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Topography


Victor S

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Hi Guys,

I have created the topography of my site,

however I dont know how to change the settings to make it to "look" nicer. 

Basically I am looking for the site surface to be a solid green colour, the cut line (in section) in thicker black colour and the cut section (fill) in a solid brown or grey colour. 

 

Perhaps one of you could help?

Thank you

Site.vwx

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I had a problem recently when my model was stuck on a white fill colour + nothing would change it. It happened after I applied a Geotexture Image to the model then removed it. When I closed the file + reopened it + it was fine again...

 

Also I found it a little bit confusing initially working out which 3D attributes apply to which 3D style:

 

'3D Fill' controls fill colour when 3D Style is '3D Grid' or '3D Extruded Contours'.

'3D Grid' controls fill colour when 3D Style is '3D Vertical Grid'.

'3D Triangles' controls fill colour when 3D Style is '3D Mesh'.

'3D Sides/Bottom' controls fill colour of skirt when 3D Style is '3D Mesh'.

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Hi @jeff prince I was just wondering: in your example file where you show the cross-hatching on the cut plane of the site model, this would apply to all the objects on the cut plane wouldn't it? Is there another way to assign a fill to a site model section? Is there a way to place a building constructed as per screenshots below in a site model + have it represented correctly in sections?

316802073_Screenshot2020-10-27at12_44_04.thumb.png.524f64d664dc74b32d1b0e648e2b93a1.png1593121610_Screenshot2020-10-27at12_42_32.thumb.png.c22bea6dcfea7646dd24cdf421305814.png

I've just placed the building in the site models without using any site modifiers. I wouldn't have a clue how to use site modifiers to 'excavate' the site first to get anything other than a rectilinear shape with vertical sides. I'm not sure what other people do.

Any advice welcome

many thanks

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@Tom W. I think it would benefit you greatly to watch the site modeling tutorial on Vectorworks University.  There is one that deals with a parking lot and covers retaining walls and other site modifiers.  That will get you up to speed on how to manipulate the site.  It's not that difficult if you watch that particular tutorial and practice.

 

In terms of your question about controlling the graphics of both the site model and the structural elements, the answer is right there in the example I posted.  Look at the "Advanced Section Properties".  Change the Cut Plane section to achieve what you want.  This may involve creating an additional class for structural sections if you want to differentiate from the site model, but have all structural features to have the same graphics in section.  Example, maybe you want the structural elements to have a grey fill and bold outline, see attached.  Just get in there and play with it 🙂

637961452_ScreenShot2020-10-27at12_31_19PM.thumb.png.57e2393a90ccb3c431d4a42155db36f3.png

 

Site-section with building.vwx

Edited by jeff prince
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Thanks for this Jeff. I am familiar with site modifiers but I didn't realise that the retaining wall site modifier would work on what I showed in my screenshot i.e. one wall for the strip foundations then a second narrower wall sat on top = presumably two retaining wall modifiers. But I'm happy to give it a go.

 

In your file I can see a pad modifier used to form a plateau for the building + a grade limits around it but the slab actually bisects the surface of the site model rather than 'excavating' it. But I'm guessing you could have used a pad with a retaining edge to cut out the volume for the slab before placing it.

 

On the graphics issue, I can see what you've done: you're still using 'merge cross sections' but you've checked 'create structural + nonstructural groups' which has allowed you to give the walls + slab one set of attributes + the site model another. What I was asking is whether it's possible to select 'separate cross sections' so you can see the individual wall + slab components but still somehow give the site model a fill. I suspect the answer is just to do it by hand in the VP annotations which I what I've done here:

1829868117_Screenshot2020-10-27at20_49_02.thumb.png.40491872dbd225f8cb6c880cc5946149.png

I traced over the site model to get the line of the ground level then made it into a polygon with a fill, then turned off the site model to reveal the obscured building components + now it's looking the way I wanted it. 

 

So maybe I've answered my own question: to not worry too much about site modifiers in terms of what's happening under the ground - the building will look fine in 3D just placed in the site model without them - then manually annotate the section viewports to get the detailed drawings looking right. Only issue then is you're not getting the benefit of cut + fill calcs... What if you're digging a basement?

