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Section Viewport Curved Geometry Faceted


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I've never had much luck getting smooth curves in Section Viewports.  But now, in VW 2018, I seem to get consistently terrible, faceted curves, regardless of which 3D Conversion Resolution I use.  (See attached, which was rendered using "Very High").  Even worse, for whatever reason, I tried it with the Conversion Resolution set to "Low" and... it looked great!  But just once.  Now, even after restarting, no matter which setting I use, they all look this bad.  VWIS118

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Where are you setting your 3d Conversion Resolution? There are many places including the VW Preferences, various rendering settings and under the Advanced Properties of each individual section viewport. The last one is the one that's most often missed. Here's a screen shot -

 

5a3a8a29cdecd_ScreenShot2017-12-20at8_02_47AM.thumb.png.4af38a04ec72546f2948bc6f2bd04086.png

 

I wonder if you have a corrupt object in your file/template. Because it looked great once and then not again I suspect this may be the case....

 

Kevin

Edited by Kevin McAllister
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
5 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

Where are you setting your 3d Conversion Resolution? There are many places including the VW Preferences, various rendering settings and under the Advanced Properties of each individual section viewport. The last one is the one that's most often missed. Here's a screen shot -

 

5a3a8a29cdecd_ScreenShot2017-12-20at8_02_47AM.thumb.png.4af38a04ec72546f2948bc6f2bd04086.png

 

I wonder if you have a corrupt object in your file/template. Because it looked great once and then not again I suspect this may be the case....

 

Kevin


^ This is the most likely answer. The less likely one but what I would check next would be OpenGL's Quality setting under View > Rendering > OpenGL Options if the section is shown in OpenGL rather than Hidden Line or wireframe.

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12 hours ago, Benson Shaw said:

@willofmainedid you attach a file? Not showing any file or image.

-B

 

 

Ha ha.  Nope...  But here it is, really! (File 01)  Actually, two of them.  It randomly rendered another time with smooth curves (I think after I'd adjusted the viewport's class overrides).  And then, when I published the drawing, the curves were smooth (File 02).  The "Very High" setting I'm using is Advanced Section Properties > 3D Conversion Resolution.  In Vectorworks Preferences it's been set to "High" all along (but doesn't that just apply to design layers?...).  In any case, it seems entirely sporadic.  I just tried a bunch of different things, and can't detect any consistency.

01-Curved Geometry-Very High-1708-062W.jpg

02-Curved Geometry-Very High-1708-A37-A6.jpg

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  • 2 years later...

This problem (from December, 2017) seems to persist with Vectorworks 2020, SP3.  However, the (or at least a) solution seems to be simply re-rendering the offending viewport.  After that, it's not an issue.  The problem seems to occur only the first time the viewport is rendered, and that only after Vectorworks (not just the file) has been closed and restarted.

 

Oddly, whether the "3D Conversion Resolution" (for both the Viewport and for Vectorworks Preferences) is set to Low or Very High, the results are the same with "smooth" curves (i.e., the same slight faceting) in both cases.  And, either way, it takes about 1 1/2 minutes (give or take a few seconds) to render the viewport.  It's as if the 3D Conversion Resolution settings don't have any effect on the viewport, either in rendering quality or rendering time... 

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8 hours ago, willofmaine said:

It's as if the 3D Conversion Resolution settings don't have any effect on the viewport, either in rendering quality or rendering time... 

 

Is the object custom built geometry or created using a PIO? I've noticed that some PIO's generate facetted geometry because their code generated 3d polygon geometry not solids geometry, meaning that the facets are baked in by the PIO.

 

Kevin

 

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It's custom built geometry (Sweep > Subtraction > 3D Symbol > AutoHybrid).  And when I just opened the file to check, the curves were, yet again, completely faceted...  So, maybe I was wrong above about having to restart Vectorworks...

 

Solids seem like a much better thing than 3D polygons and meshes; I wonder why PIO's don't ever seem to use them...

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