Some questions from a newbie

[TriDiWorx]

Hi!

 

Recently rented Chief Architect Premiere for a month to try out and do a couple of projects and maybe buy full time later.

Wanted to ask a community for some thoughts and assistance. I am an engineer in Europe and come from AutoCAD, Revit and Pamir framing (trusses, wall panels) and calculation software background. In reality did not like Revit at all. It is definitely great and a powerful tool, but too unintuitive and complicated for residential design. And needs a lot of time to accumulate a personal library of family items which are again too complicated to edit. So decided to try Chief if it is simpler and faster. And seems that it is by a lot.

 

So my issues and questions so far:

1. Can I change sq m of a room label to m2? Yes I know they are the same thing, but the symbol for square meter is m2 not sq m. And in my country I can get my project back for corrections when I apply for a building permit just for this weird symbol. Mainly because it is not in our national language. It might happen and might not. And yes I know I can use text and macros, but room label is there for a reason -  to use it. 

2. Can I change precision on room label. For example one of my room shows 31,28 m2 and I need it to show 31,3 m2. Again because of some strict rules we have for formats we use when applying for building permits.

3. Is snapping really that bad in Chief as I think it is? Or I might be missing some features or settings? All snaps are on in settings (except grid snaps). In other software point to point snap and movement was good. Which enabled me to always put everything to precise locations not eyeball it. In Chief there are some places I can snap to and some where I cannot. For example wall with layers. I can snap to main part of the load bearing wall and not to insulation layer. In one project I was not able to snap story pole dimension point to eaves for some reason. I had to draw a line, eyeball the line location and then snap a dimension there. And I have been noticing a lot of places where I just cannot snap to.

So it is not actually a question, but maybe someone can give some thoughts about snaps and moving objects. I have watched videos from resources, but still my experience with all things snapping is very poor. Especially coming from software that had snapping to things working pretty well or even amazingly. 

4. How good is Chief for precise design work? I love the editable library items, schedules, layout system, architectural and CAD stuff that Chief has, but for the same reasons mentioned in my point 3 I would like to know is Chief good for precision? Because I am not actually an architect, but more a structural engineer and I do not like doing design work by approximately eyeballing object positions or dimensions. There are a lot of thing that I already love about Chief that I really hated in Revit, but this weird and inconsistent snapping and point to point movement is something that a really hate. Maybe I just haven't gotten accustomed with Chief workflow yet.

 

Would appreciate all of the thoughts and suggestions that you can give me.

[Kbird1]

There are quite a few Revit crossovers to Chief now for the reason you discovered ....

 

as far as 1&2 I think a custom macro would sort that out quite easily , and if you don't know Ruby there are people here on the Forum who help out and others who have Macro packages for Sale too.

 

3.)  CA generally does not recommend Drawing without the Snaps on, ( it is easily disabled with the CTRL Key temporarily if needed), you do not need to show the snap grid however. There are numerous things eg in CS , that still don't have Snaps though that seems a bit better in X13 is slowly improving version by version , but Wall Layers , is something many have asked for but has not be implemented at this time. Snapping to the Main ( structural) Layer or Surface is current available depending on your Settings.

 

4.) I am not an Engineer, so don't run in to it much myself but Chief uses Grid rounding by default (an option) which in some cases can cause issues I have seen reported here, I am sure others will comment on that, but all in all I find Chief very accurate if the Defaults are setup correctly. ( In the background I think chief works to 13 decimal points BTW )

 

You will also find the Community here is pretty strong with many giving freely of their Time....

 

Mick

 

 

 

[SH_Canada]

9 hours ago, TriDiWorx said:

1. Can I change sq m of a room label to m2?

 

What you learn in CA is that a lot can be done in the defaults and then you really do not need to touch it. I just did a plan where M2 were specified for each room (where normally everything is sq ft). so I put a macro in the Room label in the default settings following some I found in the forum. If you then use that as your template, you are good forever. so not sure if you can configure it somewhere, but you can certainly write a macro for it

 

$floorarea="\n"

$temp=owner.internal_area.to_sq_m.round(2)

$floorarea= $floorarea+ $temp.to_s+" M2"

 

 

 

[TriDiWorx]

5 hours ago, jasonN said:

$floorarea="\n"

$temp=owner.internal_area.to_sq_m.round(2)

$floorarea= $floorarea+ $temp.to_s+" M2"

 Ok. Thank you. This looks good. Will definitely try to learn that when I get the time.