 

Anyway it's good to be able to discuss it - I'm just interested to know what other people do. 

 

Thanks

 

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@Tom W. Instead of manually drawing that detailed section, you could duplicate the viewport and change the settings on each viewport such that one is for the site model and one is for the building.  This would allow you to show the building in detail and have it update as it changes.  This eliminates the downside to manually drawing it when things change.  I don't typically show detailed graphics on site sections, they usually aren't at a scale where you see such fine detail.

 

Site modifiers don't allow for tunnels or overhead fill, so what most of us do is cut the site to the extent of the footing and then place a representation of the fill area.  This can be done with an additional site model or solid extrusion, depending on your needs.

 

Duplicating the viewport would also allow you some creative freedom like showing the site model beyond the cut in opengl while turning off the building features beyond the cut to depict a more traditional 2D section of the building as shown in the second image.

 

828724344_ScreenShot2020-10-27at2_45_47PM.thumb.png.a1b940876da34fa9fb89ead8b648b7a2.png

Si

 

 

480423347_ScreenShot2020-10-27at2_50_16PM.thumb.png.fab1326475131417a81105a92b8bb329.pngte-section with building and duplicate viewports.vwx

Edited by jeff prince
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Hi @Tom W.

 

This is a problem I've come up against too, and I don't believe there's any satisfactory solution. You can have a look at the thread I started, in the link below.

 

For me, the overlaying VPs solution is no good. If I understand correctly, it means sitting the "building" section VP on top of the "site section" VP. That works if you have a section that is not interested in anything beyond the cut plane - but if you want to show part of the building, beyond the cut plane, in elevation, then it's not going to work, because that elevation portion including its foundations is going to appear in front of the site section.

 

In my opinion the way things should work is that the DTM should be able to understand that any 3d geometry that's below its surface should simply be subtracted from its fill. I can't think of any scenario where you'd want different behaviour when creating sections.

 

Wherever overlaid viewports are suggested as a solution, it indicates to me a part of VW that doesn't work. It's a messy and annoying workaround.

 

For some projects, I've ended up not using a DTM at all and drawing the "site surface" manually as 3d polygons. This is not ideal, but gives me full control of it and allows sections to be correct. It also doesn't allow a fill to be applied automatically.

 

 

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Thanks @line-weight for link to that thread I hadn't seen that - hmm lots to think about...

 

So in this image is the green the site model?:

 

image.thumb.png.6559dab93695564420ff273388dbbcbe.png

 

 How did you get it to show with a solid fill - by overlaying a 2nd VP or some other method?

Why is the site model clipped around the foundation that way? Have you used site modifiers here?

In my screenshot below the top VP has the site model drawn in manually in the annotations as a polygon + in the bottom one I used two VPs as @jeff prince suggested which gives me identical results with no hand drawing so I'm pretty happy with that

 

1864794461_Screenshot2020-10-28at09_41_22.thumb.png.f194e906cf8c9eb54cf2230a8dd4b919.png

 

When you say:

25 minutes ago, line-weight said:

f you want to show part of the building, beyond the cut plane, in elevation, then it's not going to work, because that elevation portion including its foundations is going to appear in front of the site section.

do you mean if I wanted to show the back wall of the space above then I'd also see the foundations of that wall running between the two cut foundations when I wouldn't want them to? I suppose that could that be avoided by using with a 3rd VP overlay for the beyond cut plane objects with the offending foundations cropped out...? I was quite excited when I first saw what you could do with overlaying VPs as it seemed to me to offer lots of ease + flexibility for presenting lots of different options (like really cool cutaway 3D views through buildings) but I agree it would definitely be preferable if the site model 'understood' the 3D geometry of the building + was automatically subtracted by it + the section VPs showed up correctly without any faffing around stacking duplicates on top of each other.

