3-D polylines having different line types

[Ford]

Reason for Request: It is sometimes necessary to represent 3-D objects as lines rather than as actual 3-D shapes. Examples include pipelines on site plans and municipal base maps, electrical wires in electrical riser diagrams, and plumbing piping in plumbing riser diagrams, Trying to represent these items as what they are, cylinders, is excessively time consuming, produces a bulky drawing with slow display times, and results in the objects not being represented in an industry standard way on final drawings. These problems are solved when 3-D polylines are used to draw the objects. However, the restriction that 3-D polylines always be represented as solid lines greatly restricts the utility of this approach, particularly with municipal base maps and site plans for complicated strictures, where several different size lines must be shown. Using line weights only to differentiate between 3/4-inch, 1-inch, 1 1/2-inch, 2-inch, 3-inch, 4-inch, 6-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch, 14-inch, 16-inch, 18-inch, 20-inch, 24-inch, 30-inch, and 36-inch piping is not practical, but sometimes all these size lines must be shown on a municipal base map.(and even some site plans). When you consider that other 3-d elements that can only practically be represented in 3-D by the use of polylines, must also be shown, such as storm drains, creeks, and ditches, the limitations created by only allowing 3-D polylines to be drawn as solid lines become evident. The final drawing is an unreadable mess, forcing the 3-D polylines to be converted to 2-D polygons and destroying the utility of the base map or site plan as a model.