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On 6/22/2019 at 1:15 PM, codecarnage said:

I would like to better understand the new "Real-Time Ray Tracing with the new physically-based rendering technique" that's new in Home Designer Pro 2020.

https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/whats-new/#whats-new-summary

 

Is this new real-time ray tracing hardware/video card accelerated and supported by video cards such as the NVidia RTX line of cards? Or is this software/CPU based rendering as the Chief Architect system requirements states in regards to that products "Photo Realistic Ray Trace Rendering"?

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/sysreq.html

 

I'm considering upgrading to HD Pro 2020 and a new video card and would like to better understand this before spending my money.

 

Thanks.

 

Steve

Looks like 2020 did have "Real-Time Ray Tracing with the new physically-based rendering technique"

HOWEVER, RT ray tracing for HD appears to have disappeared in 2021 and 2022. No mention of it anywhere in the doc or help. They just say they are using a new rendering engine.

2020 new features page: https://web.archive.org/web/20190513030613/https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/whats-new/#whats-new-summary

2021 new features page: https://web.archive.org/web/20210420034155/https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/whats-new/

2021 new features PDF: https://web.archive.org/web/20200925122041/https://cloud-hd.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/product-info/2021/new-features.pdf

2022 new features page: https://web.archive.org/web/20210713230714/https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/whats-new/#whats-new-summary

2022 new features PDF: https://web.archive.org/web/20210713230816/https://cloud-hd.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/product-info/2022/new-features.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20210801000000*/https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/whats-new/

2 hours ago, sr5844wp said:

Hello,

Thanks so much for your reply. I am actually referring to 360 panoramas, and you are referring to 3D viewer models. If you go under 'my account' you can see what I mean.

Do you know anything about the 360 panorama interface specifically? I think the 360 panorama is easier for my clients to view and use from their phones. 

You're welcome.

I'm just and end user but I spent a fair amount more time playing with this again.

To levelset

a) the 3D view models

a1) can be viewed on the phone apps if you are logged into your account

a2) via a shared "browser URL" link that user can click on in their PC or on their phone. 

BOTH let you do 360 view rotations

NOTE! on the phone app, you can do this with only your finger by turning Gyro OFF (pict below) or by rotating the phone.

b) the 360 panorama exports are ONLY a "browser URL" link that user can click on in their PC or on their phone.  Both run in an internet browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc).

b1) If I look one of these on my Win PC desktop machine, I can use my mouse to spin around and zoom in and out a little.

b2) If I look at one of these on my Android (Google) Pixel 6 Pro, then it uses the gyro (rotate phone).  I thought I could use the 'b1)' idea and change the browser setting to force 'show on desktop' view and then use my finger like my mouse.  However, this didn't work and I only get a fixed image that I can not rotate. I only tried Chrome and not FireFox.

b3) sort of an aside but creating the 360 panoramas as 8192 x 4096 was way better details than 4096 x 2048 (aka 8K-4K vs 4K-2K).

My recommendation is to have them do

'a2)' --- with Gyro OFF when doing it on the phone or on the PC for a WAY better view

-or-

'b1)' --- WAY better to see on bigger screen anyway

NOTE: make sure they change the Rendering from Basic to Standard.  It seems to default to Basic on my powerful phone or my powerful PC. (I would have guessed it would query the graphics capability and set it to Standard on both).

Phone apps:

Android (Google): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ChiefArchitect.Viewer3D

iOS (Apple): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/3d-viewer-by-chief-architect/id1083656847

On 2/7/2022 at 2:04 PM, jdremo said:

Hello There,

I need some info on the shower door type I don't see that type of door in the library or a way to grab one from the library and customize to reflect that type of door now days people are using that type of door a lot which we call it rolling doors or barn shower door with one fixed panel and one that rolls on the bar above like in the picture.

Is there any way to custom make that?

The info will be very well appreciated.

Thank you

You can mash up something reasonably close. I used a regular shower and changed the frame to be 'tempered glass' in the materials. Then I put a towel bar in there and changed it's dimension to like 3"x3" and raised the height.  Sometime manipulating by elevation view or something else can make it easier to grab bars and resize.  I'm a rookie tho.

51 minutes ago, RynoInAZ said:

I'm sure I clicked or unclicked something that I wasn't supposed to, but I can't figure this out.  When I click on my non-liveable space (garage, patio, etc.), it is highlighting the entire residence as the object.  I just want to click into the garage, like any other liveable room, but it's not letting me select the garage.  Any help is greatly appreciated.  Thanks.  Here is an image of what happens when I click inside the garage.  it does not do this when I click inside the liveable portion of the house.

Hmm ... not sure but are you sure the walls are closed off.  The existing garage wall looks odd as an example.  Pay attention to the bottom of the screen and the "Status Bar" to know what "object" you are on.

You also can practice the controls using the website interface as well (vs your phone).

More info:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/3d-viewer/

On 2/3/2022 at 2:41 PM, sr5844wp said:

Is there a way to view 360 panoramas on your phone without requiring you to rotate your phone around? Is there a way to instead use your finger to rotate around the model? This is quite annoying as most of the time when I view panoramas I'm sitting down in my chair. 

I use this mode to rotate with my finger. See arrow.  Just tried it tonight on my fairly new phone (Pixel 6 Pro) and worked on my prev phone (Pixel 2 XL). HTH

SOLUTION / SOLVED

Mifala,

I opened a support ticket and their response worked for me. HTH

Quote

 

We have seen behavior like this with the Intel Iris Xe Graphics but we do have a way to work around this.
1. Go to Edit>Preferences
2. Go to the Render panel
3. Check the box for Texture Compression and click OK.

