Ted: all great points...... i concurr in every one ... except that i will
continue to use Chief as my construction drawing program.

We own AutoCad Lt '98, Envisioneer 4.5, and the download free version of
SketchUp. In Chief, we have two 10.08a licences and one X1 license.

I'm having one of my guys learn Envisioneer, and i've dabbled in SU....

But we're somewhat stuck with what we have.

I continue to hold out hope that ART will someday , with one of the new
versions, swing back to the Construction Drawing side of things....... i think
( biased thinking ) that that is what drives most people to buy CAD...
creating working drawings fast ..... the rendering is icing on the cake, yet it
seems to be what has driven the program since at least version 8.

Mike Smith
Rhode Island : Design / Build
----- Original Message -----
From: nhted104
To: chief-users@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:23 AM
Subject: [chief-users] Re: Fix the bugs first


Steve,

I personally couldn't disagree with you more wholeheartedly! Well,
except that I will definitely agree with you concerning
autoCad/autodesk (ever since they bought out Softdesk and attempted
to make a bteer horse with architectural desktop (disaster).

Yes, Chief with indeed upgrade the plan along with the elevations
AFTER you take the camera shot and converty it to 2d at which point
that (those) elevations become completely disconnected from the
program as far as updates are concerned.

Chief's 2d program is an ancient beast that is HORRIBLE to work with
IF one is trying to produce a good set of construction documents (for
the field, the building inspector, the sub-trades AND the client).
The problem is that it takes and incredible amount of time to get the
elevations to a point where there is decent (as well as "realistic")
line definition (not all the same line weight) and having to break
and stop lines from wanting to join and become a continuous polyline
not to mention the HORRIBLE window erase feature that Chief has never
gotten right. The "hatching" (or poche if you will) "feature" in
Chief really SUCKS! Right now I still do accomplish the building
elevations with Chief (and growl all the way through the process -
especially when Chief "decides" on it's own to change, or even
eliminate things AFTER they have been saved) but full building cross
sections are MUCH more quickly produced using autoCad (I still have
and use R14) and I can show WHAT I want and the dimensioning (Chief's
dimensioning program is also horrible - I hate being "told" that I
really didn't want the dimensions I picked and then have to "fight"
to get the damn thing to move to the correct point I initially
wanted) can be very easily accomplished (and "adjusted" manually even
if the drawing is "off" by a fraction of an inch). Maybe some day
Chief will "learn" (at least on the CAD side of things) that doing
line weights by color is a LOT easier to work with than
using "WYSIWYG" especially when trying to edit particular lines.

I won't even bother to get into the frustration of the elctrical
portion of Chief (on the CAD side of the program). It would "nice" if
the symbols for many of the electrical components were NOT strictly a
true representation of the item. In a set of construction documents
(2D) the guy in the field doesn't give a fat rat's butt what the item
is going to look like in 3D - he just wants to be able to see the
item on the drawing so that he can install it. In other words Chief
really needs to have a separate library of 2D symbols that can be
inserted into the construction documents at a scale easily read by
the guys in the field on a set of blue (or black) line prints that
have been folded, spindled, mutilated, rained on, coffee spilt on
etc..

Chief is a GREAT residential three dimensional program that can
produce extremely wonderful "pictures" of a design and that is where
it stops! Sorry for the arnt but Chief is definitely LIMITED and they
really need to recognize that they are very quickly pricing
themselves out of the market - especially when they seemingly refuse
to listen to the voices of the people that use the program and are
the ones that find the bugs!

Ted Crombie, CPBD
New Hampshire

--- In chief-users@yahoogroups.com, "Steve Callaway" <avds@...> wrote:
>
> What about when the client changes his mind?
> Drawing elevations in autocad means that you have to go and change
> the plan and the elevations. In Chief you change the plan then
update the elevation to the layout.
> A lot less painful!
> Personally I refuse to deal with autodesk even after using autocad
for 20 years.
> I like the product (within limitations) but loathe the company.
>
> Regards
> Steve
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bruce
> To: chief-users@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 12:14 AM
> Subject: [chief-users] Re: Fix the bugs first
>
>
> Andy,
>
> I use an old version of Autocad, but I'm going to upgrade to the
> newer one. I find that 3d is not very time effective, especially
> when you have go in and "fix" the issues that consume chief.
>
> I can do a magnificent set of elevations in 2d which excite my
> clientele in a couple of hours, and to do the same thing in 3d in
> chief would take days and days and still not look as crisp. Hope
> that helps.
>
> --- In chief-users@yahoogroups.com, Andy&MaryAnn Robertson
> <a.robertson7@> wrote:
> >
> > Bruce,
> > I am always curious. What is the other CAD you use? I do
> renovations and
> > find Chief 10 not particularly helpful when doing as build on a
> 100 year
> > old house with three additions, dormers on dormers and other
> > non-standard construction. Always looking for an alternative
> > - Andy R
> >
> > Bruce wrote:
> > >
> > > This is the first I've heard about x2, I have x1 and don't
use
> it much
> > > anymore. I use another CAD system which is much quicker for
me.
> > > As for x2, it seems to me that they should have fixed the
bugs
> that
> > > have plagued Chief for years before trying to roll out
another
> version.
> > >
> > > Stairs need to be editable and show rails in plan view for
one,
> the
> > > cad tools need to be more user-friendly and not make the
system
> crash;
> > > and different wall types need to be able to join at the
corners
> > > without making some arbitrary "45 degree" joint. Lunacy and
> > > unprofessional. I still use 10 on occasion to do renderings
if
> the
> > > house isn't too complex and trim-laden, so I haven't really
> looked at
> > > x1 much. I hate the buttons and their appearance in x1, they
were
> > > cartoonish in 10, but x1 is ridiculous. That said, I've had
very
> good
> > > luck with Chief support being friendly (except for one
person),
> and
> > > they have always tried to fix the issues. But for that much
> money,
> > > there shouldn't BE that many issues.
> > >
> > > __._,
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>






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