Section Viewports

[shorter]

Would anyone find it useful to have a button to lock the position of section viewports when placed on a design layer?

 

Why don't section viewports have the same X, Y and Z values that normal viewports have on design layers?

 

It is impossible to know if one has moved, which is critical if you want to ensure your details are coordinated with the model.

[Pat Stanford]

Would encapsulating the Viewport inside an object that won't move be helpful? Or do you actually need to access the Section Viewport to edit Annotations and Crop?

[line-weight]

On 1/5/2024 at 5:48 PM, shorter said:

Would anyone find it useful to have a button to lock the position of section viewports when placed on a design layer?

 

Why don't section viewports have the same X, Y and Z values that normal viewports have on design layers?

 

It is impossible to know if one has moved, which is critical if you want to ensure your details are coordinated with the model.

 

What do you use section viewports for, on design layers? What are they placed relative to, and why?

[Elite Exhibits]

@shorter

 

Does LOCK not work for you in this situation ?

 

Might be in a different location in your Workspace ...

 

 

Peter

[shorter]

@Elite Exhibits This does not work like the 'lock position' option in the OIP for standard viewports, which also gives you the option to change layers and classes associated to the viewport, so in other words, it's useless.

[shorter]

21 hours ago, line-weight said:

 

What do you use section viewports for, on design layers? What are they placed relative to, and why?

 

Where do you draw details?

 

Are your details coordinated with your model or anyone's model in modelspace?  Would you be able to issue a DWG of a detail and know that it is coordinated with your consultants model...  Would you be able to reference your detail back to your model or plan or section to inform the model/plan/section?

 

Hint... If you draw detail in the sheet layer viewport, you cannot answer yes to any of the above.

[shorter]

On 1/8/2024 at 2:25 AM, Pat Stanford said:

Would encapsulating the Viewport inside an object that won't move be helpful? Or do you actually need to access the Section Viewport to edit Annotations and Crop?

The Section VP is on a design layer.  The properties are very different on a standard viewport, i.e. one taken from a plan in top/plan view.  Why?

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, shorter said:

 

Where do you draw details?

 

Are your details coordinated with your model or anyone's model in modelspace?  Would you be able to issue a DWG of a detail and know that it is coordinated with your consultants model...  Would you be able to reference your detail back to your model or plan or section to inform the model/plan/section?

 

Hint... If you draw detail in the sheet layer viewport, you cannot answer yes to any of the above.

 

My details are extracted directly from the model, so usually they are sheet layer section viewports that directly display model geometry, with some additional info added in the annotation space. I'm aware this method may not work for others.

 

I'm just curious how your approach works; I don't understand why a section viewport needs to be on a design layer and in a particular location. Isn't it the section-elevation line, the one that determines where the section is taken, that's the thing that needs to be in a specific location?

[shorter]

Our models respect standard UK LOD definitions.  They are never detailed enough to generate detail (because they are max. LOD3 or LOD4, and modelled to deliver 1:50 GAs only) and in any case I have never seen a detail extracted from a model that I would have been proud to have drawn in 2D myself (other than those derived from a model built in rhino and sectioned in vectorworks, but even then it was max. 1:20).

 

So all our details are drawn in 2D, just as they are in other BIM authoring tools, using the model as the coordinating 'general arrangement' underlay.

[line-weight]

5 minutes ago, shorter said:

Our models respect standard UK LOD definitions.  They are never detailed enough to generate detail (because they are max. LOD3 or LOD4, and modelled to deliver 1:50 GAs only) and in any case I have never seen a detail extracted from a model that I would have been proud to have drawn in 2D myself (other than those derived from a model built in rhino and sectioned in vectorworks, but even then it was max. 1:20).

 

So all our details are drawn in 2D, just as they are in other BIM authoring tools, using the model as the coordinating 'general arrangement' underlay.

 

So is your method that you generate section viewports from the model, lay them out flat on a design layer, then have another design layer (only containing 2d linework) that you kind of trace them through to? And then that 2d stuff gets viewported to a sheet layer?

 

I think I would try and use grid lines & elevation benchmarks as my checks that things had not moved.

 

 

[shorter]

27 minutes ago, line-weight said:

I think I would try and use grid lines & elevation benchmarks as my checks that things had not moved.

 

 

 

You shouldn't need to do this.  You don't for standard viewports.  This is why we need a 'lock position' and also X, Y and Z feedback for section viewports in the OIP.  It does not make any sense not having this information.

 

The easiest way to check if a design layer viewport has moved is to check it's coordinates.  If they are not all 0, it's been moved.  If it's been moved it is no longer coordinated.

 

The easiest way to put it in the right i.e. coordinated place? Set X, Y and Z to 0.

 

Remember one of the reasons why BIM has reared it's ugly head is because of "the design team's inability to coordinate the design properly".  Not my words.

 

That said, even with BIM perhaps 10% of consultants we come across using BIM software actually issue coordinated data, and perhaps 1% do so in both 2D and 3D.

 

The frustrating thing is that it is so easy to do, i.e. so easy to issue coordinated data from all dimensions.

Edited January 9 by shorter

[line-weight]

I am still trying to understand the workflow/method.

 

If you create a vertical section viewport on a design layer you get a kind of 3d object, right? Rather than a 2d thing, like you do on a sheet layer.

 

And the cut plane, which is what you want to trace from, therefore exists on a vertical plane. So how do you trace from it in (or use it as an underlay for) 2d linework? Where is the 2d linework drawn?

 

Or do you use "display flattened"?

[shorter]

1 hour ago, line-weight said:

Or do you use "display flattened"?

 

Getting warmer... 😉

[line-weight]

10 minutes ago, shorter said:

 

Getting warmer... 😉

Ok, so then we have a vertical cut plane effectively rotated 90 degrees so that it is laying as a horizontal plane, right?

 

What I don't get is how you would then meaningfully relate the 0,0 for this plane to a 0,0 in the 3d model.

 

It's straightforward for a top/plan (or horizontal section) viewport to have its X and Y zero points superimposed on the model's X and Y zero points, because nothing has been rotated, and the Z values become irrelevant.

 

It's different for a vertical section though. Its cut plane might intersect with the X axis, or the Y axis, or both. What lines up with what, or determines where it is placed?