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Peter, the purpose was to hide varying portions of same symbol and in some occasions not to hide anything. I've used XCLIP with AutoCAD for references/blocks (read - for symbols in VW), so was looking to do same thing here.

Nering - what do you mean with "hide part of it with a viewport"? If you meant viewport crop then that's exactly what I'm after: having 2 viewports on my sheet layer, 1st VP for typical geometry, 2nd for my symbol exclusively with adjusted crop (cause I failed to include this symbol as CLIPped annotation object). What's a pain here - if I want to move my main VP, the additional VP has to be moved together.

But it takes what it takes. I saw NNA sample project Ellicot Heights done in similar manner with even 3 VPs on same sheet layer.

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Right-e-o. Well there's a few different ways to get there, you just need to decide which one best fits your desired workflow. Having no clue as to what your symbols actually contain or look like, or whether they have 2d only or are hybrid it's pretty hard to recommend an exact methodology. Perhaps you could post a screen shot of what you've got with some explanation of what you're after?? P

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Right-e-o. Well there's a few different ways to get there, you just need to decide which one best fits your desired workflow. Having no clue as to what your symbols actually contain or look like, or whether they have 2d only or are hybrid it's pretty hard to recommend an exact methodology. Perhaps you could post a screen shot of what you've got with some explanation of what you're after?? P

Alright. I'm after integrated and convenient way of dealing with structural grid (construction axis). Besides having structural grid in plan views I'm required to display axis also in elevations and sections (look at picture 1 for required result). So, in order to avoid creating repetitious linework of same thing (which I think is the root of error), I'm hunting for something that will allow me to store geometry of axis in as few places as possible. Thus far I've looked at 3 major concepts of possible workflow for this:

Nr.1 was symbol I include as annotation within VP. The problem was that I'm having axis also in 45?. That would be 8 symbols for sections/elevations plus the 1 for plan views. That makes 9 instances where I store my geometry. Better than nothing but far too much.

Nr. 2 was axis number bubble as 2D/3D symbol. For having text in 3D I converted it to polyline, extruded and rotated 3D. Later I'd use variuos classes for displaying only appropriate axis in VP. This was very promising from point of view of geometry management - I'd have only 1 design layer with my axis. The problem was that in elevations with Open GL rendering the symbol was looking blur. Just made the quick pic with Open GL rendering at scale 1:100. With other renderings the result is blur anyway. If someone could advise about how to make better quality rendering, that would be great. Then I could use 3D converted/extruded/rotated text as 3D components of door and window symbols - for labeling purpose in elevations/sections.

Nr. 3 is 1 design layer with axis in 2 classes and 2 VPs. 1 class is for plan view labels (text vertically only), other class is for rotated text to be used in side views. The possible errors are in placing these 2 VPs wrong together and necessity to move those 2 VPs together across my sheet layer. Currently I'm sticking with this workflow.

Any thoughts on this are very welcome!

Edited by Yancka
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Yancka, thanks for posting a more specific question and pictures. This is very helpful. I now understand what you are needing and I sympathize. You may not like this answer, and it may not be the only way or even the best way to get what you want in this specific case, but here's the way I would do it: create a 2d grid (as a symbol or a group or whatever) and add it as an annotation in the any VP where it is needed. Yes this would require that you keep track of some points of reference in various different views, but once placed the grid would live with the VP (ie: remain properly registered) unless you moved model in the design layer(s). And yes, it's work!

Perhaps others have additional methods to propose. I am curious to hear them!

As for rendering, I think that's a completely different question and so I suggest you post it separately with some specific info and pictures as required.

P

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To clip a symbol you could just draw a solid object over the symbol to either hide a portion of it or cover the entire symbol and then clip the portion of that object to create a window so to speak that would allow you to see through it to the symbol. Kind of like creating a mask. Then you could just group the two objects. If your fill is the same as your background and you turn off lines you wont see the mask.

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Thanks Peter for your input!

And thanks Greg for your advise! I tried it and it works... only if I use Hidden line rendering for VP. If I use other rendering modes there appears another problem which is draw order. There are 3 logical objects: A) the white mask; B) visible part of symbol; C) graphics of DL. A must be under C, B must be under A and C must be under B. So each of them has to be at the bottom :)

I'll consider if C under B is a must.

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As for rendering, I think that's a completely different question and so I suggest you post it separately with some specific info and pictures as required.

It was as simple as Sheet Layer printing resolution (DPI) number. I had it 72.

Btw, could it be that too low DPI causes longer VP updating time because computer needs to perform extra calculations for "bluring" the rendering as set in DPI field?

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