 

 In the absence of this though have you done what @jeff prince describes?:

12 hours ago, jeff prince said:

Site modifiers don't allow for tunnels or overhead fill, so what most of us do is cut the site to the extent of the footing and then place a representation of the fill area.  This can be done with an additional site model or solid extrusion, depending on your needs.

This sounds quite fiddly + I'm wondering, if cut + fill calcs aren't required, how necessary it is to go down this route + why not instead just place the building in the site model at the correct elevation without using any modifiers? Sure, use site modifiers to do some general grading if necessary but your screen shots demonstrate how well it all looks in 3D in open GL without any site modifiers + in the section VPs you can easily use the overlayed VPs as above to superimpose the building over the site to get them looking right so why go to the trouble of trying to cut the site model around all the foundations?

 

This has been really helpful to get my head around something that i've not really seen discussed in much detail in all the videos thank you

image.png

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- yes the green is the site model

 

- how did I get the solid fill? Had to go and dig out that drawing, luckily I still have a copy of it. It seems that the fill in the section is determined by the "fill" given to the DTM object itself (you'd think it would be determined by one of the settings under "graphic attributes" in the site model settings, but it looks like it's not? I'd have to check this out further though - let me know if you can make sense of it)

 

- In fact I'd got that clipping just by making two separate DTMs, one on each side of the building wall. (I had to go and look at the file to remind myself) This is clearly not a good solution. I think at the time I was just experimenting with different methods.

 

- yes, what you describe about seeing the back wall of the foundations is the problem I mean, and yes I think you're right that in theory you could solve this with 3 overlaid viewports but as you say it would become very fiddly and involve manual cropping... by which point you might as well try and do things manually as 2d annotations (trace over the ground fill area with a 2d polygon, although this doesn't sort out the problem of the "surface" line of the DTM being drawn across your foundation walls.)

 

- I've not tried to use the method @jeff prince describes, in fact I'm not quite clear exactly what he means.

 

My solution has been to not use DTM objects where I am creating detailed construction drawings, instead resorting to methods that involve drawing the "ground" manually.

 

This is not just because of the problems discussed above, but because I don't entirely trust DTM objects, especially when site modifiers are used. They seem to have unpredictable bugs, and they sometimes section wrongly. I've actually wasted countless hours trying to get them to work properly, because they are a typical VW feature - they are 95% really useful but have a few problems that aren't dealt with which in practice means that for many situations they are 100% unusable.

 

If you manage to find a way to get things to work, I'll be really interested to see it though. I should say that I'm currently still using VW2018, so maybe some things have improved in later versions (although I doubt it).

 

There's a thread here describing my struggles to get a DTM to behave:

 

 

 

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.... thinking about it, the 3 overlaid viewports might work without having to do any manual cropping -

- top viewport, section plane only of the building (draw nothing beyond cut plane) with DTM switched off

- middle viewport, section plane only of the DTM

- bottom viewport, section through the DTM and the building, with geometry of both beyond the cut plane drawn in elevation.

 

Still a bit of a mess though.

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15 minutes ago, line-weight said:

- how did I get the solid fill? Had to go and dig out that drawing, luckily I still have a copy of it. It seems that the fill in the section is determined by the "fill" given to the DTM object itself (you'd think it would be determined by one of the settings under "graphic attributes" in the site model settings, but it looks like it's not? I'd have to check this out further though - let me know if you can make sense of it)

Cool that's really good to know! Yes the graphic attributes in the site model settings just control the exterior of the DTM - so like Jeff says, the stuff beyond the cut plane in his section - but I did wonder what role the attributes palette played in the scheme of things. So now I have a third VP where the DTM look is controlled by the attributes palette rather than by class:

1706422584_Screenshot2020-10-28at12_19_44.thumb.png.1a24dd17f4a90ab66730aaa7ccb8acb6.png

 

33 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

This is not just because of the problems discussed above, but because I don't entirely trust DTM objects, especially when site modifiers are used. They seem to have unpredictable bugs, and they sometimes section wrongly. I've actually wasted countless hours trying to get them to work properly, because they are a typical VW feature - they are 95% really useful but have a few problems that aren't dealt with which in practice means that for many situations they are 100% unusable.

