Reflected Ceiling Plan Work Flow

[CiaMariaPia]

I've modeled a existing space that includes existing ceiling featuring several coffered areas.  I can't seem to create a reflected ceiling plan of that ceiling to illustrate the needed changes.  Other posts in this Forum seem to have found the same problem but I've not seen any solutions other than work-arounds that are really nothing more than old-fashioned 2D drafting .... but searches rely on keywords and who knows if I'm using the right ones.  Many Thanks!

[Guest Wes Gardner]

@CiaMariaPia, in the end, the 2D workflow is probably the one that'll get you "there" the quickest...

 

Wes

 

[CiaMariaPia]

Thank you Wes!  While not the answer I was hoping for, a truthful answer is better than stumbling around in the dark.

 

Any chance VW is heading in a direction that will make a more comprehensive "system" for designing/drawing?

 

Have a great week.

 

Tom

[Inspectorjack]

Clip cube top view section viewport at level to capture coffered ceiling with some some 2D annotations for non-captured elements?

[CiaMariaPia]

Thanks for the suggestion!  I'm trying a couple of things and will report back on what I find.

[AlanW]

@CiaMariaPia Hi I would use Auto hybrids if you have modelled the ceiling. See attached

Make sure you understand the auto hybrid principle.

See one of my videos for help on understanding setting up and using them.

HTH

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo3erdwpF40

 

Ceilings_v2018.vwx

[bicameral2]

I get asked this question a lot by my comrades. I use the horizontal section viewport, and edit the settings to view the ceiling above the cut plane in hidden line. you can also add in a 2nd ceiling viewport in OGL, which is a cool look.

 

RCP EXAMPLE - SMALL ROOM.vwx RCP EXAMPLE - SMALL ROOM v2019.vwx

[drfoulk@gmail.com]

Clip Cube the lowers away, then view from bottom, create horizontal section. render extents infinite. I use cartoon. THen flip the viewport on the sheet layer. 

 

You need to get lighting on there to make it work right. Turn off the sky. 

 

Doc

 

Dual Xeon 24 core w/ 1 TB DIMM on the MB, Supermicro MB, Titan 24GB Star Wars edition.

Microsoft Mixed Reality Developer Hololens 2 and Registered Architect.

[Ramon PG]

On 11/5/2021 at 3:46 AM, drfoulk@gmail.com said:

Clip Cube the lowers away, then view from bottom, create horizontal section. render extents infinite. I use cartoon. THen flip the viewport on the sheet layer. 

 

You need to get lighting on there to make it work right. Turn off the sky. 

 

Doc

 

Dual Xeon 24 core w/ 1 TB DIMM on the MB, Supermicro MB, Titan 24GB Star Wars edition.

Microsoft Mixed Reality Developer Hololens 2 and Registered Architect.

 

The Bottom viewport pretty much solves the the issue when viewed in Hidden Line, except that I cant get it to show the luminaries.

 

[line-weight]

On 6/23/2020 at 7:14 AM, bicameral2 said:

I get asked this question a lot by my comrades. I use the horizontal section viewport, and edit the settings to view the ceiling above the cut plane in hidden line. you can also add in a 2nd ceiling viewport in OGL, which is a cool look.

 

RCP EXAMPLE - SMALL ROOM.vwx 3.36 MB · 27 downloads RCP EXAMPLE - SMALL ROOM v2019.vwx 4.84 MB · 21 downloads

 

I am experimenting with this - I am a top-plan refusenik and instead use horizontal sections for my floorplans.

 

Therefore, making a reflected ceiling plan in theory is as simple as changing the settings on a floorplan to view things above the cut plane.

 

What's a little annoying is that doing this does not parallel how you set up a regular floorplan in a horizontal section.

 

When you set up a horizontal section floorplan, you tick "display extents above cut plane", and then you go to the advanced properties button, and in my case I specify that everything is going to be drawn in my default elevational linework class:

 

 

But the same process for a RCP is a bit different. You tick "display extents above cut plane" but then, in order to set what this is going to look like, you don't go to the advanced properties button; instead you have to use the "object display" button in the "extents above cut plane" section.

 

What this does not then give you is a "use class" option. You are given a list of all your classes, and you have to choose how objects in each class are to be drawn in elevation in your RCP:

 

 

I usually have a very large number of classes. I basically have to select all of these classes, and then specify that they all use a particular pen type, colour, etc:

 

 

And tell it to use a pen type that matches my elevational linework class.

