2D components being displayed wrongly in viewports

[oliver.williams]

Hello, when making a viewport in VW23, I make a plan view and 2D surfaces that are on the face of a 3D object seem to 'stand off' the surface they are on. For example in the Iso photo below the white 2D rectangles are on the face of the 3D, not stood off at all, they are flush with the faces of the 3D object. However when i make a top view viewport of this, the 2D shapes appear to stand off and not be flush with the faces. I dont want these extra lines appearing, why is VW doing this? 

 

[Domas]

Hello Oliver!

 

I tried to recreate this problem, but it seems to be working fine on my side. Maybe you could copy this object into an empty file, create the viewport. See if the problem is still there. If it is, maybe you could save that file and attach it here for further inspection? 

[oliver.williams]

On 10/17/2023 at 12:23 PM, Domas said:

Hello Oliver!

 

I tried to recreate this problem, but it seems to be working fine on my side. Maybe you could copy this object into an empty file, create the viewport. See if the problem is still there. If it is, maybe you could save that file and attach it here for further inspection? 

 

Here is a simple file that ive tried it in and it still happens. I will share this file with you. A viewport in wireframe mode works correclty and doesnt sdtand off the 2D rectangles on the surface of the cuboid. But in hidden line view the 2D rectangles still seem to stand off the edge. Shared file here

2D Viewport test.vwx

[Domas]

Hello @oliver.williams

Thank you very much for the file! 
Well it seems i can not explain this. I reported this as a bug (internal ticket VB-200050) just to get a better explanation on how we can justify this if this is working as designed. Il try to keep you updated on this one!

[Domas]

Just an update on this case - engineering is looking further and ill do my best to find the answer to this case. Seems like its a thing in multiple versions of Vectorworks. To speed this up i pinged the internal ticket.

[line-weight]

Zoom out from the sheet layer, update the viewport and zoom back in again. You'll see that the off-stand is greater. Or, zoom right in to the sheet layer so that you can see the off-stand very clearly, and update the viewport. You'll see that it gets smaller.

 

There are a few things like this that seem to be related to how zoomed in or out you are when you update a viewport. I've complained about them in the past but no interest has been shown. From memory, it happens with ambient occlusion effects, and it also affects the exact pixel dimensions of renderworks viewports when you render them (if you do the render at two different zoom levels, the resultant images will differ in size by a pixel or two).

[Andrew Bell]

The offset of planar objects is done to make stacked, coplanar planar objects look like the plan-view equivalent, otherwise the overlapping objects will show all their lines (in hidden line), or with their fills overlapping and tearing (in Shaded rendering and possibly Renderworks.) If the objects are viewed face-on, you generally won't see the offset, but since it offsets based on the planar object's plane, if viewed edge-on the offset is most visible. It's actually happening in the iso view but because the offset is small, it's not apparent. For a workaround, do these need to be 2D polygons rather than 3D? The latter are not offset.

[line-weight]

@Andrew Bell I would be interested to know, whether viewports rendering differently according to my zoom level, viewing a sheet layer, is something that is working as intended. Surely the rendering-out of a viewport should be consistent regardless of how I happen to be viewing the sheet layer at the moment of update.

Edited October 25, 2023 by line-weight

[Andrew Bell]

3 hours ago, line-weight said:

@Andrew Bell I would be interested to know, whether viewports rendering differently according to my zoom level, viewing a sheet layer, is something that is working as intended. Surely the rendering-out of a viewport should be consistent regardless of how I happen to be viewing the sheet layer at the moment of update.

That is definitely unintentional, as there is code specifically meant to prevent it. Structural changes to support multithreading and backgrounding of viewport updates have made it so the condition it checks to prevent it is no longer true. So that's a bug.

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Andrew Bell said:

That is definitely unintentional, as there is code specifically meant to prevent it. Structural changes to support multithreading and backgrounding of viewport updates have made it so the condition it checks to prevent it is no longer true. So that's a bug.

 

I have just checked the other two scenarios where I've noticed something similar in the past. This is in VW2023 SP7.

 

The first relates to the size of ambient occlusion effects. This seems to be fixed, or at least I haven't managed to replicate it.

 

The other relates to the size of bitmaps produced from rendered viewports. I tried with a perspective view, shaded, and I can observe the effect here.

 

To replicate:

 

1. Choose & select a shaded viewport on a sheet layer

2. Zoom a long way out from the sheet

3. Update the viewport

4. Duplicate & make a copy of the viewport, set the duplicate to the side and convert to group

5. Zoom right in on the original viewport,

6. Once again update it

7. Once again, duplicate and make a copy, set the duplicate to the side and convert it to group

8. Now you have two groups, each of which contains a bitmap.

 

Examine & compare the two bitmaps and you should see that they are not the exact same dimensions. And in fact you may well be able to find details within the image that have rendered slightly differently in each case.

