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Clip Cube Creating Artifacts


FBernardo

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
2 hours ago, FBernardo said:

Hi all,

 

When i use the clip cube it creates a few artifacts like the ones presented in the image, is this something that i can correct or am i doing something wrong ?

Artifacts w Clip Cube.jpg

 

This is a known issue.  Unfortunately, it's a limitation due to the mesh geometry used to create the stair and how the Clip Cube OpenGL mode interprets it as a solid body.

The problem typically occurs where the geometry does not create a complete manifold (enclosed airtight shape).  This usually occurs where flat planes extend out from the stair body.

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@Matt Panzer 

Thanks for your response on that.  I have had similar issues with the stairs object, and the weird thing is that the red rectangles persist even after removing or moving the stairs object.  My fervent recommendation, as mentioned several times in the past:  Do not construct parametric objects as meshes or NURBS!  Construct them out of extrudes.  Why?  Because after you ungroup an object for custom editing, extrudes are the easiest things to modify.  So much could be improved just by following this one rule.  While you are (hopefully) rebuilding the stairs and door and window PIOs to be better, why not do it that way?  If the parameters of previous versions of these objects are resident in their files, it should be easy to convert those to the new system.  I would pledge to continue my Service Select for another 3 years if that can be done!

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
4 minutes ago, P Retondo said:

@Matt Panzer 

Thanks for your response on that.  I have had similar issues with the stairs object, and the weird thing is that the red rectangles persist even after removing or moving the stairs object.  My fervent recommendation, as mentioned several times in the past:  Do not construct parametric objects as meshes or NURBS!  Construct them out of extrudes.  Why?  Because after you ungroup an object for custom editing, extrudes are the easiest things to modify.  So much could be improved just by following this one rule.  While you are (hopefully) rebuilding the stairs and door and window PIOs to be better, why not do it that way?  If the parameters of previous versions of these objects are resident in their files, it should be easy to convert those to the new system.  I would pledge to continue my Service Select for another 3 years if that can be done!

 

I completely agree that meshes should be avoided as much as possible.  However, there are reasons the stair currently uses them and simply making it use solids will break some things.  I'm not saying it cannot (or will not) be done.  I just saying that it is much more involved than you might think for the stair.  As for most other objects (including doors and windows), they already do use solids.

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@Matt Panzer 

I understand, but at the same time I would like to observe that 1) I often create custom stairs completely out of extrudes, it takes very little time, and could be easily automated from parameters and, 2), the solid objects from which windows and doors are constructed, though not meshes, are not easily modified if the objects are ungrouped.  I am specifically advocating for extrudes only, because only they have accessible 2d primitives that can easily be manipulated.

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23 minutes ago, P Retondo said:

@Matt Panzer 

I understand, but at the same time I would like to observe that 1) I often create custom stairs completely out of extrudes, it takes very little time, and could be easily automated from parameters and, 2), the solid objects from which windows and doors are constructed, though not meshes, are not easily modified if the objects are ungrouped.  I am specifically advocating for extrudes only, because only they have accessible 2d primitives that can easily be manipulated.

 

I agree that it would be good to be able to do that, but it's not always possible to use simple extrudes in these complex objects.

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22 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:

 

I agree that it would be good to be able to do that, but it's not always possible to use simple extrudes in these complex objects.

 

 

I see lots of potential in Stairs.

The way it is now is not very satisfying.

Obviously it is not possible to create them this way from Faces as Meshes either.

 

Whatever geometry type, currently they don't even work as a sketch to snap on.

(Handrails, Stringers, ...)

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Matt, the only object I can think of in these tools that cannot be built from extrudes are the stringers and railings of a circular stairs.  I would construct those virtually from an extrude-along-path, which could again be something the user could modify.  I think too much is being made of the complexity.  Think of it this way:  how are these things actually built?  In the vast majority of cases, they are constructed of linear materials with profiles that can be defined by a 2d object.  They should be modeled in the same fashion.  Then when you want to apply a wood grain texture to a window sash, for example, it would look like an object in the real world instead of an embarrassing kludge.