 

This, basically, works, but seems inconsistent and I think it should be possible to set up in exactly the same way as a "normal" horizontal section, that is specify that none of it is drawn by object but all of it is drawn in linework using a chosen class.

 

Then, if I make an adjustment to my elevational linework class, it'll update in RCPs as well as all my floorplans, elevations etc.

 

Also, I'm yet to see what happens when I make a new class - will I have to go and manually adjust that specific class to be drawn with the right pen in each of my RCPs?

[line-weight]

Eurghh. Back to fighting with RCPs again.

 

If the problem I describe in the post above can be overcome, then it can perhaps work OK for certain types of buildings.

 

But a lot of the buildings I work on, they have ceiling and floor heights that can be all over the place, and this means that it actually doesn't work very well just to cut a horizontal slice through the building, because then you have to choose what elevation the cut plane is at, and whatever you choose, it's going to end up slicing through stuff you don't want it to, in certain places. Really what you want is a kind of staggered section. For example, this building, here are two sections through the ground floor (at right angles to each other) and the red lines show where I'd ideally have the "section" cut for the Reflected Ceiling Plan.

 

 

 

 

 

But this just isn't possible using horizontal section viewports.

 

You can do a single (I think no more than a single?) stagger in a regular section viewport (ie a non-HSVP one). So you could cut a section viewport horizontally, and have a step in it ... and then mirror it. But I don't think it'll then give you gridlines for example, and the fact it's mirrored is probably going to cause weird problems.

 

In any case, as illustrated above, you might want multiple steps, in both directions.

 

Other strategies involve a patchwork of carefully cropped HSVPs, each of which can be at a different level. That gets messy too.

 

Starting to wonder whether it's easiest just to take a very basic horizontal section and pretty much draw my Reflected Ceiling Plans manually in the annotation space, in many cases. Perhaps switching "extents above cut plane" on and off temporarily to trace it.

 

 

I wonder if any other software deals with this better. It's rather tricky to get something that replicates a manually drawn RCP because they tend to involve a certain level of abstraction in practice.

 

 

[Matt Panzer]

55 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Eurghh. Back to fighting with RCPs again.

 

If the problem I describe in the post above can be overcome, then it can perhaps work OK for certain types of buildings.

 

But a lot of the buildings I work on, they have ceiling and floor heights that can be all over the place, and this means that it actually doesn't work very well just to cut a horizontal slice through the building, because then you have to choose what elevation the cut plane is at, and whatever you choose, it's going to end up slicing through stuff you don't want it to, in certain places. Really what you want is a kind of staggered section. For example, this building, here are two sections through the ground floor (at right angles to each other) and the red lines show where I'd ideally have the "section" cut for the Reflected Ceiling Plan.

 

 

 

 

 

But this just isn't possible using horizontal section viewports.

 

You can do a single (I think no more than a single?) stagger in a regular section viewport (ie a non-HSVP one). So you could cut a section viewport horizontally, and have a step in it ... and then mirror it. But I don't think it'll then give you gridlines for example, and the fact it's mirrored is probably going to cause weird problems.

 

In any case, as illustrated above, you might want multiple steps, in both directions.

 

Other strategies involve a patchwork of carefully cropped HSVPs, each of which can be at a different level. That gets messy too.

 

Starting to wonder whether it's easiest just to take a very basic horizontal section and pretty much draw my Reflected Ceiling Plans manually in the annotation space, in many cases. Perhaps switching "extents above cut plane" on and off temporarily to trace it.

 

 

I wonder if any other software deals with this better. It's rather tricky to get something that replicates a manually drawn RCP because they tend to involve a certain level of abstraction in practice.

 

Unfortunately, there is no good solution for this.  One feature we want to add in horizontal sections is the ability to define cut plane overrides in regions defined by a poly in the viewport.  We do have per object cut plane overrides that you can add within the viewport's Edit In-place mode (by selecting objects, clicking on the the "Cut Pane and Display…" OIP button, setting Cut Plane to "Custom" and edit "Cut Plane and extents" button in the dialog).  This is designed more for one-off object adjustments and is not as flexible as overriding regions would be.

 

Example of a per-object cut plane override on one of two similar sloping walls:

[line-weight]

2 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

One feature we want to add in horizontal sections is the ability to define cut plane overrides in regions defined by a poly in the viewport.

 That sounds interesting.

 

How would that over-ride work?

 

If I could draw a poly and say "drop the cut plane elevation by 300mm in this area" that would be very useful.