Is this a working code? Or I have to modify something? I tried pasting the same code in text and in room label default settings. I just get the same code displayed.

[MarkMc]

5 hours ago, TriDiWorx said:

I tried pasting the same code in text and in room label default settings. I just get the same code displayed.

Macro pasted into a text box needs to have % at beginning and end so that Chief knows what it is. There may be exceptions I don't know about but this works for what you are after.

%$floorarea="\n"%

%$temp=owner.internal_area.to_sq_m.round(2)%

%$floorarea= $floorarea+ $temp.to_s+" M2"%

 

And Yes, you can get decent precision out of Chief. I keep grid snaps OFF for that, I'm in Imperial so would need decimal. Even with Grid Snaps off things often will snap at 1/32 or 1/16 inch when dragging to resize which can be annoying. I've done work at 1/32 imperial without a problem

 

[SH_Canada]

Sorry I should have mentioned to put that in a named macr such as floor_area

Then  put %floor_area% in the plan's default room label.

 

But Eric's version is a simpler way

[Kbird1]

just FYI most Metric jurisdictions write M2 as m2 ....as seen in the OP

 

ie

 

%"\n" + owner.internal_area.to_sq_m.round(2).to_s + ' m2'%

 

(Thx. Eric)

 

and I think I'd do it like Jason mentioned via TMM

 

 

 

M.

(Thx. Eric)

[SH_Canada]

We are in the land of so many different conventions. Given we do metric and imperial

 

My favorite

 

103M3 is thousands of cubic meters pronounced ten three m 3

 

MMCF thousands of cubic feet

 

 

[TriDiWorx]

2 hours ago, solver said:

What Jason shows above will work if you add a % to the beginning and end of each line.

 

 

Here is a simpler version.

 

%"\n" + owner.internal_area.to_sq_m.round(2).to_s + ' M2'%

 

Ok. Thanks to all.

Ended up using "solver" code. Does what I need.

Seems like macros and Ruby programming is something that I will want to learn at some point at least to some degree :).

 

And for snapping and precision? As I am beginning to understand that Chief is a bit similar to Revit in this account that you have to do most of the work in defaults and in menus as parametric edits. Which is fine by me I just need to get used to it more, but snapping is definitely something that could be improved. I like to do some edits manually by doing point to point moves. This way I do not have to go through all of the menus for some small edits and then realize that I needed to put a different number in that box and go to that menu again.

[MarkMc]

Try hitting the tab key after starting to drag something.

There is also reflect, center, transform replicate, multiple copy, copy paste with secondary functions ( Reflect, center, Pt to PT)

, and you while I keep grid snaps OFF all the time I do set the grid snap distance. That setting is then used when moving an objet with the arrow keys when moving something with- for instance doing lots of wall work I set it to 1/2" (the thickness of sheetrock}

[Alaskan_Son]

On 8/20/2021 at 9:40 AM, TriDiWorx said:

Can I change sq m of a room label to m2? Yes I know they are the same thing, but the symbol for square meter is m2 not sq m. And in my country I can get my project back for corrections when I apply for a building permit just for this weird symbol. Mainly because it is not in our national language. It might happen and might not. And yes I know I can use text and macros, but room label is there for a reason -  to use it

 

I would encourage you to always search for a balance with regard to using automated features and using manual options that will enhance your capabilities.  Chief will automate a ton of things but with all that automation there are costs and limitations.  You could shoehorn a lot into the automated features, but sometimes it just makes a lot more sense to stop futzing around with it and use a different method.  Room labels for example...Yes, you can use the auto room label and place a macro in your Default Label, but then you're also stuck with a single text format for both the name and the area.  Start adding more information to your room labels or try to start including room numbers and you quickly find that it leaves a lot to be desired.  Creating text boxes with custom text macros and copying/pasting those is an extra step, but its FAR more flexible and very easy to make changes to individual room labels on the fly (think tings like removing information from rooms where its not important or doesn't fit very well).

