Best way to create elevations of objects not at 90?

[drmdzh]

As a scenic designer, rarely do I have walls parallel or at 90 to the proscenium. So what is the best way to create a plate of elevations (front, section and plan views?)

 

When creating a section I know I can do it from the top/plan view.

 

Is there a way to rotate the view of the viewport other than entering degrees in the dialogue box? I tried set working plane, but that didn't work. But many times I might have walls at "random" angles - (52.36 or whatever). Seems like there must be a better way?

 

Seems like this should be a basic function of VW - creating viewports from a 3D model, but this seems not to be addressed very well.

 

thanks.,

[rDesign]

It's really pretty simple if you create Section Viewports (in Top / Plan view) parallel to the non-orthogonal face.

Edited November 8, 2016 by rDesign

[drmdzh]

So are you saying that in Top/Plan in the design layer, you create a section viewport, but instead of cutting through the object, you run the section line parallel to the object to create a front elevation?

[rDesign]

Exactly. I use Section Viewports on DLs to make all my Interior & Exterior Elevations (as well as Sections).

 

The main thing to be aware of using Section Viewports to create Elevations is that if you move the Section Viewport marker symbol on the SL, it will also shift the Viewport on the DL. 

Edited November 8, 2016 by rDesign

[PVA - Admin]

What @rDesigndescribes is what I see the most, but I also have users who use "Set Working Plane" on the oddly angled wall faces, then click Look At Working Plane in the View bar, fit to objects and then View > Create Viewport from that.

[rDesign]

JimW's approach works just as well, but it doesn't work as well for production drawing coordination as there won't be a Section (or Elevation) key marker on the floor plan.

[PVA - Admin]

8 minutes ago, rDesign said:

JimW's approach works just as well, but it doesn't work as well for production drawing coordination as there won't be a Section (or Elevation) key marker on the floor plan.

Ahp, yep, that was the reason it's not used as often ^ Thank you for pointing it out. (I use it for creating elevation viewports for renders and in that flow drawing coordination isn't important to me, but in 90% of workflows it is imperative.)

[drmdzh]

This is all great info.  Thank you @rDesignand @JimW. I'm going to try this out and may come back with some questions.

 

David

 

[drmdzh]

OK, follow up question: How do you do a plan view  cut at 3' high of a wall at an angle? Or even a full groundplan cut at 3'? When i am in front view and click "Section viewport" it reverts to top/plan view.

 

Thanks.

Edited November 17, 2016 by drmdzh

[Pat Stanford]

Cut a section of an elevation viewport on a sheet layer.

[markdd]

2 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

Cut a section of an elevation viewport on a sheet layer.

That's interesting - Pat, can you elaborate further?

 

Mark

[zoomer]

7 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

Cut a section of an elevation viewport on a sheet layer.

 

 

Why not just from a Design Layer ?

You mean in cases where objects are rotated in all 3 axis ?

Or does allow DL Section creation only X or Y directions ?

Edited November 17, 2016 by zoomer

[Pat Stanford]

Mark,

 

Once you have a Viewport on a Sheet Layer, you can then use the Section Viewport command on that viewport to generate extra sections. Unlike on the Design Layer, the Sectioned Viewport can cut through a horizontal plane of the Model in the Viewport. This works with regular Viewports on the Sheet Layer. The Viewport has to be selected before you run the Create Section Viewport command.

 

Zoomer,

 

On a Design Layer, the Section Viewport command always switches back to Top/Plan view, so you can not cut a horizontal section. On a Sheet Layer you can make a horizontal section cut of a viewport.

 

[zoomer]

Thanks, Got it.

 

I thought he had an element rotated only about Z axis and wants to orient a section parallel to it.

 

And as I learned today, the creation of horizontal Sections on DLs by Clip Cube, creates a little different

kind of Section Viewport than normal.

[markdd]

I had no idea! That's great! Thanks so much for that.

 

Mark

[grant_PD]

A cool trick for the problem of scenery walls at odd angles is to make them all symbols and then put the symbols on a different "draft" layer.  From there you can orient the symbol to a standard angle and thereby get all of your orthographic projections.  This also helps with things that move onstage (wild walls) or pivoting scenery.  In general I use this method for walls that are not attached to anything else.  If it's just a box set with splayed angled walls I would treat the set as one thing and cut sections from the groundplan for my elevations.

