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Curved Walls in Elevation


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When i try to draw exterior elevations with curved walls, they come out a black solid. This is due to hundreds of lines that are produced to show the curve as a shade.

I am making the elevations by using the convert copy to lines tool on a front, back, etc. view of the model. I choose hidden line rendering.

Is there a way to create these curved wall elevations without the shading?

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Kevin, I believe I do simular types of drawings, (such as the convert to [ line>hidden line] I have running in the background right now). Your problem with the multitude of lines are as TS stated, potentially related to your 3d resolution settings. Check your 3d resolution in [File>Preferences>Vectorworks Prefs>3d Tab].

Besides using the curved wall tool, you can also draw the wall, VW9, by drawing the inner arc & outer arc in 2d, extrude to wall height, ungroup the 2 arcs if extruded together and then {Model>Subtract Solids} . This would work if the wall doesn't have windows or doors. This gives you a 3d solid that has less lines when hidden line rendered.

There is also a way to set the render, also VW9, to eliminate sets of lines. A frind of mine told me that trick and I will ask him again if the answer doesn't appear here .

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The line based renderers (not OpenGL or RenderWorks) have a smoothing angle as a hidden preference.

You can adjust it between 0-90 to remove extra lines from curved surfaces.

Here is an example script to let you adjust this.

{----------Begin VectorScript--------}Procedure SetSmoothingAngle;

VARangle, newAngle : REAL;

BEGINangle := GetPrefReal(72);newAngle := RealDialog('Enter new smoothing angle in degrees', Num2Str(1, angle));if angle <> newAngle then SetPrefReal(72, newAngle);END;

Run(SetSmoothingAngle);{----------End VectorScript--------}

Matthew GiampapaNNA Technical Support

[ 08-23-2002: Message edited by: Matthew Giampapa ]

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Thank you to all for the helpful input and the quick responses. After reading the suggestions I tried changing the 3d conversion setting. It was set on "Very High". I tried another "convert copy to line" using the opposite setting which is 3d conversion "Low" It was like night and day!!! The rendering time was drastically shortened and the problem was solved. Now instead of hundreds of lines on the curve, there are 10 to 20. It is exactly what I needed. The rendering now looks normal, like I would have drawn it by hand. I only wish I had known about the 3d conversion tab sooner. I just assumed that higher was better. (Bad assumption).

Matthew: Thank you for the vectorscript advice. I have never tried Vectorscript and frankly have no idea of what you are describing. I am interested though. How do I go about starting to learn the fundamentals so that I can implement your suggestion?

Katie: Thank you too for your quick reply. You asked why I would use "convert copy to line" to create an exterior elevation. I must of course now ask you how you would create an exterior elevation. I am anxiously waiting to see if you have an even better way of doing this.

Thank you to all for your current and continuing help.

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Matthew;Thank you for your reply. As I described earlier, the 3d conversion tab worked great for fixing the problem. However, this only worked on curved walls. As part of the model I have floors which of course have edges that curve to match the walls. In the elevation view, these curved floors still have the hundreds of lines.

Will your Vectorscript example solve this problem?

Thank you.

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Matthew,

Just to add my 2 cents worth on converting 3D to lines and the profusion of vertices that results: one of the big reasons to do this is to be able to delete those and other unecessary lines. Another is to adjust line weights, add conventional drafting detailing, and a host of other reasons important to architects - including adding lines at intersecting surfaces which the rendering engine omits. What we would like is an accessible preference setting which does what your VS routine does, not only for the display of rendered objects, but also for conversion to lines. This preference might ideally be set globally with the option to overide on an object-by-object basis. I'll copy this to the wish list session.

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