Medeek Posted October 28 Author Share Posted October 28 (edited) I've separated the timber trusses into separate .skp files. Please let me know if you are able to import these into Chief. MEDEEK_TIMBER_TRUSS.zip Edited October 28 by Medeek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryOhmer Posted October 28 Share Posted October 28 perfect - thank you 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted October 31 Author Share Posted October 31 I got the block editor and the DXF import utility mostly put together today and then proceeded to import some of my old AutoCad architectural blocks into the House Builder. I quickly realized that many of my bathroom blocks involved actual ellipses (for sinks) and spline curves (for toilets) so now I am adding in ellipses, elliptical arcs and splines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted October 31 Author Share Posted October 31 On 10/28/2026 at 3:58 PM, GaryOhmer said: perfect - thank you I would be very curious to see how these actually look in Chief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryOhmer Posted October 31 Share Posted October 31 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted November 4 Author Share Posted November 4 First look at the Block Editor and Block Library Manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted November 5 Author Share Posted November 5 I've added about 50 stock blocks into the built-in Block Library, but I certainly could use more. Here is an example of a very low detail car block in the House Builder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted November 5 Author Share Posted November 5 (edited) **Tutorial 10** - Block Editor (19:42 min.) Edited November 5 by Medeek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted Tuesday at 09:26 AM Author Share Posted Tuesday at 09:26 AM I've spent about three days putting together an experimental AI harness for the House Builder it is actually quite interesting to see it run. Even more interesting than actually running this AI tool is actually having spent the time to develop it. Ultimately I had to us AI to build the AI harness and the reason behind this is that I don't actually know how an AI reasons or thinks about a problem, or what information it wants or needs. So the best way to design this harness was to ask ChatGPT (GPT 6 Astra) what tools or information would an LLM best understand and work with. After some back and forth and and a few false starts we arrived at a minimal and efficient toolset with which the AI/LLM could manipulate the model inside of the House Builder (Floor Plan only for now). I would call this development project a collaboration, however most of the edge cases were detected by me and then rectified by the AI. It honestly feels like I have an employee now, I will say it does seem a bit strange. For something like this to work you have to build a "spatial model" that the AI can understand and fully comprehend, a clear and concise picture of what it is dealing with. In other words it needs to be able to manipulate the model and then instantly get feedback (especially if there are errors or it tries to do something illegal). Also when it does do something illegal you need to explain why it was illegal in very definite terms, otherwise it cannot recover. Bottom line is that the harness is paramount to providing a successful connection between the AI engine and the House Builder interface. If this is not created carefully and provides logical and concise data, the AI will be running blind and will makes all kinds of unforced errors. This was even more apparent when I tested weaker models like Luna and Haiku. To be able to run this tool you will need to have an API key with at least one provider (OpenAI or Anthropic). Personally I prefer OpenAI's API implementation over Anthropic, but they are close in performance. I also think OpenAI's cost per token is considerably cheaper than Anthropic's right now, so that is something worth taking into consideration. My honest assessment at this point: I don't think AI has the experience and reasoning to do really effective architectural space planning. It can follow directions well enough and handle simple structures but I don't think it is yet capable of designing your next "dream home". So for now, we are still safe, but in a year or two I may have to revisit this assessment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted Thursday at 10:26 AM Author Share Posted Thursday at 10:26 AM I've got mdkAI working fairly well. However my own interface can never be as good as the regular chatbot interfaces so I decided to add mdkMCP. Currently I'm testing the MCP integration with Claude. After a bit of coercion I got it to faithfully duplicate a s simple floor plan quite accurately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted Thursday at 04:10 PM Author Share Posted Thursday at 04:10 PM (edited) Tutorial 11 - mdkAI & mdkMCP (22:01 min.) Edited Thursday at 04:11 PM by Medeek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted yesterday at 02:04 AM Author Share Posted yesterday at 02:04 AM As cool as this AI thing is I still think it is easier to just manually “drive” either the House Builder or any of the plugins. I’m not saying that things won’t change. If AI keeps improving there is a good possibility that eventually these AI enabled tools may find real utility. I don’t think we are quite there yet but I see the early signs of this when in the tutorial video the AI recognized that the window was no longer properly centered on the wall and offered to fix it for me. At some point in the future I could see the AI doing a thorough audit of every design, looking for physical clashes or even checking the engineering of every beam, header, floor joist, rafter etc… and then flagging members that look suspect so that the engineer or designer can focus on potential trouble spots. What you are seeing with my first foray into AI automation is only just the beginning. This is just a proof of concept. It shows that we can create a viable harness which allows the AI to visualize the model, reason about it and then provide it a carefully curated set of tools with which it can then manipulate and mutate the model as it sees fit. What I did not demonstrate in this video is the DXF “reading” ability I have given my mdkAI. I don’t know that the regular AI chatbots have this sort of ability yet. What I first considered was building a DXF renderer which would allow the AI to “visualize” the DXF (much like passing the AI an image or a rasterized PDF), however this is not entirely deterministic and prone to error. After giving this some additional thought and bouncing my ideas off of ChatGPT 5.6 Sol we both decided that a better solution was to actually import the DXF and then decompose it into a well organized “database”, that the AI could then query on demand. This solution turns out to be very fast and very accurate (no guessing). I may need to do a video just showing how this actually works, it is really quite impressive. Right now it feels like the late 90’s during the DotCom era. We are still feeling out this new technology and trying to figure out where it works and where it doesn’t. It is still very much early days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medeek Posted yesterday at 04:05 PM Author Share Posted yesterday at 04:05 PM Version 4.7.5 - 11.13.2026 Updated the color selector in the Global Settings for all color parameters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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