jamesmise Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 (edited) So to reduce file size I was converting some of my extrude along paths to meshes or generic solids. But the hidden line rendering shows all the lines in the mesh or generic solid which is not a clean look in my elevations. Is there any other way to render a mesh so it looks as clean as an extrude? The attached picture shows a mesh on the left and an extrude along path on the right. By the way, to convert an extrude along path to a generic solid. Convert to Mesh. Convert to Nurbs. Ungroup. 3d Power Pack - Stitch and Trim. Jim Edited August 11, 2014 by jamesmise Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted August 11, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted August 11, 2014 Yes, the "Smoothing Angle" option within Hidden Line's "Line Render Options". Usually something around 25 or 30 degrees will give good results, but it depends on your geometry and can be tweaked to your liking. Quote Link to comment
jamesmise Posted August 11, 2014 Author Share Posted August 11, 2014 Answered my own question. In Line Render Options, increase the smoothing angle. Thanks. Your Welcome. Quote Link to comment
jamesmise Posted August 11, 2014 Author Share Posted August 11, 2014 Viewports created with a low smoothing angle did not update when the smoothing angle was raised on the design layer. This had to be adjusted in the background render settings of each viewport. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted August 11, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted August 11, 2014 Correct, viewports will keep the rendering settings they had upon creation. If you create viewports after you make changes to the design layer rendering settings, they will take on those new settings and hold them until they are modified per-viewport. Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 (edited) James, The render settings on the design layers are completely independent of the render settings for each sheet layer viewport as you discovered. I was reminded of a simpler way to get from an Extrude Along Path (EAP) to a generic solid. Choose the EAP and ungroup it. It will turn into a group of NURBS surfaces which you can then stitch and trim. I've often wondered about efficiency and its been discussed in the forums at various times. In my mind the EAP should actually be the most efficient in terms of storage. Programs like C4D use primitives and parametric objects for efficiency but that doesn't seem to be true in VW. I created a series of test files and compared them. I've included the base file here. 1) The first file contains the base object, saved while the 3d conversion resolution was set to High (Preferences>3D>3D Conversion Resolution). 2) The base object reserved after changing the 3d conversion resolution to Low. 3) The base object was ungrouped, creating 3 NURBS surfaces. 4) The base object was ungrouped, creating 3 NURBS surfaces. The resulting NURBS were turned into a Generic Solid using Stitch and Trim. 5) The base object was converted to a mesh using Convert to Mesh while the 3d conversion resolution was set to High The results are interesting. The cleanest, smallest geometry comes from 4. Kevin PS. As an experiment I exported the base file to Rhino. The resulting geometry is 28k. I also tried saving an empty VW file. The result is 535k. Some of the file size is clearly VW overhead. Edited August 11, 2014 by Kevin McAllister Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 One other note. Be careful about converting to generic solids this way. I discovered even my simple example creates problem geometry. Try sectioning the geometry of file 4 above and you'll see its not actually a "solid". For whatever reason the geometry doesn't join at the bottom inside ring seam after the conversion and VW sees it as hollow. If you're cutting sections through models for your drawings you'll want to be aware of this. Kevin Quote Link to comment
jamesmise Posted August 17, 2014 Author Share Posted August 17, 2014 Wow. Good Stuff. It would be great if objects had some sort of file size in the oip. I had a designer give me a huge file once, and after deleting objects one at a time and checking the resulting file size, I discovered a 50mb piece of trim! Quote Link to comment
CipesDesign Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 That reminds me... I need to go to my local lumber supplier and ask if they sell trim by the MB. Quote Link to comment
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