What am I missing?

[kevin walker]

I'm sure a lot of you are like I am with "your materials" images that is to say I am constantly looking for high quality Photo's of bricks, siding, glass, roofing, and so on to be used within my plans as I'm sure you do. The problem is when I bring the photos in (scanning, downloading, etc.) I typically place them in "my pictures" so I can use them perhaps for multiple programs. And at some point I chose one of these photos lets say for siding material in "my materials" folder in Chief via the library browser. A week later maybe I decide to do some reorganizing of My Pictures file on my computer and guess what happens the next time I open a plan using that siding material. Chief says it can't find that material and do I want to find it? Of coarse the answer is yes I do and of coarse no I don't want to do this again. What am I doing wrong? Kevin

[RMorrison]

You need to add a copy of them into Chief's library. Chief does not automatically search "My Pictures".

[kevin walker]

Thanks Richard I sensed that was the case. Will Chief look for a material (siding photo) located in the "Chief-Libraries" within a sub folder labeled "siding material"? Kevin

[Tim O'Donnell]

if you move them or change their name after the fact, what do you really think would happen???? at least it asks you if you want to look for them


put the image files where they will be permanently before you create the material...they can be anywhere on your system...just make sure you leave them there..it is probably best to put them into a subfolder of your choice withen you chief install folder so they are not accidentally moved or altered..

[Dan Park]

When Chief makes a material using a texture it always looks at the location the texture was originally located when the material was created. If you move it the material will search for the texture in the textures folder. (This can slow the system down when you open the file. ) It won't search other locations on the hard drive.

The best advice is to keep your textures in the textures folder as inidicated earlier.

[kevin walker]

Thanks Tim. I'm a little perplexed about how to do this so as to not be able to reorganize those same files at a latter date if necessary. As main picture files grow and from time to time need editing and reorganizing it seems with Chief this may be difficult.

[kevin walker]

Thanks Dan. My question then would be if I bring a good photograph in to my computer to use for texturing materials for multiple applications and maybe it even needs to go to photoshop for some editing before it is ready to be used; after I copy it to lets say "My Pictures" where would I most likely need to copy it to next for Chief's purposes in order to then add it to my library? Kevin

[Dan Park]

A folder that you designate within the Chief Architect Textures folder.

[kevin walker]

OK Dan so that I have this straight. When a suitable photograph has been selected (from where ever it came from IE. "my pictures" "photoshop" etc.) first: copy that to the sub directory of my choice within the textures file located within Chief. second: open in plan Chief's library browser and then go to the "create materials" tab taking me to the "define materials" box and under the "textures tab" browse to the same folder or sub-folder located within Chief's textures file to make that selection. Did I get that right? Kevin

[Dan Park]

It really does not matter where you place the images but when you link to them and then subsequently start rearranging things that is when you create the problem.

At some point in the future it probably would make sense to have the material library make a copy of the texture for each material and store it with the material information. While this simplifies the interface it will create more bloat in the library, especially in cases where you might use the same texture multiple times for different materials.

However we might decide to redesign this in the future though, right now you will have to keep track of where you keep your materials. Making changes to keep it organized might help you make sense of your images on the computer but when you subject your textures to that much reorganization you are going to get errors or at best slow the system down while it tries to find each missing texture.

The short answer is that following the guideline of placing a copy of the texture in a folder dedicated to Chief textures is really the only viable alternative.

[kevin walker]

Thanks Dan. The whole subject of materials, textures, and images can become somewhat confusing sometimes and particularly when you start building the library's inventory up over several months but I think you have cleared it up. Kevin

[RHD]

I hope that new releases of CA will have some of these types of issues streamlined.. Other CAD programs I use have a way to set a path to the various support files by user inputing a path to various locations on the hard drive. Case in point is a screen shot of Solid Works system options dbx.

Attachment 10293

AutoCAD has a similar one:
Attachment 10292

These are easily accessed from the screen menus...

[RMorrison]

You mean like this?

[Tim O'Donnell]

I hope that new releases of CA will have some of these types of issues streamlined.. Other CAD programs I use have a way to set a path to the various support files by user inputing a path to various locations on the hard drive. Case in point is a screen shot of Solid Works system options dbx.

Attachment 10293

AutoCAD has a similar one:
Attachment 10292

These are easily accessed from the screen menus...

this would not help at all in kevin's situation...he moved the texture from where he pointed chief originally...that is USER ERROR...

[kevin walker]

Tim is correct this was a "User Error" which I now understand however it is easy to make this mistake when using Chief's "Library". When you use the Create Symbol tool for example it makes no difference where the source of that symbol gets moved to, your library will still have that symbol. With the add "New Material" selection from the Library Browser tab this isn't the case. Chief does"t automatically copy the picture to it's files when this operation is being performed. Maybe this is what Chief should consider! Kevin