Should Chief be worried ... ?


basketballman
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If they aren't worried they wouldn't be in business. Sketchup has always been an amazing 3D piece of software but Chief and SU are really apples and oranges IMO.

 

If you look at the model shown at approx. 6:50 in the video and you built that in Chief it would take a decent user 20 - 30 minutes, maybe an hour to get a few more details done. I bet it would take a SU user at least twice as long, depending on how many components they have in their library but the paradigms are so vastly different there's almost no comparing the two soft wares.

 

I've watched a couple of videos of SU users building a house and was blown away at how much has to be done to get walls and windows and roofs compared to Chief but what you end up with IMO is vastly more flexible but you earn that flexibility.

 

I very much admire SU users and their abilities but I need to design homes quickly and even though both programs have pretty steep learning curves I prefer Chief's approach.

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Very impressive video and the gentleman operating the program is a true EXPERT. Many are on this site as well. I am a self taught computer user that has been a builder for 34 yrs and using Chief since ver 2. At my age I can't see myself learning another program that may or may not be a better product than Chief. I was truly happy with ver 10 because there was nothing in my range of work I couldn't design but computer upgrade required software upgrade. Ver 17 is AWESOME and like ver 10 this version will be all I need until technology requires me to upgrade. I'm not sure on the how the forum works on SU but this forum helps ALL OF US get better utilization from the program. Dam long winded post to get my answer to OP, no C.A. has no worries of me jumping ship. JMO 

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I found this to be a pretty good definition of what people would love BIM to be, a smorgas board for all wishes and requirements, all the way to rendering.

 

What it also shows is that with the right commitment and perseverance even a ‘dumb’ modeler like Sketchup can appear to be a BIM product. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sketchup as much as anyone else, and it’s a great tool for conceptual modeling that produces presentation ready graphics, but to call it BIM is more than a stretch. All the arguments used in the video could be applied to 3ds Max as well with the right plugins. There is not an information database in the bottom here, and there is no parametric intelligence. This is a tool that is comparable to Chief’s polysolids, although instead of being a useful addition, it is the core of the software and all the tools you see in Chief for manipulating for example walls, windows and roofs are missing.

 

Looking a bit further down the road, the promise of BIM to me is also not only a common model that everyone can adjust and harvest needed info from, regardless if it is for structural or maintenance purposes, but a tool that actually helps in the design. A tool that for example suggests different foundations whether the room above is a kitchen or a garage. Rings a bell?

 

What I truly envy with Sketchup is the incredible momentum and critical mass it has reached. Imagine people developing such plugins for Chief and doing these kind of seminars about Chief, invigorating the whole community and attracting new generations of users.

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Very impressive video and the gentleman operating the program is a true EXPERT. Many are on this site as well. I am a self taught computer user that has been a builder for 34 yrs and using Chief since ver 2. At my age I can't see myself learning another program that may or may not be a better product than Chief. I was truly happy with ver 10 because there was nothing in my range of work I couldn't design but computer upgrade required software upgrade. Ver 17 is AWESOME and like ver 10 this version will be all I need until technology requires me to upgrade. I'm not sure on the how the forum works on SU but this forum helps ALL OF US get better utilization from the program. Dam long winded post to get my answer to OP, no C.A. has no worries of me jumping ship. JMO 

Shane, I agree with you I also been a user since version 2 and have been in field since 1975 building new homes and remodeling and know just do construction documents, so for me to learn another program it has to be very very good and very easy to use, I am just hoping they made big strides with X8 with steps and railings they needed a total revamp for a while and have been on a lot of wish list along with others that the great guys using CA give as there feed back

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Simply put, Chief and Sketchup, have huge capabilities but in comparison they're two different programs and they don't pose each other a threat. You can do similar but different things with each in different ways. Some things can be done in both Chief and Sketchup and some things cannot, some things can be made faster in one program in comparison to the other and some things cannot. Chief is more oriented in Architectural ,CAD and Blueprint... Sketchup is more oriented in 3D Modeling,Dynamic components, etc. 

 

I have been using both (Chief since it was made by Broderbund I think it was called 3D Home Architect or something like this, and Sketchup I been using since mid 2003/4)  and in conjunction they make up a nice package to basically do anything quick and efficient.

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