New To Chief. Is There A Keynote Tool?

[CARMELHILL]

46 minutes ago, johnny said:

 

What i've gone to is a "Construction Detail Workbook" that is a bound letter size document that is referenced inside the full sized arch plans, but contains all the "code-cover" issues.  I rarely change it, and its a "manual" for each project.  I place our engineering calcs in it, and specifications if the project has them.

 

Its a life-saver on code issues.

When you submit to the town, do they require just one copy, or one copy attached to each set of drawings? And you you have to sign/seal each page of the workbook, or just the cover?

 

I want to start putting together a more detailed code worksheet along with a more detailed specifications package for my projects. I'm starting to see too much variation in the materials used and the quality/craftsmanship of the final products. I want more quality control and I want to protect my clients during bidding so each contractor is bidding on the same materials and same level of expected craftsmanship so all the prices are more comparable. It's overkill for a lot of smaller projects but a standardized book would be useful.

[johnny]

5 hours ago, CARMELHILL said:

When you submit to the town, do they require just one copy, or one copy attached to each set of drawings? And you you have to sign/seal each page of the workbook, or just the cover?

 

I want to start putting together a more detailed code worksheet along with a more detailed specifications package for my projects. I'm starting to see too much variation in the materials used and the quality/craftsmanship of the final products. I want more quality control and I want to protect my clients during bidding so each contractor is bidding on the same materials and same level of expected craftsmanship so all the prices are more comparable. It's overkill for a lot of smaller projects but a standardized book would be useful.

 

1. We have to submit a copy of the workbook each "for construction" plan set - not supplemental sets for say Auditor's office etc.

 

2. We seal the cover only - though we seal the engineering separately (sub-cover) by our engineer.

 

For the last part, its a very hard balance to find between too much detail that causes contractors/builders to over-bid out of concern the architect is going to be overbearing vs making sure at least a certain standard is met. 

[CARMELHILL]

Just curious. I want to confirm my thoughts.

 

Is there any way to do a key note schedule, similar to our work arounds with plant schedules and electrical schedules, but in the 2D environment? I want to implement this in my CAD details but it doesn't look like it's possible.

 

To me, the only work around is to make every detail on a floor plan file, but that would make the layout file take forever to load up as it pulls in all the floor plan detail files. That's not really an option.

 

Tech support told me the programmers won't bother adding a dedicated key note feature unless other users make some noise and start demanding it, especially if there's a work around, albeit, a crappy work around. But I don't think enough residential guys use them.

[Richard_Morrison]

9 hours ago, CARMELHILL said:

Tech support told me the programmers won't bother adding a dedicated key note feature unless other users make some noise and start demanding it, especially if there's a work around, albeit, a crappy work around. But I don't think enough residential guys use them.

There's nothing that I know of. But, my 2 cents is that most residential contractors find them really annoying. Heck, I find them really annoying. And, while keynotes make the plans "cleaner," of course, I'm not sure that I've ever seen a key-noted plan that DIDN'T have a mistaken reference or two, unless it was a completely automatically generated system. I'm not really sure where this love affair with keynotes began.

[dshall]

30 minutes ago, Richard_Morrison said:

There's nothing that I know of. But, my 2 cents is that most residential contractors find them really annoying. Heck, I find them really annoying. And, while keynotes make the plans "cleaner," of course, I'm not sure that I've ever seen a key-noted plan that DIDN'T have a mistaken reference or two, unless it was a completely automatically generated system. I'm not really sure where this love affair with keynotes began.

 

I could not have said it better.

[CARMELHILL]

It's about production.

 

Nobody wants to pay for our time. It's always faster and cheaper. Everyone is bidding the lowest price. It's unfortunate. I don't have client's selecting me because I provide them with drawings that are more complete, concise, easier to read, and with great ray traced renderings of the interior. They hire me because the three other architects were more expensive. So many people are just looking for permit drawings. But keynoted drawings would however affect which contractor's give you referrals, which makes me see your point.

 

But keynotes is the standard in most commercial work. That's the next progressive step for many firms. You start off small, doing lots of residential. Then your name gets around and you start expanding your office into commercial and retail......unless your lucky enough to move upwards into bigger homes and multimillion dollar homes. But me, there's almost no open land. And people aren't buying homes to just knock down. Maybe in the Hamptons further east, but not around here.

 

So that leaves me with the question of how to automate my projects more, and get them out the door faster.

[HumbleChief]

1 hour ago, Richard_Morrison said:

There's nothing that I know of. But, my 2 cents is that most residential contractors find them really annoying. Heck, I find them really annoying. And, while keynotes make the plans "cleaner," of course, I'm not sure that I've ever seen a key-noted plan that DIDN'T have a mistaken reference or two, unless it was a completely automatically generated system. I'm not really sure where this love affair with keynotes began.

+1

[HumbleChief]

BUT...I think a key note tool is considered a very basic tool that should be included in any design software pretending to be a professional tool.

[dshall]

44 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

BUT...I think a key note tool is considered a very basic tool that should be included in any design software pretending to be a professional tool.

 

Yes,  I agree,  I did not mean to pooh pooh the idea of having a key note tool.

[Richard_Morrison]

32 minutes ago, CARMELHILL said:

It's about production.

 

Nobody wants to pay for our time. It's always faster and cheaper. Everyone is bidding the lowest price. ...

So that leaves me with the question of how to automate my projects more, and get them out the door faster.

