Can CA Design a Master Planned Community?

[DishingTech]

The firm I work with is looking for alternative software to design master planned communities. We work in Project Vasari to develop the site surrounds and subdivisions then import into Revit. I am wondering if CA can import the .rvt or .dwg file as well as being able to develop a design plan with ~80 houses (corner, terrace and detached).

Thank you in advance

[sutcac]

Chief can import and export both 2D and 3D DWG files, but all of the proprietary, native design tools in Chief will be lost on import. You will have have static objects that are difficult, if not impossible, to edit in a meaningful way.

Chief can neither import nor export to .rvt.

You could do 80 houses with a fast enough computer with enough video and regular memory, but the houses would likely have to be exterior "shells" with little to no interior detail at all.

Chief's main focus, and where it excels, is in conventionally built, residential and light commercial design and working drawings. Anything outside of that is going to be a stretch of one length or another.

[DishingTech]

Thank you for the fast reply, I was not planning to deck out the interior just yet, just need to get the building footprint and housing layout sorted. I will see how I go!

[David J. Potter]

You can download a free demo version of Chief Premiere to see how it handles such a job though the demo does not save or print (you would have to leave the program on until finished with a project) but it is free and fully, otherwise functional.

Commercial projects I have done in Chief have covered up to 15-20 acres and 12 or so buildings of one and two stories and can be easily done once you really learn Chief's tools well. I agree with Bryce's estimation of Chief's strengths but in the hands of a learned user it can and will do whatever you conceive to do within those strengths.

DJP

[lbuttery]

another method is to do each model in a separate plan
and then create a symbol of each model

then create a master site plan and place the models as needed
and repeat each model as needed

Lew

[DishingTech]

another method is to do each model in a separate plan
and then create a symbol of each model

then create a master site plan and place the models as needed
and repeat each model as needed

Lew

I am liking the sound of this idea, so I can turn these monopoly type houses with no interior to create a master plan. Then I can paste a symbol (for each model) to edit the interiors of different house types and make a 3D rendering / walkthrough / plan view / street level cross sections of the whole estate? this is exciting times, can't wait to use this.

[spencerdesign]

While Chief would be a great tool to model each individual unit, and a separate site model, you may find that a master plan with 80 houses will become unworkable in Chief. If that becomes the case I would recommend assembling the final scene in a studio suite that can handle that many polygons. Like Thea, Lumion, Max or other.

[David J. Potter]

I am liking the sound of this idea, so I can turn these monopoly type houses with no interior to create a master plan. Then I can paste a symbol (for each model) to edit the interiors of different house types and make a 3D rendering / walkthrough / plan view / street level cross sections of the whole estate? this is exciting times, can't wait to use this.

In the "old days" (earlier versions) this was not so but is so now (thank Dermot and Dan et al), the technology gets better each year.

DJP

[Logan.roberts]

Hi, could I please be told how to or directed to where i learn about changing a house to a symbol???? that sounds real usefull but I have no idea where to start

thanks
Logan

[lbuttery]

Logan:

create a 3D render

I usually use the full overview camera

then under MENU - 3D - CONVERT TO SYMBOL
or something like that - I don't have chief available at this time

Lew

[nicholasnz]

The firm I work with is looking for alternative software to design master planned communities. We work in Project Vasari to develop the site surrounds and subdivisions then import into Revit. I am wondering if CA can import the .rvt or .dwg file as well as being able to develop a design plan with ~80 houses (corner, terrace and detached).

Thank you in advance

This is a big ask for CA - I wonder why, as you are importing into revit, that you are not completing the project in that very capable software. I generally move to Archicad when developing something of this size as CA will have you tearing your hair trying to get precise site levels in relationship to several different house pads. If you are just massing the houses (basic shape and size) then it may be do-able. I have tried it but generally it all becomes a bit to unwieldy as the project grows and I lose precision. It helps if the site is flat.

[lbuttery]

CA will have you tearing your hair trying to get precise site levels in relationship to several different house pads.

Nick:

if you keep each house in a separate plan and make symbols of them

they place very easy in the master site plan

Lew

[spencerdesign]

So true Lew. Plus you would not have to wait for each and every unit to "rebuild" after every little edit. It also seems that symbols are handled even better/faster in the latest version.

[David J. Potter]

Nick,

That is what I was referring to as the method used in the "old days" where we did not then have the ability to export a structure as a symbol (in an overview with any terrain turned off, use the command "Export 3-D Model [either dwg, .3ds or VRML"), then as structure symbols they then go where you tell them to go and stay there, unlike multiple structures made of individual walls, windows, doors, roof planes etc, now that was a nightmare but I and others did it but no need for all that trouble now.

DJP

[WendyWelton]

I do this all the time. I make stripped down "monopoly house" symbols in Chief.

- Edit your wall types so they have only 2 layers - your "main layer", which I assign the material Drywall, and your Exterior surface, which I assign to be my siding, and make about 1 1/4" thick, because it replaces both siding and sheathing. Why? Removing layers reduces surfaces.

- Remove anything and everything not necessary - decks, interior walls, fixtures, cabinets, footings, etc.

- For any front porches where the decking will show, I make a single plane and put a decking material on it, instead of all those individual deck pieces, each with 6 faces.

- etc, etc - reduce, reduce, reduce.

You'll find that then you can work with quite a few "houses".