I've had mixed results with site modifiers too hence my interest in not needing to use them other than for general grading of the site. I understand in principle what Jeff means about excavating a void from the DTM for the building overall to sit in using a pad with retaining edge, then replacing the unnecessarily-removed material (in my example) over the outside of the strip foundations + the area under the sub base but not sure how it would work in practise unless you could create an extrude then use 'Add Solids' to add that volume to the site model: would need to try it, but based on discussion in that thread of yours sounds like it would convert the DTM into a solid addition. Like I say I think I'm happy not going down this route + forgoing C+F calcs + just getting the look I want in the VPs. I'm not building on mountain sides or anything this is norfolk after all...

 

1 hour ago, line-weight said:

.... thinking about it, the 3 overlaid viewports might work without having to do any manual cropping -

- top viewport, section plane only of the building (draw nothing beyond cut plane) with DTM switched off

- middle viewport, section plane only of the DTM

- bottom viewport, section through the DTM and the building, with geometry of both beyond the cut plane drawn in elevation.

That sounds correct to me. Thanks. It's been really useful to discuss all this I've learnt a lot + feel like I have a relatively clear idea of the best way to proceed now

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I can see there's a "draw it like you'd build it" logic to excavating a level pad, then back-filling around the foundations.

 

You'd have to edit those back-fill volumes in conjunction with any changes to the below-ground parts of the building itself of course, and would get very complex if you wanted to show things like pipes.

 

In theory I think you could do it as a solid addition, with the DTM surviving as an editable thing within that addition. Otherwise you end up with lines drawn at all the intersections, which is not what you want.

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I will try this out just to see what happens. And whether the back-fill volumes are factored into the cut + fill calcs.

 

But the main thing I've learnt from all this is the fact that if your site is relatively level to begin with + your GF level is above ground level you can just place the model in the DTM without any site modifiers + it will look fine:

546008170_Screenshot2020-10-28at14_30_26.thumb.png.7acd0f85aaea5018fa6962972c034350.png

 

And your sections will look fine too just by stacking VPs - no hand-annotating needed:

477338914_Screenshot2020-10-28at14_31_11.thumb.png.d0be60e23d95d14ea57cde12149f4965.png

 

None of the projects I've got coming up require much in the way of excavation so good to know I don't need to get too bogged down in complex site modifiers 

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@Tom W. it would be interesting if you could report back on whether the stacked-VP approach seems to work for you once you employ it on working drawings.

 

There will be a few things that it will make a bit tedious (for example if you want to change the location of your section cut, you'll need to move the section line 3 times over, to the exact same new location) and there are a few things where I'm not sure if you'll hit problems or not. For example, what happens with things like grid lines. And automatic drawing co-ordination.

 

My experience is that stacked viewports can be ok for mainly presentation stage drawings, because you kind of just need to get everything looking as you want it, and then freeze it like that and job done. However, with working drawings which you might be making constant adjustments and re-issues, it can spin things into a complex drawing-admin nightmare.

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Thanks @line-weight I'd not even considered the section line. The first section VP I made (today) was from a clip cube then all the others were copies of that first one. So on the sheet layer I've got 9 VPs in total but only one section line on the design layer. If I move that section line it affects the original VP but not the remaining 8. So I guess on that basis, if I had a stack of 3 VPs with the section line associated with the first one, if I moved the section line I'd have to discard the second two VPs + re-duplicate them from the original VP...

 

It's already a bit confusing having 9 VPs on a sheet but only 4 'drawings' as such visible + not being sure how many VPs i've got stacked in each drawing; and also in the stacks, knowing which VPs relate to which 'layer' of the 'drawing' (top, middle, bottom). But I suppose naming them properly would have been a good start there...

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@Tom W. You don't have to discard the duplicate viewports if you move a section line.  You can revise them using "Section Line Instances" from the Viewport's OIP.  Sometimes this is faster than reconfiguring the graphics controls of multiple viewports.  The only caveat... draw some reference lines as to where you want the revised section line to be so you have something to snap to between all the viewports you will modify.

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