[Kevin McAllister]

5 hours ago, grant_PD said:

A cool trick for the problem of scenery walls at odd angles is to make them all symbols and then put the symbols on a different "draft" layer.  From there you can orient the symbol to a standard angle and thereby get all of your orthographic projections.  This also helps with things that move onstage (wild walls) or pivoting scenery.  In general I use this method for walls that are not attached to anything else.  If it's just a box set with splayed angled walls I would treat the set as one thing and cut sections from the groundplan for my elevations.

 

For any project that's not a box/unit set I use the symbol method that Grant does. Much faster and views can easily be set using the view dropdown of a sheet layer viewport. Centre the symbol at 0,0 on its own layer. For box/unit sets I cut sections, usually from a small thumbnail plan viewport placed on the elevation sheet. You can select the marker element in the annotations for a viewport and set it to be an elevation marker instead of a section marker with a section line.

 

Kevin

 

[nubourne]

I know this is an old thread, but I'm having a problem that is associated with it:

Working on a design of Noises Off - Box Set.

I am to the point where I am setting up my sheet layers and dimensioning. All has been fine - for the most part. I'm not sure at when in the workflow, but something changed. All of the elevations (made using section viewports as has been discussed in this thread) were on the sheet, and I had dimensioned everything. I went to work on the next sheet of elevations, and went back to the previous sheet to double check something, once I got back to that sheet, one of the viewports was missing a wall - dimensions where there as annotations, and a few stray shapes that I couldn't identify. Thinking this was strange, I go back to the original sheet (plan view) to see if I had unintentionally moved the viewport reference (section line?) and it's not there. Nowhere to be found - whether selecting all, or using the custom selection tool. I didn't save, quit the program and reopened to see if that would fix it. No go. Quit again and shut down the computer (not restart), then rebooted, opened VW - still had missing info. Every other viewport and its reference is fine. I tried to create a new viewport and nothing. The problem isn't resolved.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

Edited July 27, 2018 by nubourne

[Kevin McAllister]

4 minutes ago, nubourne said:

I know this is an old thread, but I'm having a problem that is associated with it:

Working on a design of Noises Off - Box Set.

I am to the point where I am setting up my sheet layers and dimensioning. All has been fine - for the most part. I'm not sure at when in the workflow, but something changed. All of the elevations (made using section viewports as has been discussed in this thread) were on the sheet, and I had dimensioned everything. I went to work on the next sheet of elevations, and went back to the previous sheet to double check something, once I got back to that sheet, one of the viewports was missing a wall - dimensions where there as annotations, and a few stray shapes that I couldn't identify. Thinking this was strange, I go back to the original sheet (plan view) to see if I had unintentionally moved the viewport reference (section line?) and it's not there. Nowhere to be found - whether selecting all, or using the custom selection tool. I didn't save, quit the program and reopened to see if that would fix it. No go. Quit again and shut down the computer (not restart), then rebooted, opened VW - still had missing info. Every other viewport and its reference is fine. I tried to create a new viewport and nothing. The problem isn't resolved.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

 

 

If the section line gets deleted the section viewport will still work without it. It may cause your section viewport to need re-rendering though. If you select the section viewport and then click on the Section Line Instance button at the very bottom of the OIP you can select which viewports the section line should display in to get it back. If things in the section aren't displaying as you think they should it may be related to length/depth/height settings in the Advanced Properties (OIP button again) of the section viewport. It could also be related to separate/merge cross sections, also in the same place.

 

If you continue to have trouble, post an image or a file or feel free to PM me with it and I can take a look.

 

Kevin

 

[nubourne]

I don't know how it happened... but the reference line was stacked on top of the reference I drew after it.

I thought I'd try and see if I could find what the VP was looking at since there were lines there. It showed me a completely different object in the model on the other side of the stage. I looked to see if two reference lines were there - and alas there were. Moved the proper one back to its rightful place and BINGO. All is well. For now at least. 

Thanks!