 

2 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

We do have per object cut plane overrides that you can add within the viewport's Edit In-place mode (by selecting objects, clicking on the the "Cut Pane and Display…" OIP button, setting Cut Plane to "Custom" and edit "Cut Plane and extents" button in the dialog).

 

Don't think I was aware of this. Will have to try it. But an over-ride applying per region would be more useful than per object I think.

[line-weight]

@Matt Panzer is there any prospect in the near future of the "extents above cut plane" being made to work the same as "extents below cut plane" - that is, where I don't have to define/over-ride it for every single class, as described in my previous posts on this thread?

 

I think I remember discussing this more with a focus on the scenario where you might want to show overhead geometry in dashed lines, on a regular HSVP floor plan - but particularly in the case of generating reflected ceiling plans, changing this would make a big difference in how painful it is.

[Matt Panzer]

21 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 That sounds interesting.

 

How would that over-ride work?

 

If I could draw a poly and say "drop the cut plane elevation by 300mm in this area" that would be very useful.

 

Exactly.  That's the idea.

 

21 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Don't think I was aware of this. Will have to try it. But an over-ride applying per region would be more useful than per object I think.

 

Right.  The current Per-object per-viewport overrides are not well suited for what you're after.

[Matt Panzer]

17 minutes ago, line-weight said:

@Matt Panzer is there any prospect in the near future of the "extents above cut plane" being made to work the same as "extents below cut plane" - that is, where I don't have to define/over-ride it for every single class, as described in my previous posts on this thread?

 

I think I remember discussing this more with a focus on the scenario where you might want to show overhead geometry in dashed lines, on a regular HSVP floor plan - but particularly in the case of generating reflected ceiling plans, changing this would make a big difference in how painful it is.

 

We do have plans for a proper "ceiling plan" horizontal section but I do not know when.

Another option you have currently is a bit hacky but might do what you're after (although a bit quirky):

You can create a horizontal section from the bottom of a clip cube.  This creates a horizontal section looking up instead of down.  You will have to flip the viewport to have a proper "reflected ceiling plan" and the extends above and below cut plane settings are basically reversed (i.e.: Extents "below" really is "beyond" and "above" is "before" the cut plane).  I make no promises but it's worth a shot!

[line-weight]

4 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:

Right.  The current Per-object per-viewport overrides are not well suited for what you're after.

 

However - I did just try this, and it actually does work for one specific case in my example:

 

 

The thick red line is where I want the section plane for my RCP to go ... and the stepped-down section is because otherwise, annoyingly it slices through some decorative coving on a section of dropped-down ceiling (that is, on the dotted orange line), and I'd like my RCP to look at that coving in elevation. Using your suggested trick I could select that coving object and tell it to drop the cut plane just for that object, and it did the job.

 

(After a bit of confusion due to the coving object being within a group - looks like I have to apply the override to the group and the sub-object for it to work)

 

This kind of cheat will happen to work in some instances and not others ... but is a good one to have up my sleeve - thanks.

 

[line-weight]

5 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:

Another option you have currently is a bit hacky but might do what you're after (although a bit quirky):

You can create a horizontal section from the bottom of a clip cube.  This creates a horizontal section looking up instead of down.  You will have to flip the viewport to have a proper "reflected ceiling plan" and the extends above and below cut plane settings are basically reversed (i.e.: Extents "below" really is "beyond" and "above" is "before" the cut plane).  I make no promises but it's worth a shot!

 

Interesting.

 

I have just tried this and at first sight it seems to work perfectly.

 

(It would be great if there could be a button on the OIP of any HSVP that would do this in one button press - reverse the direction and flip to a reflection)

 

And the trick of per-object cut plane overrides still seems to work.

 

Now I just have to decide whether I dare use this in some actual production drawings. But the combination of tips in your last few posts has made me feel a bit less despairing about embarking on doing the RCPs for this job, so thank you very much!

[Matt Panzer]

3 hours ago, line-weight said:

 

However - I did just try this, and it actually does work for one specific case in my example:

 

 

The thick red line is where I want the section plane for my RCP to go ... and the stepped-down section is because otherwise, annoyingly it slices through some decorative coving on a section of dropped-down ceiling (that is, on the dotted orange line), and I'd like my RCP to look at that coving in elevation. Using your suggested trick I could select that coving object and tell it to drop the cut plane just for that object, and it did the job.

 

(After a bit of confusion due to the coving object being within a group - looks like I have to apply the override to the group and the sub-object for it to work)

 

This kind of cheat will happen to work in some instances and not others ... but is a good one to have up my sleeve - thanks.

 

Good to hear it helps!  Like you said, it won/t solve everything, but it can help.