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2 hours ago, P Retondo said:

Matt, the only object I can think of in these tools that cannot be built from extrudes are the stringers and railings of a circular stairs.  I would construct those virtually from an extrude-along-path, which could again be something the user could modify.  I think too much is being made of the complexity.  Think of it this way:  how are these things actually built?  In the vast majority of cases, they are constructed of linear materials with profiles that can be defined by a 2d object.  They should be modeled in the same fashion.  Then when you want to apply a wood grain texture to a window sash, for example, it would look like an object in the real world instead of an embarrassing kludge.


While I don’t know all the reasons why things are the way they are, I do know some of them.

  1. The stair body object is created as a mesh because some of its surfaces have different textures.  I’m sure their are other reasons but that’s all I know.  And there are other stair conditions that cannot be built with extrudes.
  2. Window sashes could be built with each piece to get textures correct but that would also create lines at the seams in hidden line renders.  Trust me, getting those textures right is something I’ve wanted to see done for a long time.

The point is, the solutions are not always as simple as they might seem.  That doesn’t mean we plan to do nothing about it.  🙂

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12 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:
  1. Window sashes could be built with each piece to get textures correct but that would also create lines at the seams in hidden line renders.

Good point, Matt.  This is an issue we deal with in drafting all the time.  A solution would be awesome!

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
11 hours ago, P Retondo said:

Good point, Matt.  This is an issue we deal with in drafting all the time.  A solution would be awesome!

 

Right.  Trust me... This is one of the first things I was hoping to try to correct in Doors and Windows here, but changes like this do have consequences.  In order to use more desired geometry in these objects, we need some way to tell the hidden line render to show/hide the line between these objects, and we need the ability to place more than on texture on a 3D object.

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18 hours ago, P Retondo said:

@Matt Panzer 

I understand, but at the same time I would like to observe that 1) I often create custom stairs completely out of extrudes, it takes very little time, and could be easily automated from parameters and, 2), the solid objects from which windows and doors are constructed, though not meshes, are not easily modified if the objects are ungrouped.  I am specifically advocating for extrudes only, because only they have accessible 2d primitives that can easily be manipulated.

 

@P Retondo How are you doing the railings in the stairs that you do as extrudes, i've tried to do the extrude along the path but that thing just created something very weird (i think i might need to change approach). I'm trying to make some decent stairs that might be very easy to edit but i haven't finished the whole stair first because of the railing.

 

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@FBernardo 

FB, I described my method in this thread:  

 

Matt, I wonder why the interest in applying different textures on the same 3d object?  That does not track with physical reality.  I would look more in the direction of finessing the extrude to do what you want.  For example, it is possible to model a simple frame with 5 extrudes to achieve the results we want.

 

That first image is OpenGL, with lines only at the boundary of the frame, while the wood texture is applied to 4 extrudes with lineweight = 0.

 

The second image is the same set of extrudes in hidden line view.

Wood frame.jpg

Wood frame hidden line.jpg

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1 hour ago, P Retondo said:

 

Matt, I wonder why the interest in applying different textures on the same 3d object?  That does not track with physical reality.

 

I agree to a point.  It depends whether you're talking about a material or a finish.  If the finish is the material (finished wood frame), then you're right.  However, I can paint the front of the frame blue and the sides red in reality.  Textures are more like finishes than they are materials (even though they can simulate a material).  In the case of the stair body, it can have a different finish on the bottom which does happen in real life.

 

1 hour ago, P Retondo said:

I would look more in the direction of finessing the extrude to do what you want.  For example, it is possible to model a simple frame with 5 extrudes to achieve the results we want.

 

That first image is OpenGL, with lines only at the boundary of the frame, while the wood texture is applied to 4 extrudes with lineweight = 0.

 

The second image is the same set of extrudes in hidden line view.

 

I haven't looked into this lately but I believe there are (or were) cases where the lines may appear or may not in hidden line render mode.  This is something worth investigating.  However, once we can get the grain showing how we want (with desired hidden lines), we will then need to build these objects closer to reality - and how they're built can vary (miter vs but joined, etc).  So more options will be needed.  This is where I'd like to see things go, but this gives you an idea why it's not so simple.  🙂 

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2 hours ago, P Retondo said:

Matt, I wonder why the interest in applying different textures on the same 3d object?  That does not track with physical reality.

 

 

I thought the same.

Stair paint. Why not add a Solid with 1 mm thickness,

only in case when needed.

 

Same for Windows.

It is nice that you can have different Materials for inside/outside.

In most cases I don't need but will get redundant geometry and

potentially problems with DWG export.