[Domas]

Hello @oliver.williams!

Thank you for your patience with this. I spoke with the team and we got an answer for this question. 

 

In the end it is working as designed. 

 

When Hidden Line rendering mode is used we need to be aware that it is a 3D rendering mode. You will notice that every single time rendering is set to be Hidden Line the viewport view changes to TOP view. The offset is added to planar objects. As those objects are 2D and they don't really have any thickness Vectorworks gives it a little bit of offset to make the 2d object visible in 3d so that the user would be aware that the object is present. This is mainly because you might be adding planar objects like text and data tags that will end up being planar, but in other scenarios we need them to be visible and not to intersect with the 3D shape. What I found that if we give the planar shape some thickness it should not show up in top hidden line view. 

I really hope it makes sense and I explained it well. All in all this seems to be working as designed. 

What i would recommend to do is to post a new wish list feature and explain why this is a problem for yourself:
https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/forum/19-wishlist-feature-and-content-requests/

As well we have made a request under our internal ticket (VB-200050) to possibly improve this in the future. 

[line-weight]

On 10/24/2023 at 4:40 PM, line-weight said:

Zoom out from the sheet layer, update the viewport and zoom back in again. You'll see that the off-stand is greater. Or, zoom right in to the sheet layer so that you can see the off-stand very clearly, and update the viewport. You'll see that it gets smaller.

 

On 10/25/2023 at 3:22 PM, Andrew Bell said:

That is definitely unintentional, as there is code specifically meant to prevent it. Structural changes to support multithreading and backgrounding of viewport updates have made it so the condition it checks to prevent it is no longer true. So that's a bug.

 

@Domas has this bug been recognised / will it be addressed?

[Domas]

Hello @line-weight!

No, that's a potential bug and I have updated the internal ticket with this information. As this is more likely something failing in the software code I might not be able to get any news on it until it is confirmed and resolved.

 

To confirm again, this is updated under the internal ticket VB-200050 . To get more updates on this case, as well, don't hesitate to contact technical support team by email through your customers portal account. 

[Andrew Bell]

2 hours ago, line-weight said:

 

 

@Domas has this bug been recognised / will it be addressed?

 

This bug has been resolved for an upcoming update.

[line-weight]

On 10/25/2023 at 5:26 PM, line-weight said:

The other relates to the size of bitmaps produced from rendered viewports. I tried with a perspective view, shaded, and I can observe the effect here.

 

To replicate:

 

1. Choose & select a shaded viewport on a sheet layer

2. Zoom a long way out from the sheet

3. Update the viewport

4. Duplicate & make a copy of the viewport, set the duplicate to the side and convert to group

5. Zoom right in on the original viewport,

6. Once again update it

7. Once again, duplicate and make a copy, set the duplicate to the side and convert it to group

8. Now you have two groups, each of which contains a bitmap.

 

Examine & compare the two bitmaps and you should see that they are not the exact same dimensions. And in fact you may well be able to find details within the image that have rendered slightly differently in each case.

How about this one?

[Domas]

Dear @line-weight,

I don't think this is exactly the same problem as the one we were working on before. It kind of is relating with the latest update, but this is no longer a Hidden line planar objects offset issue. I will open a different internal ticket for this case to be looked into separately. 

I have tried to replicate this using Vectorworks 2024 with a quick test following the steps mentioned above with no luck. Can I please ask you to create a new thread in the forum and tag me @Domas for this question? If its possible, could you provide a test file and possibly a video recording of the problem? If this will end up being a potential bug I will make sure to report it and get the correct team to look into this as soon as possible. If there is any more information or if this leads to any further issues you are having we will address those as well! 

[line-weight]

2 hours ago, Domas said:

Dear @line-weight,

I don't think this is exactly the same problem as the one we were working on before. It kind of is relating with the latest update, but this is no longer a Hidden line planar objects offset issue. I will open a different internal ticket for this case to be looked into separately. 

I have tried to replicate this using Vectorworks 2024 with a quick test following the steps mentioned above with no luck. Can I please ask you to create a new thread in the forum and tag me @Domas for this question? If its possible, could you provide a test file and possibly a video recording of the problem? If this will end up being a potential bug I will make sure to report it and get the correct team to look into this as soon as possible. If there is any more information or if this leads to any further issues you are having we will address those as well! 

 

Have done this here:

 

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/112355-zoom-level-when-updating-render-viewport-affects-render-image-dimensions/