[Matt Panzer]

2 hours ago, line-weight said:

 

Interesting.

 

I have just tried this and at first sight it seems to work perfectly.

 

(It would be great if there could be a button on the OIP of any HSVP that would do this in one button press - reverse the direction and flip to a reflection)

 

And the trick of per-object cut plane overrides still seems to work.

 

Now I just have to decide whether I dare use this in some actual production drawings. But the combination of tips in your last few posts has made me feel a bit less despairing about embarking on doing the RCPs for this job, so thank you very much!

It should work (in theory) because it’s just creating a horizontal section facing the other direction.  We do want to do this properly in the UI but it really will be the same thing with a RCP UI added.  I do like the idea of adding a way to convert a “floor plan” section into a RCP section.

[line-weight]

7 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

I do like the idea of adding a way to convert a “floor plan” section into a RCP section.

 

The reason it would be handy is that commonly you might have a regular HSVP set up with the crop and annotations and visibilities and page position that you want, and if you could simply duplicate this and then flip it to an RCP, that would save a lot of repeated work getting the layout set up.

 

It would be good though if it worked better than the "reverse direction" button for regular section viewports - which reverses the section direction but doesn't mirror the crop and annotations, so you end up having to fix all that manually.

[line-weight]

14 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

One feature we want to add in horizontal sections is the ability to define cut plane overrides in regions defined by a poly in the viewport.  

By the way: this would be useful in non horizontal sections too. Sometimes I come across similar issues with interior elevations, for example, which I make using sections. Generally you want a section taken as close as possible to a wall face but you often end up with choosing between slicing things you want in elevation, or having bits of the wall face obscured by sliced bits of sloping roof, etc.

[line-weight]

12 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

It should work (in theory) because it’s just creating a horizontal section facing the other direction.  We do want to do this properly in the UI but it really will be the same thing with a RCP UI added.  I do like the idea of adding a way to convert a “floor plan” section into a RCP section.

 

One thing that becomes confusing is the meaning of the "Finite Depth" number for the viewport's Cut plane and extents.

 

 

In the example above, the cut plane is set at 2425mm above my datum.

 

If I want to show everything (looking upwards) within 125mm of that cut plane, then I don't set the "finite depth" field to 2425+125=2550 (it won't let me set a number higher than 2425 here), instead I seem to need to set it to 2425-125=2300, as shown in the screenshot above.

 

So, that number no longer represents an elevation above datum (like it does in a regular HSVP).

 

 

[Matt Panzer]

5 hours ago, line-weight said:

13 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

I do like the idea of adding a way to convert a “floor plan” section into a RCP section.

 

The reason it would be handy is that commonly you might have a regular HSVP set up with the crop and annotations and visibilities and page position that you want, and if you could simply duplicate this and then flip it to an RCP, that would save a lot of repeated work getting the layout set up.

 

It would be good though if it worked better than the "reverse direction" button for regular section viewports - which reverses the section direction but doesn't mirror the crop and annotations, so you end up having to fix all that manually.

 

Absolutely!

5 hours ago, line-weight said:

19 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

One feature we want to add in horizontal sections is the ability to define cut plane overrides in regions defined by a poly in the viewport.  

By the way: this would be useful in non horizontal sections too. Sometimes I come across similar issues with interior elevations, for example, which I make using sections. Generally you want a section taken as close as possible to a wall face but you often end up with choosing between slicing things you want in elevation, or having bits of the wall face obscured by sliced bits of sloping roof, etc.

 

Good point!  I suppose for non-horizontal sections, the regions would have to be relative to the cut plane defined by the section line rather than being based on document coordinates.

 

24 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

One thing that becomes confusing is the meaning of the "Finite Depth" number for the viewport's Cut plane and extents.

 

 

In the example above, the cut plane is set at 2425mm above my datum.

 

If I want to show everything (looking upwards) within 125mm of that cut plane, then I don't set the "finite depth" field to 2425+125=2550 (it won't let me set a number higher than 2425 here), instead I seem to need to set it to 2425-125=2300, as shown in the screenshot above.

 

So, that number no longer represents an elevation above datum (like it does in a regular HSVP).

 

Right.  That's the quirky part.  Think of "below cut" as being "beyond cut" which would be looking up (or "above cut").

[line-weight]

11 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:

Right.  That's the quirky part.  Think of "below cut" as being "beyond cut" which would be looking up (or "above cut").

 

Yup sure, got that - it's just that that particular number no longer refers to an absolute-value elevation, as it does normally.