Materials List Revisited

[claymcc]

Alan, I contacted CA's tech support and was given this; "Thank you for contacting us regarding the heated ceiling area for a Garage room. In Chief Architect, Garage rooms always have their ceiling area calculated as heated.
One way that you can work around this limitation is to specify the Garage room as an Attic room just before generating a Materials List. Before you do this, it is vitally important to make sure you TURN OFF Auto Rebuild Roofs and Auto Rebuild Foundations if you use these options; and, of course, when you're finished you will want to change the room type back to Garage.
I will be glad to submit a feature request on your behalf for greater control over whether or not a Garage is included in the heated ceiling area.
I hope that this information is helpful." I guess my follow up question should be, why does the room type take presidence over the wall and or ceiling type? If I draw a 6"wall with insulation in it, it should calculate the insulation whether it is a garage or not. If I don't want insulation I'll use another wall type. I should also be able to specify the amount or r-value of insulation as we often times use more on the house and less or none at all in the garage

[Mark]

Alan, I contacted CA's tech support and was given this; "Thank you for contacting us regarding the heated ceiling area for a Garage room. In Chief Architect, Garage rooms always have their ceiling area calculated as heated.
One way that you can work around this limitation is to specify the Garage room as an Attic room just before generating a Materials List. Before you do this, it is vitally important to make sure you TURN OFF Auto Rebuild Roofs and Auto Rebuild Foundations if you use these options; and, of course, when you're finished you will want to change the room type back to Garage.
I will be glad to submit a feature request on your behalf for greater control over whether or not a Garage is included in the heated ceiling area.
I hope that this information is helpful." I guess my follow up question should be, why does the room type take presidence over the wall and or ceiling type? If I draw a 6"wall with insulation in it, it should calculate the insulation whether it is a garage or not. If I don't want insulation I'll use another wall type. I should also be able to specify the amount or r-value of insulation as we often times use more on the house and less or none at all in the garage

My way around these insulation calc limitations that chief has it to turn off chief insulation in material list preferences then I set my profile plan up by defining 3 new materials ceiling batts wall batts floor batts I use sheet as material type so can set the size of batts to what ever I want then I put these materials in default room settings I put ceiling batts in ceiling structure on a zero thickness layer , floor batts in foor structure again on zero thickness layer and wall batts in my defined wall types again on a zero thickness you need to put it behind other layer so it is not seen in camera views the only down side I have found with this system is that it is in the wrong section in the material list but you do get a accurate batt count
Also one other problem as if you have ceiling under roof plain I have not been able to put in extra insulation layer to roof plains

With this system I can control what rooms have insulation either from a default setting or on room by room basis it give me full control over insulation calcs

[ALAN MATHEWS]

Clay

I agree with you on this one.
Thanks for giving me a fix for this situation.
I keep auto roofs and foundations off.

[Ed_Downunder]

Hi George,

Glad you are able to join the conversation.

That is a problem. As you know setting wall definitions is the key and that includes the materials definitions. Now with the brick ledge the calculations would be more reliable.

As I see it the conversation about the accuracy of the reporting gets mixed with how the materials list reports. (guilty myself)

The claim is the user hasn't used the program correctly. Of course that is not entirely correct. You may have seen in an earlier post that while a brick may be used for a window sill it's not calculated as a brick count and all concrete in a project is calculated to the foundation. Well that isn't quite right as I have discovered because the slab tool reports to exterior trim.

I take your point that this subject is not new and the encouragement from Chief to make comments because it all feed into a database of ideas can be tedious. There is only one way this issue will ever get any attention and that is for others to contribute to this conversation about why they don't use it and why they would like to use it.

I have to wonder myself! With X6 Running on Mac. Is it a smart commercial move to open new market opportunities with a broken materials list. The materials list is a feature of the promo videos and saves to the Project Browser. That is going to be a significant letdown for those that want to use that feature.

Rendering is a very useful and we use it to help our clients with visualization. Construction documents is vital the materials list is another important feature for us because it helps keep the budget under control. It doesn't catch everything but at the early design stage we need it for the big ticket items.

[Gel Building]

Hi Ed,
Do a quick search and see how long its been that we`ve been asking about this ML.

[lbuttery]

George:

way too long

here is a thread I posted in 2006

http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread....ighlight=prime

I was recently informed that CADEST may no longer be a viable alternative to the ML
since it is still 16-bit software and will probably not be updated anymore

verify this with the vendor before puchasing

another choice may be Planswift

Lew

[Gel Building]

Hi Lew,

Yeah remember how excited we were?
When we though they were to develop with ruby? what happened to that? lol

[Ed_Downunder]

Well I guess ....It's watch this space...... As the Mac user join in.

