Thanks all! This has been an interesting exploration. I am newer to this program I have been working with it on and off for about 2 years, I bought a full designer license this year. So I am fully on board, i.m.o. quite an amazing design and construction tool for sure. My goal for this questions was to get a high quality exportable image to use for presentation and printing purposes to a client of mine.
Jim, I attempted your overlapping viewports with different classes being active and having no fill etc.... And the interesting thing was it worked perfect until I attempted to export it as a pdf.
The fidelity for the pdfs was great as separated non overlapping viewports when I exported. The 3D rendered image in one VP and the 3D Linework in another VP rendered as hidden line rendering in the other... made perfect sense for a good work around.
But when I ended up overlapping the 3D linework VP over the 3D model VP the fidelity of the exported pdfs dropped considerably for 20+ MB/single pdf sheetlayer export to about 200kb, and the only thing that had changed was I overlapped the viewports on the sheet layer....
Perhaps I am not selecting a correct setting on the export as pdf setting but it seemed more like a bug or something with the conversion of two VP on top of each other being exported.. I am not sure.... I have no idea why the fidelity dropped and when I printed it out the crispness of the image and linework went to heck...
Then I took the linework I had in the model and exported it direct to the actual sheet layer. Scaled it appropriately and applied it just like I was drawing on a top of the 3d image/rendering on an old sheet of mylar.
Then I exported that sheetlayer as pdf and still had the same fidelity issue..... if I move the linework off the top of the VP. The Fidelity returned to the PDF it was 20MB, overlap the linework ontop of the VP and it became a 200KB pdf. I have upped the Sheetlayer Resolution to 300 + DPI already. Anyways so in this it was only one viewport with polylines drawing on top... Needless to say very confused about the internal process going on in the PDF conversion...
So I figured what the heck I then decided to export the entire sheet view as an high quality image file, a png, and bang the fideilty and overlaps worked fine! Beautiful image...
So do you think this is a pdf conversion issue I am running into... any thoughts about what may be occurring here all?
Anyways I am just making my way through and more deeply into the vectorworks world. I have 20 + years of experience in autocad, rhino, the adobe programs, revit, and design in general but this is the first program I have found that seems to integrate that entire workflow of design along with BIM and construction data coming along for the ridge. Its refreshing! And very impressive so far. Definitely not a beginners suite of tools. A Great Program for those that can think obtusely.... which is my bag for sure. Thanks for all the Tips. You will continue to hear from me for sure! Curious why with the viewport overlaps I could not get it to export a high fidelity pdf.... but I could with a png/jpg...
