dtm-mesh smoothing failure

[ray isaacs]

i've experienced several incidents of mesh smoothing failure working with the dtm with vw 2012. this seems to be caused by a variety of things. my current case is this: the model renders smooth until i add a particular texture bed (created as from a hardscape) very similar to others in the model. after updating, mesh smoothing no longer works. see before and after images attached.

has anyone experienced this? is it a bug? am i doing something wrong? after spending two days trying to get to the bottom of this, i need some help.

thanks for your attention.

[ray isaacs]

okay, after more work...it seems to be a data problem. when i take other site modifiers out, the texture bed in question works, mesh smoothing as well. the texture bed was the straw that broke the camel's back

this leads to two questions: where is the limit on data? is it in the dtm tool itself? in vectorworks? limited buy my computer's processor? or by the computers ram?

knowing the answer to that question can lead to answering this one: how do i solve this or work around it? one answer is to simplify the model, which i did. would it help to get a bigger, badder computer?

cheers,

ray

[monkey]

i have had many problems with the dtm tool. have tried it on bigger badder machines and it didnt seem to help very much. i have tried to create models of very large sites using 2m resolution height data and it takes hours and hours, then its a nightmare to work with after that.

i now only ever use the dtm tool for smaller sites and use less high resolution height data...... i think the tool needs a rework..... its seems very clunky to me at present. maybe being able to reference in the data like some GIS packages do would help, as they seem to have very little problems using this kind of data

[ray isaacs]

monkey,

thanks for your input. the dtm is a good concept. i wish is worked as it shouid. 2012 did little to improve it. i hope with 2013 vw gives it the attention it needs.

cheers,

ray