Toilet bounding box

[KendallDesign]

In Chief Architect x15 the bounding box for the toilet is not there anymore.  I've looked up how to put it back, but the steps are outdated

[Alaskan_Son]

1. Open Object>Advanced Sizing
2. Uncheck Update when Object Dimensions Change under 3D Geometry Dimensions
3. Change the Object Dimensions>Width to 32" (or whatever you want your bounding box width to be)

A couple notes:

• You should see that the Bounding Box Spacing numbers are automatically populated with the required Left and Right offsets.  You could replace Steps 2 and 3 by just entering these offsets manually if you want. 
• With Update when Object Dimensions Change left unchecked (under 3D Geometry Dimensions), any changes to the toilet dimensions will only change the bounding box.  This is really a pretty handy feature but you may or may not want this behavior, so it may be a good idea to recheck that setting once your offsets are auto calculated.

[A-H_Ryan]

Chief turned off this feature stating that it was preventing people from placing toilets.  Now you have to go and manually create your own bounding box and save it in your library.  Total mistake move in my opinion, chief needs to stop creating more work in a program designed to save us time.

[Archnot-Boltz]

53 minutes ago, A-H_Ryan said:

Chief turned off this feature stating that it was preventing people from placing toilets.  Now you have to go and manually create your own bounding box and save it in your library.  Total mistake move in my opinion, chief needs to stop creating more work in a program designed to save us time.

Plus One. Chief has been known to take away functions thinking they made something better. In lieu of taking away a user friendly function or feature, how about an On/Off toggle and keeping the original function as the Out of the Box Default. Case in Point (see attached). In this example Chief did the Right Thing (thank you) and gave us a Toggle Option. Unfortunately they did it backwards when they released X15 and made it Wrong (or different?) Out of the Box by Default. Had to call phone support and Ask WTF? They did the same backwards Default thing in X14 when they by default Turned of the Manual Roof Intersection Points and you had to find the setting to turn them back on in order to properly intersect roof planes manually because they thought or wanted users to use the automatic roof creation tool more.

 

[TeaTime]

5 hours ago, A-H_Ryan said:

Chief turned off this feature stating that it was preventing people from placing toilets. 

This seems a mountains out of mole hills complaint to me. The program holds our hands at times, but not all those times are necessary.

In this instance, there are times were a library object simply wouldn't go where it needs to go. Furthermore, the extended bounding box around toilets also interfered with placing any other object around it - I personally like being able to place a toilet paper holder within a reasonable distance of the toilet.

 

It's just a trade-off, we're either able to easily place toilets but not easily place other objects around them, or we have to do some manual measuring to place toilets but have full freedom around it.

 

5 hours ago, A-H_Ryan said:

chief needs to stop creating more work in a program designed to save us time.

In my years I've come to learn there's a middle ground to be found here. If you don't help enough then you don't serve much of a purpose, but help too much and you've become a hinderance. 

[Archnot-Boltz]

15 minutes ago, TeaTime said:

This seems a mountains out of mole hills complaint to me. The program holds our hands at times, but not all those times are necessary.

In this instance, there are times were a library object simply wouldn't go where it needs to go. Furthermore, the extended bounding box around toilets also interfered with placing any other object around it - I personally like being able to place a toilet paper holder within a reasonable distance of the toilet.

 

It's just a trade-off, we're either able to easily place toilets but not easily place other objects around them, or we have to do some manual measuring to place toilets but have full freedom around it. Why can't we have our cake and eat it too? Toggle Bounding Box ON/OFF. 

 

In my years I've come to learn there's a middle ground to be found here. If you don't help enough then you don't serve much of a purpose, but help too much and you've become a hinderance. 

It's all about options. Why would you go from having to do nothing to now having to create another dang library item to find? Bounding Box on by default and then Toggle off to install  TP Holders etc. Or how about the Bounding Box have enough intelligence to snap to the finish wall surface and ignore the  TP holders etc? Just stating opinion regarding the OP, not doing battle. OP is a constructive suggestion.

 

[TeaTime]

 

57 minutes ago, Archnot-Boltz said:

Why would you go from having to do nothing to now having to create another dang library item to find?

See I just don't consider it big enough of an issue to even warrant making a new library item. I'll use a dimension to set it x" from the wall, then use that dimension on my plumbing plan to show where the pipe needs to be. No big deal.

 

I'm not comin here to argue either, I'm just pointing out that the program doesn't force code for anything else, it kinda did here and we were just used to it, so when it changed it felt like something got taken away. But imagine if we hadn't had that at all this whole time - "Add a bounding box to custom toilet symbols" would be a thread in the Tips forum. That's all.

 

Now that being said I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't agree that snapping could be a little more intelligent at times, so I'm right with you there. If the bounding box only acted as a snap and did not block other objects from being placed, or even for the object itself to be placed - this would be a non-issue for everyone.

[Alaskan_Son]

36 minutes ago, TeaTime said:

If the bounding box only acted as a snap and did not block other objects from being placed, or even for the object itself to be placed - this would be a non-issue for everyone.

 

...but then I think it would largely defeat the purpose.  Anyway, here's my take:

 

I don't care that they changed it.  The bounding box caused me at least as many problems as it solved.  It didn't allow snapping to or measuring to the actual tank or bowl, it precluded easy placement of items that encroached into the bounding box area even f they weren't technically a code issue, they made it a pain to position toilets in as-built or other non-code compliant situations, they made it impossible to resize the toilet geometry to any degree of accuracy, AND they were barely even useful for their intended purpose since I pretty much never design to the minimum anyway (I still ended up needing to reposition the toilet regardless). 

 

Yes, they helped make sure I maintained the code minimum, but that's something I constantly need to keep track of and verify anyway, especially considering I'm commonly overriding the bounding box for the placement of various objects either way. 

[Archnot-Boltz]

14 hours ago, TeaTime said:

 

 

 

Now that being said I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't agree that snapping could be a little more intelligent at times, so I'm right with you there. If the bounding box only acted as a snap and did not block other objects from being placed, or even for the object itself to be placed - this would be a non-issue for everyone. Nailed It, Great Embellishment of the OP's Suggestion and my follow up

And thus the reason for this discussion. You just made the OP something that Chief should consider. Too bad you will have to repost it as a NEW Suggestion per the current suggestion "Protocol".

[Archnot-Boltz]

13 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

...but then I think it would largely defeat the purpose.  Anyway, here's my take:

 

I don't care that they changed it.  The bounding box caused me at least as many problems as it solved.  It didn't allow snapping to or measuring to the actual tank or bowl, it precluded easy placement of items that encroached into the bounding box area even f they weren't technically a code issue, they made it a pain to position toilets in as-built or other non-code compliant situations, they made it impossible to resize the toilet geometry to any degree of accuracy, AND they were barely even useful for their intended purpose since I pretty much never design to the minimum anyway (I still ended up needing to reposition the toilet regardless). 

 

Yes, they helped make sure I maintained the code minimum, but that's something I constantly need to keep track of and verify anyway, especially considering I'm commonly overriding the bounding box for the placement of various objects either way. 

Mostly agree.

[tundra_dweller]

Funny, I didn't even realize they had removed the bounding box because I've been using an older one from my user library. So I guess a person could always add one with a bounding box to their user library if that's what they want to use on the regular.