 

[Alaskan_Son]

On 8/20/2021 at 9:40 AM, TriDiWorx said:

Can I change precision on room label. For example one of my room shows 31,28 m2 and I need it to show 31,3 m2. Again because of some strict rules we have for formats we use when applying for building permits.

If you're having problems with one or 2 rooms in a plan, this is another place where using text boxes instead of (or even in addition to) the auto labels is worth a look.  Again, you can simply open up that one text box and adjust the rounding behavior if you wanted to...

%room.name%

%room.standard_area.to_sq_m.round(2).to_s.sub(".", ",")% m2

[Alaskan_Son]

On 8/20/2021 at 9:40 AM, TriDiWorx said:

3. Is snapping really that bad in Chief as I think it is? Or I might be missing some features or settings? All snaps are on in settings (except grid snaps). In other software point to point snap and movement was good. Which enabled me to always put everything to precise locations not eyeball it. In Chief there are some places I can snap to and some where I cannot. For example wall with layers. I can snap to main part of the load bearing wall and not to insulation layer. In one project I was not able to snap story pole dimension point to eaves for some reason. I had to draw a line, eyeball the line location and then snap a dimension there. And I have been noticing a lot of places where I just cannot snap to.

So it is not actually a question, but maybe someone can give some thoughts about snaps and moving objects. I have watched videos from resources, but still my experience with all things snapping is very poor. Especially coming from software that had snapping to things working pretty well or even amazingly. 

 

Not all objects in Chief have snaps.  As you've found for example, you can snap to a wall's interior and exterior surface and you can snap to the interior and exterior extents of the main layers  but not to any other layers.  For these layers and for other areas where Chief simply doesn't provide the desired snaps, I recommend you add a little extra step to your workflow:

 

Use the CAD Detail From View tool and the Paste Hold Position tool to get the snaps you need.  Create CAD Detail From View and then Copy/Paste Hold Position from that view back to your original view and you'll have precise snaps to work with.

 

I think its also worth mentioning that Chief automatically generates some temporary CAD in cross sections that are called Cross Section Lines and that live on the Cross Section Lines layer.  These lines can be snapped to, but they're only generated for parametric objects that you're actually cutting through.  In other words, you can automatically get some of the snaps you need by simply using camera positioning in some cases.

[Doug_N]

Using Michael's macro and text hybrid,  

%room.standard_area.to_sq_m.round(2).to_s.sub(".", ",")% m2 but inserting a superscript 2 after the 'm' using CA special characters would give you exactly what you are after.  The comma is customarily used in Europe in place of a decimal point.  So this is the resulting output.

 

 

[Alaskan_Son]

On 8/20/2021 at 9:40 AM, TriDiWorx said:

4. How good is Chief for precise design work? I love the editable library items, schedules, layout system, architectural and CAD stuff that Chief has, but for the same reasons mentioned in my point 3 I would like to know is Chief good for precision? Because I am not actually an architect, but more a structural engineer and I do not like doing design work by approximately eyeballing object positions or dimensions. There are a lot of thing that I already love about Chief that I really hated in Revit, but this weird and inconsistent snapping and point to point movement is something that a really hate. Maybe I just haven't gotten accustomed with Chief workflow yet.

 

You can draw very precisely in Chief once you get used to using the proper workflows.  Using the CAD Detail From View tool and Copy/Paste Hold Position like I mentioned above is a really big one.  Using things like Point To Point Move, Center Object, the Align/Distribute tools, the Rotate/Resize About Point functionality, drawing with the proper Arc Creation Mode toggled, using the Enter Coordinates dialog, and adjusting the Dialog Number/Angle Style to a more precise format when necessary...to list just a few of many, are all things you can do to improve the accuracy of your drawings.  It just comes down to using the right tools.  If you're lining something up with your eye, I'd say 99 times out of 100 you just took a wrong turn.

