CJT1963

Hi Smn842, As I'm an Architectural Consultant in the UK, us types spend vast amounts of time just looking at work-arounds when the standard CAD programme can't do what we want. It's mainly all about making a conscious effort in saving items as symbols to use on other projects & repeated adaption & re-symbol saving. Eventually it does save time, but I now see where you're coming from as a home user. Parametric powered software is ideal for quick building Plans, but slows right down when things have to be drawn long hand. This is generally accepted by us types, unless the software one uses has limitless parametric abilities like ArchiCAD or EliteCAD, however these tend to be really expensive. I think the balance is finding CAD software that can be parametrically easy to use & at the same time be flexible to understand how to draw in long hand effectively for the final printed 2D plans. I'll have to look into this as I need to asses this myself. I know there are 2D CAD tools one can use to draw over the extracted 3D model for your plans & sections etc when finalising the printed 2D sheet/view ports. Some of the items you describe may be better just left for drawing over in 2D for your final printed 2D plans. However I've not seen any videos yet about drawing longhand in 3D, just like SketchUP, for adding items that aren't covered in the parametric dialogue boxes'. Over & out, CJT1963

Thanks Smn842, As a potential new user, this is all helpful info to me & from your comments, I understand you're a UK user of this programme. This topic is also running on the CA forum, but no UK users have yet dropped in to comment on any issues, so perhaps not a CA annoyance, just HDP. As I noted on the CA forum, I've been using DataCAD & SketchUp-Pro for years now, so I hope I'm experienced enough to also find work-arounds, as you've done. I'll also have consider if this would be such an over-riding issue, that may prove too time consuming to even consider as an addition to my CAD armoury. I'm thinking if anyone has the resources to delve into this a little further for a possible resolve, it would be CA HQ. As you say, they would have customers (& potential ones) who would gladly pay for some UK/European symbol libraries. However, having said that, I've mostly found with most CAD programmes, that I tend to make my own specific symbols. I'll have to look into this further, as typically with other CAD software I've used, it does take some dedicated time to achieve, but I hope it's not overly a difficult task in CA or HDP. I also wonder if users are willing to share some of their own symbols, not too sure if it works like this with CA or HDP ? The inset control of windows/doors within a cavity wall construction, i.e. how far in from the outer leaf it should be placed, does sound annoying if you can't simply control this at the time of creation or even to just simply move it long hand after the event. This from what your saying may not be as simple as I note, not being a user. It might be an idea to save some snaps shot images of these issues, so all can see what we'd like to see achieved, perhaps CA HQ could then offer some assistance or even evoke this to be an update to future releases. Over & out, CJT1963

To all, (originally posted on CA forum) I've been discussing recently with CA HQ about purchasing either CHIEF ARCHITECT or HOME DESIGNER PRO & then upgrading to CA. I've always liked the look of CA & their website & videos, but got put off a long time ago now that the thinking was both were not suitable for the UK construction market. I may have even discussed this before on similar forums, so as an update, are there any UK users on this forum that use CA or HDP for the UK market ? Most of the videos I've seen clearly are for the US, i.e. timber frame wall construction, no cavity walls. However in the UK it's the norm for cavity wall construction, either 100mm th'k rendered blockwork or face brickwork on the outer leaf with various widths of cavities ranging from 100mm to 150mm wide. The insulation can be full fill within these cavities or partial fill. The inner leaf also varies, insulation (AIRCRETE) or dense block work 100mm to 150mm th'k or insulated timber frame 140mm th'k. We are also seeing wider insulated timber frame walls with just caldding, MARLEY ETERNIT being quite popular. There are many more variants, however can someone confirm if CA or HDP can undertake these forms, a video showing this would be great to see. In the meantime, I enclose some snap shots from a video I've seen that didn't really say it was CA or HDP but later found out it may be a 'doctored' non-legal version, whatever this means. Over & out, CJT1963