 

 

 

I looked up that option in the help (Index tab and render search word) and here is what it said.

Quote

When Texture Compression is checked, material textures are compressed so that less video memory is required when a 3D view is generated. Texture Compression takes time, however, so view generation will typically be slower.

33 minutes ago, solver said:

 

Select an object, look in the Status Bar.

Doh! Thx. I was lost amongst the tree and missed the forest.   

Perhaps I missed it but all my reading on Object Layers I never came across that. Perhaps I overlooked it.  I did also see 'Drawing Group' in the status bar that I never paid attention to. When I looked that up in the help it seemed to quickly point out that it is in the Status Bar.  My complaint should be with tech support so they can have the help developers update it. As a past developer, we spent a ton of time making the software "obvious" to use when possible but the help was very critical too.  In general CA/HD help is very very good.

[update] I'm relooking at the help and I do see mention of the Status Bar under "Layer Attributes". I just glossed over it when reading so much in that pursuit. [/update]

The Status Bar at the bottom of the main program window displays information about the current state of the program.
This information depends on a variety of conditions such as settings in the Preferences dialog, the type of object selected, and the current position of the pointer. The information may include the following:
• The type of object currently selected or the total number of group-selected objects.
• A description of the edit handle that the pointer is over.
• A brief description of the toolbar button or menu item highlighted by the mouse.
• The name of the active tool, a brief description of that tool, and its hotkey, if it has one.
• The length and/or angle of an object as it is being drawn.
• Basic information about a selected library object, folder, or catalog.
• The current floor.
• The layer that the selected object is on.
• The selected object’s Drawing Group.
• The size of the active window in pixels.
• The current CAD coordinates of the mouse pointer.

11 minutes ago, DavidJPotter said:

I assume that your Chief User created one or more custom layers and those custom  layers do not show in HD Pro 2021 or any other version of HD Pro. We Chief Users create custom layers all the time and place different object on different layers because we can. Home Designer Users cannot, period, dorry. DJP

Correct the design/builder created a custom layer with furniture that I placed with using the fabric/look from our existing furniture that we will take and place in various rooms of the new house.

Well I wasn't complaining that my HD software doesn't have the capability to created custom layers like CA software does. I get that. 

What I think sucks and is an oversight is when a CA plan is shared with a HD user that the "Layer Display Options" (LDO) lines cannot be seen even if greyed out and non-toggleable (ie. Disp or Lock column in the LDO dialog.  It just makes for a lot of confusion the way it is setup for sharing.  I do understand that, currently, the CA user needs to make sure they go into the LDO to turn on layers before saving and sharing to a HD user.

Anyway, I appreciate your response. I'm a retired developer so I look at usability and use cases closely especially when I'm the guinea pig

Background: My designer/builder is using Chief Arch X12 and I'm using Home Designer Pro 2021.  He shares the files with me and I do minor edits but he does the big ones.  (I can't use the most current version because of the graphics card requirements).

Problem: He sent me the latest plan (zipped) but I couldn't see the furniture.  I had all my related "Layer Display Options" turned on (fixtures and furniture) for my arch/floor plan and 3D camera views.  Turns out he created a custom layer name for our furniture and had it off for some of this work.  In HD, you can not see custom layers or toggle them off | on.  He reuploaded another plan with the layers turned on and I could see them (at least in the arch/floor plan view but not in the 3D camera view).

Question: In trying to understand this problem, I was trying to determine for any fixture, furniture, or anything else what layer it is associated with. I could see it in the arch/floor plan so I was trying to figure out it's "layer" so I could check the layer options in the 3D layers settings.   I have no idea if that information is available -- ie. what specific layer something is "tied" to.

I thought maybe it was the components ID (see attached) but that does not seem to be it.  

Perhaps you cannot determine what layer something is on and you have to guess?  Or they (CA) believes it is just obvious.  I read thru the help but it didn't help.

On 2/10/2022 at 5:50 PM, Mifala said:

I have loaded Home Designer 2020 X11 onto a new computer.
It has an 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 processor and Intel Iris XE graphics card which your website says is fine to run the program.
The program was working fine and then I had to reset the computer with a clean reinstall because of a problem with a different program.
When I reloaded Home Designer the 3D rendering is dark to black.

Update: SOLUTION / SOLVED in my February 11 post below.

I am having the seemingly same problem. Perhaps our comparisons can help each others and give others tips to helps us solve them.

Positive news to me that in your case: "program was working fine" at one point on that processor/graphics_chipset.

Added some pictures from my situation as well as a comparison of our chipsets.

I just got a new computer with the same graphics chip.  I've done a fair amount of searching on the CA/HD sites and help but haven't figured it out.

The plan I'm displaying was created on my other computer using the same Home Designer Pro 2021 (22.3.0.55x64 8-Jun-2020). All same catalogs downloaded and refreshed via HD option.

I did notice a few things like the wood color/file did not display correctly on this 2nd PC but I reapplied the exact same thing and it redisplayed the camera and it was OK.

My PC (my sig): Intel(R) i7-1185G7 4-Core (11th Gen) 3.0 GHz (4.8 max) | 16GB of LPDDR4x RAM | Integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics

a) I installed my latest graphics drivers from here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19344/intel-graphics-windows-dch-drivers.html

b) I installed my latest other drivers from here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html

c) I explicitly created a Windows Restore Point before I installed latest drivers.