Section Viewport Display?

[Pat Stanford]

In VW 2025 Data Viz is right below the Render Mode to the right of the active class.

[Bruce Kieffer]

5 minutes ago, Pat Stanford said:

In VW 2025 Data Viz is right below the Render Mode to the right of the active class.

Thanks @Pat Stanford. VH help told me to look in the View Bar, which I assumed was at the top right above my drawing window.

[Pat Stanford]

It is not well explained in the help, but the "View Bar" actually runs all the way across the top of the application window. It includes the Saved Views, Projection, Layer, Class, Render Mode, Data Visualization Font (as of VW2025), Snapping, Zoom, Scale.  By clicking on the Settings button at the far right you can turn off items you don't need/want.  If you look really carefully, under the Settings button it actually says "View Bar"

 

Below the View Bar is the "Mode Bar". It also runs full across the application window and includes the plane mode, tool modes and the Quick Prefs. You can choose the Quick Prefs you want to say pinned via the Quick Prefs Settings on the far right.

 

 

[Tom W.]

39 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Surely the least convoluted way to not show the shelves would be just to put them in a "shelf" class and then turn that class off in the vport.

 

I thought the whole point was that Bruce wanted to see the shelves but be able to see through them to the biscuits behind? Applying Hidden Object Display is no more clicks than turning a class off. Even creating a Material-based Data Vis only takes a couple of seconds.

[Tom W.]

45 minutes ago, Bruce Kieffer said:

I can't find my Data Viz menu in the View Bar. 

 

In your case I would just do it from the Sheet Layer. With the VP selected look for 'Data Visualisation' in the OIP;

 

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

 

I thought the whole point was that Bruce wanted to see the shelves but be able to see through them to the biscuits behind? Applying Hidden Object Display is no more clicks than turning a class off. Even creating a Material-based Data Vis only takes a couple of seconds.

 

Maybe that's what @Bruce Kiefferwants (in which case these solutions work well) but drawing a section where solid elements are effectively portrayed as hollow goes against the technical drawing conventions I am used to, and just seems like a way to cause confusion.

[Bruce Kieffer]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

 

In your case I would just do it from the Sheet Layer. With the VP selected look for 'Data Visualisation' in the OIP;

 

Thanks @Tom W. I have it working now.

[Bruce Kieffer]

15 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

Maybe that's what @Bruce Kiefferwants (in which case these solutions work well) but drawing a section where solid elements are effectively portrayed as hollow goes against the technical drawing conventions I am used to, and just seems like a way to cause confusion.

I understand your concern, but in my case all of this could be solved if only there was a wireframe render setting for section VPs, or the ability to hide objects inside of a symbol.

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Bruce Kieffer said:

I understand your concern, but in my case all of this could be solved if only there was a wireframe render setting for section VPs, or the ability to hide objects inside of a symbol.

There is the ability to hide objects inside a symbol - put them in a dedicated class & make the class invisible.

[Bruce Kieffer]

29 minutes ago, line-weight said:

There is the ability to hide objects inside a symbol - put them in a dedicated class & make the class invisible.

True, but it does not work using the hide selected objects command introduced in 2025.

[line-weight]

11 hours ago, Bruce Kieffer said:

True, but it does not work using the hide selected objects command introduced in 2025.

Indeed, it's a shame that the hide objects command doesn't work within symbols. Perhaps this will become possible in the future.

[Mickey]

On 2/17/2025 at 6:55 AM, line-weight said:

 

I think this has all been covered already in the thread - what you want is not a conventional sectional drawing. You want an elevation of a part. By definition if you don't want the drawing to show sectioned geometry, then it's not a section that you're after. Hiding objects isn't a workaround - it's the logical way to produce a drawing where you don't want those objects to be included.

 

In your case, the left hand VP happens to work in wireframe because it's a simple part, but really it should be rendered in hidden line, not wireframe.

 

But actually my question was to @Mickey rather than to you. @Mickey is additionally talking about the clip cube and I'm not sure exactly what they mean.

 

 

I will have to find a file that I can try to post.

I work in Entertainment.

I create a lot of temporary structures with truss, pipe, and cheeseboroughs.

Add lights, scenery, and other gak, and things can get complicated.

As an example I might want to show, a simple Iso view in wireframe, using the clipcube so all of the other 3D geometry is hidden, like the venue, maybe scenery, or other large items that might block the view.

If I was working on the kind of project, like a building, that is years in the making I could take the time to class everything in detail and hide them in viewports

But in entertainment I might only spend a few days on a drawing, and don't have the time to micro class everything, and create saved views.

So ideally I can use the clipcube, select the objects I want, and create a viewport.