[rcole]

Nice to see this topic getting some attention in this forum. That being said, I would have to say that given the current approach Chief appears to be taking on the ML, I for one will not be holding my breath.

Sadly, I don't much feel like wasting the breath that I also won't be holding regarding the needed improvements to the ML. I will go so far as to say that I feel it is the approach, not Chief's intention, nor any lack of technical skill that keeps them from addressing this subject in any meaningful way.

The problem as I see it is that even though it may appear to some that compiling a list of desired features might be an adequate step in moving the ML toward real improvement, the time that has passed since any real attention has been paid to the ML would tend to indicate that there is more to this story.

A list of features is fine, but to me the real problem is a lack of any real commitment on Chief's part to developing both the needed features or tools, and workable solutions for Chief users to access and report the information they need in a comprehensive manner.

The good news, as I see it, is that Chief has a wealth of resorces at their disposal to be called upon to address these issues. Both in the form of skilled programmers in house, and also Chief customers with a wide range of construction and data processing experience. Until Chief decides to take the time and effort to combine these resorces in some type of comprehensive approach to providing real solutions, I don't see much changing on this front.

[lbuttery]

as George pointed out - maybe we just need a full version of Ruby with full API access

then some enterprising Chiefer could create a set of Ruby scripts
that gives us a decent useable ML

if CA doesn't have the resources to make these improvements
then let the user community do it....

Lew

[billemery]

I see the process of improvements as incremental; and that one area of improvement necessitates improvements in other areas.

For example; in X5 we got window, door, and cabinet labels in elevation.

The unintended effect for Chief is that it shows the weaknesses in the schedule system. So in X6 we are likely to see improvements in the schedule system. This will point out the weakness in the component system. This in turn will point out the weakness in the material list; and so the cycle of development goes.

This is partially driven by us as users, and partially driven by the competition.

Chief fears the full implementation of Ruby because on one level it could make their need to control the direction program irrelevant. The balance will have to be a compromise where Chief can control the overall direction of the program; while users are free to make modifications that work for their individual needs. The model for this already exists with other programs.

The bottom line for me is that Chief is being far too cautious about control, at the expense of improved flexibility, and functionality.

[gteacher]

.... Chief fears the full implementation of Ruby because on one level it could make their need to control the direction program irrelevant....

That’s a rational and legitimate fear, but one that is easily dealt with as Chief is well aware.

No matter how versatile, Chief would still have to develop the interface and few people would create the macros to accomplish anything related. Most would still prefer to be dependent on Chief to provide the necessary macros to perform even the most mundane tasks. And, of course, Chief would still have to provide a template of macros as examples. The control here is not in the macros or the programming language but in the hook up to Chief’s database and program commands. I doubt if Chief is concerned about losing control. It’s too easy to maintain it. The present limitations in Ruby are by design.

I’ll offer another opinion that their more concerned at what advantage this may offer compared against what effort. IMHO, they really can’t compete, at this point, with Softplan (and others) by duplicating their effort. SO, why try?

They will only be successful if they “leap frog” with a fresh approach and offer something new in Material control. To date they don’t know what that maybe. (They seem to be somewhat closed to outside suggestions- NIH). Few people here are even aware of other alternate approaches. Other than that, I expect only token improvements to deflect criticism and generate more hype.

[ALAN MATHEWS]

It would be nice if we could put a list together of priority items to improve the function of the material list.

IMO it would take a lot of time to rework the whole system.
If CA could fix items by a priority list that comes from users it may have a better chance of being implemented.

No software is ever perfect but it would be nice if the more glaring problems could be fixed even if it happens
a little at a time.

My list:
1. Fix insulation calculations. Had problems of trying to get rid of insulation in a garage ceiling.

2. More robust component features.

3. Better listing of materials in the ML

4. Able to change column widths in the ML so we don't have to export to other programs.

[Glenn Woodward]

4. Able to change column widths in the ML so we don't have to export to other programs.

Alan,

You can already do this.
The cursor doesn't change, but you can click and drag the column division along the top line to make the column wider.

The request should probably be to have a different cursor for dragging the columns wider.

[Doug Park]

It would be nice if we could put a list together of priority items to improve the function of the material list.

IMO it would take a lot of time to rework the whole system.
If CA could fix items by a priority list that comes from users it may have a better chance of being implemented.

No software is ever perfect but it would be nice if the more glaring problems could be fixed even if it happens
a little at a time.

My list:
1. Fix insulation calculations. Had problems of trying to get rid of insulation in a garage ceiling.

2. More robust component features.

3. Better listing of materials in the ML

4. Able to change column widths in the ML so we don't have to export to other programs.

Item 1 seems clear to me.

Could you elaborate on 2 and 3. Specific needs please. My understanding of better and yours are probably not identical.

Item 4. You can already change the column widths by clicking and dragging the dividing line in spread sheet header.