[Alaskan_Son]

3 minutes ago, Doug_N said:

Using Michael's macro and text hybrid

 

For the record, I would personally probably write a custom text macro for that situation instead of putting it all in  a text box.  I was mostly just trying to show a quick example.  It works as written, but one problem with long chunks of text in room labels is that sometimes the shear length of the macro text and the resulting text box size will keep the text box from recognizing the room that you want it to and you end up having to reposition the text box.  A minor but annoying little problem sometimes.

[Alaskan_Son]

On 8/20/2021 at 10:06 AM, Kbird1 said:

Chief uses Grid rounding which in some cases can cause issues

 

Just to be clear, Chief only uses Grid Rounding if you have it set that way.  You can always change your defaults to Distance Rounding if you prefer.  I would rarely recommend using Distance Rounding though.

[SH_Canada]

the computer's locale setting might change decimal to comma, without having to code it. @TriDiWorx, is it changing it automatically for you (assuming you have a locale which uses commas)?

[Alaskan_Son]

 

20 minutes ago, Doug_N said:

%room.standard_area.to_sq_m.round(2).to_s.sub(".", ",")% m2 but inserting a superscript 2 after the 'm' using CA special characters would give you exactly what you are after.

 

By the way, if you're using a metric template, you should have no reason for adding the extra text at all.  The macro could simply be...

%room.standard_area.round(2).to_s.sub(".", ",")% and Chief would automatically add the m².

[Kbird1]

38 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

Chief only uses Grid Rounding if you have it set that way.

 

It's the Default Setting OOB, so I clarified that for future readers......and there are only two options , so it's pick your poison

 

M.

[Alaskan_Son]

9 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

and there are only two options , so it's pick your poison

 

Are you suggesting that there should be another? 

[Kbird1]

2 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

Are you suggesting that there should be another? 

 

Not at all, I'm not a Mathematician so can't suggest a good alternative, but it essentially isn't an Option really since CA recommends you don't use Distance Rounding as it is only included for use with OLD Legacy Plans. May it be exactly what a Eng. such as the OP needs? I don't know, as I am not an Engineer either or know his needs, but we are talking about the inner workings of Chief, so it isn't going to change, since it's good enough in 99% of cases....I just know from posts here it is not infallible.

 

Rounding Method
Specify the Rounding Method used for dimension values.

 

Grid Rounding ensures that the sum of the parts of a dimension line add up to the whole distance. To produce this result, some sections may not be rounded accurately. This is the recommended rounding method and is selected by default.

 

Distance Rounding addresses each section of a dimension line individually, which could result in the sum of these sections not being equal to the whole. This option is available for legacy purposes only and is not recommended. See Compatibility With Previous Versions.

 

 

[Kbird1]

On 8/20/2021 at 10:40 AM, TriDiWorx said:

and maybe buy full time later.

 

you may want to reconsider "sometime later" if going to buy outright as not only is the Sale over Aug.31st but the price is going Up 10% as well.

 

just found this in my Email.......

 

[Alaskan_Son]

1 hour ago, Kbird1 said:

Distance Rounding addresses each section of a dimension line individually, which could result in the sum of these sections not being equal to the whole. This option is available for legacy purposes only and is not recommended.

 

Ya, I personally think that should be reworded.  It still has value outside legacy plans.  Its rarely the best approach, but I think it still has its occasional applications for sure.  One very quick example drawn and dimensioned to 1" accuracy...

 

 

Notice how the rounding results for the diagonals are completely different for all 4 boxes depending on where they land on the rounding grid.  We can always increase rounding precision which helps for many of these scenarios but the results can still be undesirable and a little misleading in many cases.  If distance rounding were removed as an option, we would end up having to simply override the dimension text  which would be even less desirable than using distance rounding in the first place IMO.

 

[Chopsaw]

8 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

8 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

and there are only two options , so it's pick your poison

 

Are you suggesting that there should be another? 

 

It would actually be just about the best of both worlds if it worked the way it was originally intended to work.

 

So Mick is correct in saying neither work properly in all situations.