I think it's great to automate. (maybe a catchy slogan there.) I'm not sure where you get your projects, but at least 50% of mine come from contractor referrals. So I think that making yourself easy-to-work-with from a contractor's standpoint is not a bad quality. It's certainly possible to become the K-Mart of architects, but do you really want to strive for this? Another option is making yourself more valuable. Overall project speed is one way. (e.g. being able to produce a full set of CD's in a week would be highly valuable to the marketplace.) How many other architects offer contractors a spreadsheet of approximate quantities? (Which you can generate in a under a minute.) If a contractor is going to refer an architect, which one do you think he'll push for? I'm not sure that keynotes really save that much time, especially if you factor in the time required for keynote management. If typing notes is what is taking so much time, you might try Dragon Naturally Speaking, which will drastically reduce your typing time. Other things that can reduce time: 

1) Excellent templates, both Layouts and Plans.

2) Extensive database of standard details.

3) Schedules and standardized notes.

4) A "warehouse" plan, which you can copy and paste from.

5) Use of space planning bubbles.

6) Hotkeys.

7) Not being OCD about document appearance.

8) Really knowing the program, and taking full advantage of the great shortcuts already built in, like Active Layer Display and Annosets.

[DRAWZILLA]

I think t.s. is nuts if they feel no one wants a plan note schedule, it's one of the basic items needed for plans, especially when you have plans loaded up with other notes needed like here in California.  We all don't need it on every plan but for larger residential plan it's a must.

[Joe_Carrick]

The problem with the current "workaround" solutions is that you need a different keynote table for various floor plans, elevations, sections, etc.  A generalized system that could work with different Layer Sets, Layers, Object Types, etc. would be much, much, much better.  

 

Having spent a good part of my career doing Hospitals, Medical Offices and other Commercial Projects I've used Key Notes, Schedules and Detail Callouts extensively.  Many of those projects were before CAD and making sure all references were accurate was very important. 

 

I must admit that I've seen a lot of Key Notes on residential plans that were full of errors.  But I've seen notes on plans that didn't use Key Notes that were wrong as well.

[Richard_Morrison]

56 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

BUT...I think a key note tool is considered a very basic tool that should be included in any design software pretending to be a professional tool.

Personally, I don't think so basic. ArchiCAD doesn't have an obvious one built-in (although you can get close with native tools and a lot of work), and you really need to buy a third-party add-on. And I don't think anyone would say ArchiCAD isn't a professional tool.

[Ridge_Runner]

8 hours ago, Richard_Morrison said:

Not being OCD about document appearance

Good comments, Richard. This one, #7, is my biggest time killer. I have seen several plans that a long-time designer in this area, now deceased, prepared during his working days. The contractors loved him. His plans were so simple and didn't have 1/3 of the info mine do (we are not in a code county, just the city areas). I just can't bring myself to the point I can send this type of plan out the door and I "fiddle" with them until I am happy. Unfortunately, the contractors don't care. But, I am making some progress in the OCD area -- I think.

[CARMELHILL]

Another less obvious reason for using keynotes in a BIM software system...... You should be able to reverse edit. Double click the keynote schedule and update the note there. That will update all instances of the keynote. Chief doesn't do this. If you have instances of the same note on your drawing, say a wall assembly keynote, and you update only one instance, chief creates a new keynote. It won't globally update. From a Revit forum... "My issue with Revit is, how do I apply these notes so that if a material or assembly changes that I can change the note once and have it update everywhere. Thats supposed to be the power of BIM right? I can change a door or wall and it changes everywhere?"

 

I think that's an important option to have.

 

The whole idea of keynotes is to declutter and cleanup the drawings, keeping all notes centrally locate, usually on the right side of the sheet. From an old Autuocad article........

"A keynote system is a system of tags designed to annotate a drawing through the use of symbols. Keynote tags are useful in cases where too many notes clutter and confuse the drawing."

 

An extreme example of keynotes is on this guys website:

http://www.dmsdesign.us/plans.htm

[DRAWZILLA]

If you want a note that changes everywhere on the plan use a simple text macro instead, change the macro and everywhere on the plan will be changed.

[dshall]

1 hour ago, DRAWZILLA said:

If you want a note that changes everywhere on the plan use a simple text macro instead, change the macro and everywhere on the plan will be changed.

 

A great tip.

[Joe_Carrick]

5 minutes ago, dshall said:

 

A great tip.

Yes, a "Non Evaluated" text macro is especially useful for Elevations (Interior, Exterior & Sections) and anyplace else where Object Labels aren't sufficient.

[DRAWZILLA]

Here is an oldie but goodie showing text macro's

 

 

 

[mkennedy2000]

Such good information, thanks. 

FWIW, I am the builder, and my guys love key notes - I can often fit plana on 11x17 using keynotes and the small plans are so much more manageable in the field. And during sedign it is great to tabulate the reuslts of a meeting in the a note block, really helps the client and my self see all the issues we have touched on. During design I will sometimes use dated noteblocks.

[johnny]

 I too think the macro tip is great.  Id just say though I do think Chief should have a dedicated keynote tool - and since we can kinda get one 1/2 way now with cheating the app and using plant schedules, it should be super easy for Chief to at least just give us a general schedule out of the box. 

[jonboy]

Greeting this fine Sunday morning 

 

Question is there a way way to have your camera cross section callout in your plan view follow into your cross section on a detail page. 

[mkennedy2000]

I'll be interested to see the answer(s) but I'm afraid it may be no.

[Joe_Carrick]

4 hours ago, jonboy112352 said:

Greeting this fine Sunday morning 

 

Question is there a way way to have your camera cross section callout in your plan view follow into your cross section on a detail page. 

 

Please explain what you are looking for?

 

The Callout in the Plan View can referenced the "Cross Section" view in the Layout (including the Sheet #), but if you are asking about a CAD Detail Window then the answer is NO.

 

It will be easier to answer your question if we know exactly what you want to achieve.

[jonboy]

Just a the view in layout 

 

thanks