Like Walls. Which don't work well around Window openings though.

 

 

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@Matt Panzer 

Matt, let's not get hung up about mitered frames!  They are almost non-existent in cabinets, doors and windows.  Correction, they are non-existent 😊.  I'd like to apply a different texture to different faces of an extrude, sure, but I would settle for the way things are and use zoomer's workaround.  Are we letting the perfect become enemy of the good?  What I'm thinking is that if (big if) there is an effort to rework these fundamental PIOs, it would be helpful to do them in a way that makes them more useful.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
13 minutes ago, zoomer said:

I thought the same.

Stair paint. Why not add a Solid with 1 mm thickness,

only in case when needed.

 

This could be done, but then there will be additional unnecessary geometry in the model.  While probably not a big difference performance-wise , it would create possible errors if dimensioning to the stair with the 1mm finish.  Imagine we started adding 1mm finishes throughout the model.

 

13 minutes ago, zoomer said:

Same for Windows.

It is nice that you can have different Materials for inside/outside.

In most cases I don't need but will get redundant geometry and

potentially problems with DWG export.

Like Walls. Which don't work well around Window openings though.

 

Right.  The interior/exterior geometry created for doors and windows is not the BIM way to handle things.  If we could define "finish" textures for the interior/exterior of the same piece of geometry, it would be much better.

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4 minutes ago, P Retondo said:

@Matt Panzer 

Matt, let's not get hung up about mitered frames!  They are almost non-existent in cabinets, doors and windows.  Correction, they are non-existent 😊.

 

OK.  Bad example!  🙂 

I'm just trying to get the point across that many things need to be considered.

 

4 minutes ago, P Retondo said:

I'd like to apply a different texture to different faces of an extrude, sure, but I would settle for the way things are and use zoomer's workaround.

 

As I mentioned in my replay to Zommer, adding additional geometry for a finish has real consequences.

 

4 minutes ago, P Retondo said:

Are we letting the perfect become enemy of the good?  What I'm thinking is that if (big if) there is an effort to rework these fundamental PIOs, it would be helpful to do them in a way that makes them more useful.

 

We certainly will be looking at the best approaches if we rework this part of these objects and you point about being able to reasonably edit the geometry after ungrouping them is a very good one.

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1 minute ago, Matt Panzer said:

@Matt Panzer Right.  The interior/exterior geometry created for doors and windows is not the BIM way to handle things.  If we could define "finish" textures for the interior/exterior of the same piece of geometry, it would be much better.

 

If there were a way to uniquely identify the 6 sides of a rectangular prism!  I could see the code for this becoming too complex.  Besides that, simplification is going to be necessary.  There is no way to accurately model the complex section of an extruded / pultruded window frame, or cladding over wood vs. painted, etc.  Something I've always wanted:  the ability to correctly model the section of a door or window sill.  As you are no doubt aware, the current PIO is (forgive me) abysmal, and the results superimpose a sill over a non-existent bottom frame for windows.  If the sill were an extrude, I could ungroup and put my own 2d polygon in.  Better yet, if the PIO would accept that polygon and still remain a PIO!

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
38 minutes ago, P Retondo said:

If there were a way to uniquely identify the 6 sides of a rectangular prism!  I could see the code for this becoming too complex.

 

True, but the complexity could result in simpler geometry and more flexibility.  As long as it can be done!

 

38 minutes ago, P Retondo said:

Besides that, simplification is going to be necessary.  There is no way to accurately model the complex section of an extruded / pultruded window frame, or cladding over wood vs. painted, etc.  Something I've always wanted:  the ability to correctly model the section of a door or window sill.  As you are no doubt aware, the current PIO is (forgive me) abysmal, and the results superimpose a sill over a non-existent bottom frame for windows.  If the sill were an extrude, I could ungroup and put my own 2d polygon in.  Better yet, if the PIO would accept that polygon and still remain a PIO!

 

I hear you. 😉 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
1 minute ago, P Retondo said:

@Matt Panzer 

Matt, I love this conversation - is any of this going to be part of 2021?  I'm looking for a reason to drop another chunk of cash on VW this fall, and so far nothing.

 

🤣

While I cannot talk about future features, (given everything we've discussed) I suggest you don't hold your breath for this one.  However, I do feel very good about what is coming in VW 2021!

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