reason a person might prefer centerline dimensions.  Sorry for giving you grief. 

[JamesR]

Steve,

 

I'm by no ways a Chief expert, and the guys chiming in are some of the most experienced on the forums, but there are a couple things I think you might need to evaluate CA fully. I know you said you have started the Quick Start videos, but that is only about 5% of the training videos available, on the official site alone. I think you will need to invest some serious time into watching those to get even mildly proficient in using it. I'm a long time AutoCAD and Solidworks CAD user, and I find that actually hinders me when I use Chief, since it seems to have, to me, a very unintuitive approach to drafting. I know you said you only have a limited time to evaluate, but without understanding some basic things like plan defaults, I don't know if you'll be able to make an informed decision.

 

Second, when I started with CA I jumped right in with a project and started drafting away. In the process I did all kinds of things that caused me consternation and problems later on in the drafting process. I would suggest you take the time (after watching some more of those training videos) and setup a blank plan template with all the preference and defaults you want. When I finally did this, it took me half a day...again I'm not the most proficient CA user, but its not a trivial task. Things like dimensioning defaults, non-standard layers, additional saved plan views, annotation fonts, etc. Save that template, then start your real project work. My work flow is much more efficient now that I have done that, then the first couple of projects I did with Chief's standard template. 

 

Generally, I've found the forum here and the folks that frequent it a great help. Yea, Eric (Solver) is going to ask if you've read the help, but he also will record a video walking through how to do something without you asking, and for free. Its that kind of community, and honestly the shear amount of training videos available, that helped me settle on Chief over Softplan, Sketch Up, Revit, etc. 

 

[StephenGreene]

On 3/6/2021 at 1:11 PM, javatom said:

Dimensions set to wall centers are a great way to NEVER get a referral from that builder again.

 

this must be a local preference. i framed and built for 30 years and preferred the dimensions to the centers. in fact, every builder and/or framer i knew preferred the same.

[StephenGreene]

19 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

I don’t think anyone here was suggesting that you change your standards to fit the program. I know that I for one was only offering my personal advice from the perspective of somebody who has laid out thousands of walls as a framer and I only chimed in because the topic was already being discussed. I probably wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.

 

Anyway, as others have already pointed out, dimensioning to the center of your walls is totally doable in Chief. Shouldn’t be a big deal at all.  
 

I did want to take a moment to re-visit the wall centerline dimensioning standard again though— this time completely in your defense.  During my commute to work this morning I gave this subject some brutally honest consideration and it occurred to me that even in my own practices, centerline dimensions would have one major advantage that until now I had never considered or even heard mentioned...They allow for both verbally communicating and remembering a dimension without having to also communicate/remember which side of wall A and which side of wall B are being referenced.  Only thing to communicate and remember is dimension and framing thickness.  I can’t say that I’m planning on switching my drafting standards anytime soon because I have other reasons for marking edges as well, but I can finally see at least one completely logical reason a person might prefer centerline dimensions.  Sorry for giving you grief. 

as i stated before, we always used centers and for the very reason you mentioned -there is no question as to where the wall goes because it goes in the center. i once hired a framer from Georgia that preferred edges and his terminology was "set ahead" or "set back" when noting a measurement to the edge of a wall. 

[GeneDavis]

When I started drawing residential plans, I worked with some Amish framers in NE Indiana that preferred to have the dimensions on plans, those that located the interior walls that intersected building lines (exterior wall lines), done as running dimensions.  If plans did not have running dims for this, they would do the math and mark them up.

 

One would stand at the zero hook-on end, reading the plans, and call out the numbers, each number called was either "and GO" or nothing.  If nothing, the X went on the origin side, if "and GO," the X went on the away side.  Thus "12'-6 1/2 and GO," got its X on the far side, and "16'-7" got its X on the near side.

 

Watching and listening as these guys marked out and snapped a deck, I learned how to do an important part of framing.

 

The software I used then rotated the dimension text 90 from the line, placing it right above the witness line.  I wish Chief had this feature.

 

The wall elevation sample attached here shows the running dim thing in play on a wall frame elevation.  This, for a panelized job, to ensure R.O.s are where they belong.

[Chrisb222]

On 3/9/2021 at 9:28 AM, StephenGreene said:

"set ahead" or "set back"

 

Yup

[BBoumaConst]

On 3/6/2021 at 4:23 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

They're obviously marking wall edges meaning that at some point they had to add or subtract the thickness of the wall.  Your assertion that the numbers are simply being communicated as edge to edge markings may be true but this can only happen after the aforementioned calculations are done for at least the first wall in the string.  After that, problems can quickly and easily be multiplied, especially when wall thicknesses vary.   

 

Look at the following example.  Notice how straight forward the center line dimensions look on the right and then compare them to the resulting edge to edge dimensions on the left.  What you see on the left is what the framer has to arrive at onsite and the only way to get there is by doing some extra calculations.

 

 

Seriously? In what scenario do interior wood framed wall thicknesses vary? They are always 4-1/2" from face of drywall to face of drywall (1/2" drywall, 3-1/2" actual size of stud, 1/2" drywall). All experienced framers already know that. All openings, joists and trusses are dimensioned to centers as well, at least around here they are, so it really isn't all that difficult to do the math in your head. 

 

Most of the framers I have worked with, in West Michigan, including my husband who still frames each home we build, layout interior framed walls to centers and exterior walls to outside edge. Basically exactly how SKB-ChiefUser described. However, this is not how most plans are drawn around here. I dimension that way because that is how my framers do it and what they have requested. They are the ones actually building the house so it makes more since to dimension the drawings to work best with their method over sticking to what’s “standard”. Seriously though, I’ve never been denied a building permit because my plans weren’t dimensioned the same as everyone else’s. Inspectors just want to see stuff dimensioned. 

 

Also, no, all framers DO NOT layout walls the same way. Every framer has their own process and preferred method. This has been proven within this thread’s comments in case you haven’t already noticed. So it is entirely possible that this is another thing that varies by region or just the individual framer themself, but no one is doing it wrong if the house is built to code. So stop being a **** about it. Good grief.