Site Area Analysis using CAD Boxes

[Joe Carrick]

Figuring out a Macro for Bryce, I discovered that CAD-Boxes have a unique set of features that can be exploited for Site Area Analysis:

1. They have Ruby Attributes width & height which can be used to calculate the area.
2. You can place a Text-Box with an arrow pointing to them to reference.
3. Naturally the CAD-Box does not appear in Renderings and they can be on Layers that will not appear in Orthographic Camera Views.

There are a few potential problems with this:

1. CAD Boxes are strictly rectangular so irregular shapes can't be used
2. Overlapping Boxes might get confused if the RT-Box arrow is not placed correctly

[dshall]

Joe, maybe I am missing something, but check this out.

And yes, overlapping boxes are a problem. That is why we need labels for cad boxes.

[ande54]

I'm a new user, so maybe you tell me what the advantage of this would be over the wizard furnished by Chief. Isn't the Wizard designed for spacial analysis?

[Joe Carrick]

Joe, maybe I am missing something, but check this out.

And yes, overlapping boxes are a problem. That is why we need labels for cad boxes.

Scott,

I was having some luck with snapping the arrow to the "Center" of the CAD Box as a reference point. That allowed me to use a fill and border with the RTB and hide the arrow.

But that's very inconsistent. It worked once but I couldn't get it to work every time.

[gteacher]

Scott,

That allowed me to use a fill and border with the RTB and hide the arrow.

As a alternative a better way to hide the arrow is to select the arrow and put it on its own layer and turn off that layer. I have a layer "leaders" set up just for that. --- very fast and if you need to see the connections again just turn on the layer. Hidden or not the arrow always stays connected unless you go to extremes. I don't think the connection location has much to do with it. There are other issues.

Other issue is with stability, in my opinion is just how Chief executes macros. I think that sometimes the routine that locates arrows with objects just gets lost. (that's why labels usually work -- code tie) I seen very inconsistent behavior here. Also I don't think its going to be resolved because Chief is stuck on the present tie of macro to objects philosophy and isn't interested in hearing about problems. That's why I don't recommend using reference arrows for anything to do with macros. If you chose to do so, you do at your own risk without support from Chief. Unfortunately, there's no good alternative at present (and none on the horizon).

[Joe Carrick]

It would be nice if for Labels there was an "Insert Macro" button. That way we could at least see which of our macros would be valid for that Label. But then again, RT for Labels is also way up on the list.

So, we seriously need:

Rich Text for Labels
Labels for all Chief Objects
Complete Ruby Attributes for Chief Objects
Insert Macro Button for Labels

I think that about covers my wish list for Ruby

[Sageland]

That would be great I'd we could get all of them that you listed.