Wish List 2019? Live Section cut viewports functionality/display

[David S]

Good morning Jim. Attached (left) is a section cut through a model. Being able to do this greatly speeds up our clients' design decisioning because many are not spacially aware. To see the design in context to stairs/fridges & beds etc helps them get a sense of space. I can say since we adopted this method our planning design process time has reduced by about 30% which is great as we work on a fixed fee AND we get paid quicker!. Currently I section viewport cut from the clip cube and manipulate the model until I get a "good view", and then export an image file. I have to repeat this process if the designs change but if it was a *live* "angled" section I would not have to do this. At present if I create a live section viewport to do this the angle options/image options are quite limited (see diagram 2) It would be great if this was possible in VW2019! I have been chatting about this with your colleagues in the UK. Otherwise all up and running on 2018 now and really enjoying the new functionality. The office is starting to look like the NASA command center with all our split screens!  Cheers David

[Ethan R.]

Thank you - this method is a great workaround.

I agree - simply turning the clip cube into a view-port would cut out many of these steps.

I guess it would require 'instances' of clip cube - similar to view-port cameras?

 

Seems a great tool though

[Ethan R.]

-- Update --

I realize that as I continue to work on my file and navigate around- the view-port is obviously knocked out of the correct rotation.

So I have to go back to a "Saved View" Prior to exporting each time?

Is that the workaround? To confirm that I'm always in the correct orientation for my design layer / sheet layer viewports to pick up the correct view?

 

(Sorry - tired , I'm not sure if that made any sense!"

[Tom W.]

On 2/27/2018 at 9:11 AM, markdd said:

I am able to see wall components fine in a Sheet Layer viewport of a Design Layer Section Viewport. Is this not what you are looking for?

 

Attached is the drawing file.

 

Perspective Wall components.vwx

 

Is this still working for you @markdd in VW2023? Inspired by your + @Andy Broomell's posts on the subject I have been playing around with this technique for the first time but can't get the Wall textures to display in the SLVP (in fact one of the components is missing completely).

 

This is my DLVP:

 

And this is the SLVP of it:

 

Is there something I'm missing or is it just even buggier now than it was in 2018?

 

Thanks

[Andy Broomell]

Is that a simple file you could attach so others could poke around?

 

I don't use many wall components so I haven't run into this.

[Tom W.]

1 hour ago, Andy Broomell said:

Is that a simple file you could attach so others could poke around?

 

I don't use many wall components so I haven't run into this.

 

Absolutely: DLVP to SLVP test.vwx

 

Thanks in advance anyone who has a look

[Andy Broomell]

Weird... I can't get the viewport to render anything other than the cut plane geometry.

[Tom W.]

21 minutes ago, Andy Broomell said:

Weird... I can't get the viewport to render anything other than the cut plane geometry.

 

What, so presumably you got this on opening the file:

 

 

then lost the geometry behind the cut plane after changing some settings? I think this happened to me once too in a different file I was playing with.

 

I've also had components going black on the cut plane:

 

 

But then I update the DLVP + update the SLVP + the black goes away.

 

No amount of fiddling however has given me the Wall textures as per @markdd's screenshot above though. I have not tried in earlier versions.

[markdd]

Looks to me that this little gem of finctionality is broken. Possibly overlooked because of the ClipCube functionality with Viewports. Pity. Looks like a bug report neeeds to be submitted.

[Tom W.]

That will teach me for leaving it so long before trying it out 🙂

 

I will see what the tech people say.

 

Thanks for confirming it's no longer working 

[Tom W.]

I have submitted a bug report.

[line-weight]

17 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

Weird... I can't get the viewport to render anything other than the cut plane geometry.

This is what I initially got - but found that updating the DLVP, then the SLVP, solved it.

 

Still don't get any textures in the SLVP though.

 

While I was at it, tried the trick mentioned in this thread to make a 3-plane section (by limiting the extents of the section in length and height).

 

This is the result: (file attached below)

 

 

Which (ignoring the texture issues for now) is a semi useful result, but for it to e really useful, I'd want each cut plane to be rendered in the same way, not just the main one.

 

 

1553214600_DLVPtoSLVPtest_3plane.vwx

[Tom W.]

36 minutes ago, line-weight said:

While I was at it, tried the trick mentioned in this thread to make a 3-plane section (by limiting the extents of the section in length and height).

 

Aha I did a 2-plane version by putting a step in the section line, I didn't realise you could do the same by simply reducing the length of the section line. Or that you could reduce the height to cut a horizontal plane. But like you say, nice trick but pretty useless without the 2D cut plane representations on the second + third cut planes.

 

Be interesting to see what tech support say.

 

Not sure when textures stopped rendering in this technique.

[line-weight]

I feel that the fiddly DLVP middle-man step should not be necessary in any case - we ought to be able simply to have a SLVP defined by the clip cube but with options available for how the cut planes are shown.

 

Actually I just tried doing a 3-plan cutaway using the clip cube then viewporting this straight to the sheet layer, but the same seems to happen here: no textures are shown.

[Tom W.]

3 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Actually I just tried doing a 3-plan cutaway using the clip cube then viewporting this straight to the sheet layer, but the same seems to happen here: no textures are shown.

 

Are you sure??! That would be a bit of a disaster. I am getting textures when I do it:

 

 

Having said that I do have other issues with Clip Cube VPs which prevent me from using them: I get random errant geometry floating in space + ruining the scene. There was a major much-reported issue with the Clip Cube when a Stair object was present where you get horrible things going on. I haven't actually seen this in VW2023 (but others have) but I still get the odd black shape here + there which basically means I can only use the Clip Cube whilst working on the DL, not for generating SLVPs.

 

4 minutes ago, line-weight said:

we ought to be able simply to have a SLVP defined by the clip cube but with options available for how the cut planes are shown.

 

Absolutely. And I think there are Wishlist posts for this already.

 

[line-weight]

46 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

Are you sure??!

 

 

Actually no.

Me being stupid - I'd cut it so only the interior of the walls were visible, which have no colour on them, making me think it was all without texture.

[line-weight]

47 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

Having said that I do have other issues with Clip Cube VPs which prevent me from using them: I get random errant geometry floating in space + ruining the scene. There was a major much-reported issue with the Clip Cube when a Stair object was present where you get horrible things going on. I haven't actually seen this in VW2023 (but others have) but I still get the odd black shape here + there which basically means I can only use the Clip Cube whilst working on the DL, not for generating SLVPs.

 

 

 

yes... I was trying to remember why it is that I basically don't use them, and it's partly this. As well as the lack of control over the cut plane appearance.

[Andy Broomell]

Also with Clip Cube you can't use Hidden Line. Another one of those caveats / idiosyncrasies / inconsistencies.