Blue Event Horizon - 3d Model

[Benson Shaw]

Could Vectorworks have a global filter or control to resolve issues of design detail vs lag in navigation, rendering and view adjustment? Continuous monitor of hardware status to only reveal or calculate what is required up to some global user settings for zoom, distance, general detail or other parameters? See this thread about a window detail:

https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=224696#Post224696

The fantasy vwx 3d model includes every detail everywhere in the model, so that a view, plan, section or elevation anywhere in the model will reveal everything about that portion of the model. But overall model detail can lag or crash the hardware during pan, zoom, render. So we resort to efficiency strategies - simplified geometry, modified sections, lower conversion and resolution, textures instead of object detail, creating and managing dual geometry - simple working version & complex presentation version, etc. Lots of this is compromise to accommodate hardware and software limitations rather than limits in wetware (users) skill and imagination.

An example is user control of label magnification in GIS software. For instance in road maps, zoom out and only the nation/county and city name labels are visible. Start zooming in and labels for more details populate the screen. Towns and highways are added first, then arterials, then secondary streets, then business names & building outlines. The labels only magnify to a certain extent, then reset as zoom changes. The map is very complete and detailed, but not all detail is displayed at all zoom levels. It’s a software solution, at least for labels, to hardware limitations of efficient navigation of the model, screen redraws & onscreen information density.

-B

Edited March 16, 2016 by Benson Shaw

[PVA - Admin]

Sort of! There are changes actively being worked on that will allow for a little more of this. Currently Top/Plan is drawn by a very old module that we intend to replace with VGM that powers the nice fast OpenGL render mode as well as 3D wireframe.

The issue in that thread (which I'll reply to in a bit, I've had my eye on it) is mainly that container objects like Solid Subtractions and Extrudes all pass through Core before you see a view update on screen, which is single core and slow. This shouldn't be needed and we will be able to separate some actions in Vectorworks from Core way before we can fully rewrite Core in multi thread.

Having "Level of Detail" filtering be user controllable (a common gaming terminology for the feature you recommend here) would also solve it, but from a different direction. Submitting it just in case it sparks an idea with an engineer for a faster way to make things smoother for users.

[Gilbert Osmond]

Could Vectorworks have a global filter or control to resolve issues of design detail vs lag in navigation, rendering and view adjustment? Continuous monitor of hardware status to only reveal or calculate what is required up to some global user settings for zoom, distance, general detail or other parameters?

Huge ++1, I've made other comments similar to this in other threads & a few days back I started my own Wish-List thread on it.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Gilbert Osmond