Fading out elements in sections/interior elevations based on distance

[line-weight]

3 hours ago, Benson Shaw said:

 

Push/Hold the spacebar allows temporary use of other tools (defaults to Pan tool). Continue to hold and mouse over a palette to click on Select or any other tool for use while the spacebar is down. 

 

Well, I didn't know this - thanks!

[Tom W.]

34 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Of course what we really want is proper viewport styles, so that we can have these setups and easily apply them to any viewport without fiddling with the dialogue boxes individually.

 

Agree. Is 'in development' on the roadmap:

 

 

 

Not sure if any extra votes will help gee things up a bit:

 

[luiza_finger]

22 hours ago, grant_PD said:

went back to my problem drawing and saw that this could be achieved via class overrides in the SLVP.  However, I don't think this solve would always work.  In my case, I had a 2D section drawing of the house (very common in theatres) that I could just fade out.  But to do this by depth of section....that is beyond class overrides.

 

Yep this sometimes is enough to give me what I actually need. It's kinda like a workaround, of course. For instance, in my first image on this post, I would like to give "context" as pointed by @line-weight, I could override HVAC and LIGHT parameters and things would work just fine. Now, it would work only because there are no other objects in the scene in the same class as HVAC and LIGHT that I would like to keep with "by class" line-weight and color.

Now, regarding @line-weight reply, I do understand and agree with it. I suppose that just two options (by class) and a threshold distance for "beyond overriding" would be enough. However, I can imagine scenarios, specially in exterior elevations, that adding multiple thresholds could become handy... or even, automatically scale line weight/fade down lines based on distance. In a very poor analogy, something like FOG tool in SketchUp.

 

Now... if we really need to accomplish that within the current possibilities, Data Visualization could be a way out. Giving the objects a "fade out record" like 1,2,3,4 and setting up line-weight/color for each of those values could do the job. But its messy, we would need a fade out state for north, another for south, another for east, another for west just to accomplish 4 elevations. If we try to pull this off under each interior elevation in the project, and I usually ended up with dozens of those, this solution obvious would scale properly.

[line-weight]

I've just been reminded, while working on a current drawing, of another, related issue:

 

You can choose to entirely exclude certain "beyond the cut plane" elements from the background of a section, by using the "finite" option for "Extents Beyond Cut Plane" and specifying a distance. So for example you can say you don't want to see anything that's more than 2m beyond the cut plane.

 

There's a problem with the way this is implemented, though, because VW draws it as if you've sliced the model along that 2m line. It means that in certain situations, you see a line representing the cut edge of sliced elements. But this is hardly ever what you'd want to see; you don't want this cut edge to be shown. Unless there's some option I'm missing, there's not currently any way to get around this other than judicious choice of depth of extent, such that no such lines appear but this often forces the depth to be something other than what you really want.

[luiza_finger]

Well... at least in my usual situations, showing objects far away from the cut plane are for "context" as @line-weight mentioned.

Now, sometimes this threshold will section objects in half. So I wonder how the implementation could work this out... It's not too straighforward, in my opinion. Something like this may be hard to promote a logical render state to me:

 

 

 

 I would rather have this table rendered totally by class or totally beyond.... not a mix from both.

But either way... I would be happy even if the table was rendered in a mixed state. I would likely find  a position to the red line that wouldnt section elementws in half.

 

Edited March 13, 2023 by luiza_finger

[line-weight]

Yes, that's exactly the problem I'm describing in my post above yours @luiza_finger.

 

For me the most logical render is that you see the (horizontal) elevation lines of the edges of the table until they hit the threshold - then they simply stop. But you don't see any (vertical) lines where the table edges are "cut" by the threashold.

[Tom W.]

15 minutes ago, luiza_finger said:

Well... at least in my usual situations, showing objects far away from the cut plane are for "context" as @line-weight mentioned.

Now, sometimes this threshold will section objects in half. So I wonder how the implementation could work this out... It's not too straighforward, in my opinion. Something like this may be hard to promote a logical render state to me:

 

 

 

 I would rather have this table rendered totally by class or totally beyond.... not a mix from both.

But either way... I would be happy even if the table was rendered in a mixed state. I would likely find  a position to the red line that wouldnt section elementws in half.

 

 

Could the 'depth of field threshold' line be reshapable like the section line?

 

 

[line-weight]

24 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

Could the 'depth of field threshold' line be reshapable like the section line?

 

 

 

Might work in some scenarios... but what if there's a sloping pitched roof immediately above that furniture - unless the threshold "slice edge" can be not shown, you'll see that staggered drawn where it cuts the sloping roof.

[Michael Siggers]

On 3/8/2023 at 9:17 PM, Tom W. said:

(and/or Standards User file)

Hi @Tom W.

 

A late reply to this, but slowly becoming more proficient in Vectorworks, and now looking at this. Is this the 'Layer, Class, and Viewport Standards' under the 'Standard Naming' setup command? So, now looking at setting up this Standard.

 

Mike

[Tom W.]

9 minutes ago, Michael Siggers said:

Hi @Tom W.

 

A late reply to this, but slowly becoming more proficient in Vectorworks, and now looking at this. Is this the 'Layer, Class, and Viewport Standards' under the 'Standard Naming' setup command? So, now looking at setting up this Standard.

 

Mike

 

Hi Mike no Standard Naming is something else + I've never used it so am the wrong person to ask about that. What I was talking about was the 'Standards' user folder: if you create a .VWX file containing all your classes, design layers + sheet layers + save it in this folder, those classes/layers will be available from the 'New Class'/'New Design Layer'/'New Sheet Layer' dialogs from any file making it a very convenient way of bringing classes/layers into your files when you need them. So I have every class under the sun in my standards file (there is a clever way to export classes to the file every time you come up with a new one + want to save it for future use) + only the ones I use in every project in my template files. Then when I need to bring a class into a file I go to New Class > Import classes + select my standards file from the drop-down + all the classes I ever use will be there to select from.

 

The same applies to a lesser degree (for me) for design layers. I never import sheet layers this way as I have them all set up in my template files.

 

To find the standards user folder go to VW Preferences > User Folders > Reveal in Finder (this is going to be different on Windows...) then Libraries > Defaults > Standards.

[Michael Siggers]

Brilliant, thank you @Tom W.

 

I have a Template File I can update with all my Classes and I'll save that into that folder as a .VWX file, such as 'MDS CAD Standards.vwx'.

 

Yes, I think I will leave Sheet Layers off as well as these are created to suit the Project.

 

Mike

[Tom W.]

28 minutes ago, Michael Siggers said:

Brilliant, thank you @Tom W.

 

I have a Template File I can update with all my Classes and I'll save that into that folder as a .VWX file, such as 'MDS CAD Standards.vwx'.

 

Yes, I think I will leave Sheet Layers off as well as these are created to suit the Project.

 

Mike

 

Cool. And the easy method to add new classes to the standards file (courtesy of @Boh!) is:

 

1. Create an object (rectangle or circle or something) + assign it to the new class you've just created.

2. Turn the object into a symbol.

3. Find the symbol in the Resource Manager, right-click on it, select 'Export...' + in the 'Export Resource' dialog navigate to the 'MDS CAD Standards' file + export the symbol here: it will add the classes to the file. They will be there immediately for use. No shutting down + restarting or anything.

 

Obviously if you have multiple classes to export to standards create a single symbol containing multiple objects.

 

Once you've exported the first symbol, the next time you do it 'MDS CAD Standards' will be at the top of the list in 'Recent Export Files' so you won't have to root around to find it again.