But when it's rendered some of the detail is now blocked because of the solid objects.

Oh, and let me add that because the OpenGL (shaded) lighting is broken and has been for years, as soon as you add a lighting object it changes all of the rendered lighting.

So again a simple wire frame viewport created from the clipcube would be a huge time saver.

It makes no sense to me that you can view your drawing space in wireframe from clipcube, but can't capture that view with a viewport.

 

[Jonathan Pickup]

If you wanted to create specific viewports where some objects were hidden and you haven't got time to class objects, use the visibility tool to hide objects you don't want then set that as your viewport. Objects hidden in the designer can be remembered as hidden in your viewports. This stops you having to class objects and allow you just to pick objects you want to hide. 

You can also use this technique to create saved views because saving a view will remember the visibility state of object objects. 

[Mickey]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Pickup said:

If you wanted to create specific viewports where some objects were hidden and you haven't got time to class objects, use the visibility tool to hide objects you don't want then set that as your viewport. Objects hidden in the designer can be remembered as hidden in your viewports. This stops you having to class objects and allow you just to pick objects you want to hide. 

You can also use this technique to create saved views because saving a view will remember the visibility state of object objects. 

That seems simple, but it's never that simple.

I know I'm not explaining perfectly, but a viewport in wireframe made from a clipcube does exactly what I want.

Instead. Why doesn't the software I pay a lot of money for do something I want it to?

 

 

 

[Pat Stanford]

Because at some point in the distant past someone other than you said that what they wanted the software to do was different than what you want today and that is what the programmers selected to do.

 

Make posts in the wish list forum or submit bugs on what you want and maybe you will get lucky and enough other people will ask for the same thing that your wish will be granted.

 

(it is too late and I have been drinking for too long to be making this post, but it is too late and I have been drinking for too long to not make it.)

[line-weight]

14 hours ago, Mickey said:

I will have to find a file that I can try to post.

I work in Entertainment.

I create a lot of temporary structures with truss, pipe, and cheeseboroughs.

Add lights, scenery, and other gak, and things can get complicated.

As an example I might want to show, a simple Iso view in wireframe, using the clipcube so all of the other 3D geometry is hidden, like the venue, maybe scenery, or other large items that might block the view.

If I was working on the kind of project, like a building, that is years in the making I could take the time to class everything in detail and hide them in viewports

But in entertainment I might only spend a few days on a drawing, and don't have the time to micro class everything, and create saved views.

So ideally I can use the clipcube, select the objects I want, and create a viewport.

But when it's rendered some of the detail is now blocked because of the solid objects.

Oh, and let me add that because the OpenGL (shaded) lighting is broken and has been for years, as soon as you add a lighting object it changes all of the rendered lighting.

So again a simple wire frame viewport created from the clipcube would be a huge time saver.

It makes no sense to me that you can view your drawing space in wireframe from clipcube, but can't capture that view with a viewport.

 

Ok, now I understand what you want.

 

When you said "create a viewport from clipcube" it was not clear whether you were talking about one way you can make section viewports, which is to make a clipcube and then choose one of its faces to generate a conventional section viewport.

 

But you simply want to be able to view a clip-cubed wireframe in a viewport, like you can in a design layer. So something like this in principle -

 

 

I can see why it would be frustrating that it's possible in a design layer but for some reason not in a viewport.

 

 

[Bruce Kieffer]

This discussion about Clip Cube got me wondering if I could do what I want to do using Clip Cube, and it looks like I can.

 

Here's my pantry without the doors.

I hid all the classes I don't want to see.

I used the Clip Cube to cut like a section VP, then set the render to wireframe.

I switched the view to Right View and created this VP. It works!

[line-weight]

22 hours ago, Bruce Kieffer said:

This discussion about Clip Cube got me wondering if I could do what I want to do using Clip Cube, and it looks like I can.

 

Here's my pantry without the doors.

I hid all the classes I don't want to see.

I used the Clip Cube to cut like a section VP, then set the render to wireframe.

I switched the view to Right View and created this VP. It works!

 

I've tried to replicate.

 

I don't think what you're getting in the viewport has the clip cube applied. It's just that it looks exactly the same as it would, because the object happens to be symmetrical about the "cut plane". Try switching to a front or back view and I think you'll find it's showing you the whole object. Or add some extra geometry to the half of the object that's clipped out by the clip cube. I think you'll find it appears in your viewport because it's just showing you a wireframe elevation of the whole thing.

[Bruce Kieffer]

Darn! @line-weight you are correct. I was fooled again thinking I had found a solution. I switched the vp view to right ISO and there's everything again. Crap!