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Going Beyond Beyond Extents - Request for additional zone in section extents


blanger

Question

I am requesting the ability to control the appearance of my 3D model beyond the extent distance.  

 

Currently you can set a distance you would like to appear in your viewport for a section line drawn in relation to a 3D model.  Sometimes it is helpful to show objects or walls in the distance that are beyond an arch for intance.  I often want to show walls in the distance in a light grey.  

 

Referencing the attached image I propose the ability to:

🟧 Show objects within the orange area as a foreground element

🟨 Show objects within the yellow area as greyed out background

🟩 Hide the objects within the green area

 

I have only been able to do this so far by stacking viewports.

Thanks!!! 

BeyondExtentBEyonds.jpg

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I think this would be quite a useful feature in circumstances where you can't easily grey objects by class.

 

Another option in the meantime would be to extrude a line on the design layer to form a vertical 'screen' + place it on the line between the orange + yellow zones. You can make this object invisible on the design layer but if you make it visible in the viewport (but make sure it is larger than the crop object so you don't see its edges) you can then utilise the 'Hidden Object Display' settings to edit the appearance of the objects that fall behind the 'screen' (e.g. set them to display grey). Then set the section VP extents to the line between the yellow + green zones to determine which objects are not seen at all.

 

I have no idea if this is a practical approach or any better than stacking viewports... It does allow you to edit the position of the 'screen' from within the VP (via 'Edit Design Layer') + you have lots of options for how the objects beyond the screen display via the Hidden Object Display settings so might be a useful technique...

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20 hours ago, Tom W. said:

I think this would be quite a useful feature in circumstances where you can't easily grey objects by class.

 

Another option in the meantime would be to extrude a line on the design layer to form a vertical 'screen' + place it on the line between the orange + yellow zones. You can make this object invisible on the design layer but if you make it visible in the viewport (but make sure it is larger than the crop object so you don't see its edges) you can then utilise the 'Hidden Object Display' settings to edit the appearance of the objects that fall behind the 'screen' (e.g. set them to display grey). Then set the section VP extents to the line between the yellow + green zones to determine which objects are not seen at all.

 

I have no idea if this is a practical approach or any better than stacking viewports... It does allow you to edit the position of the 'screen' from within the VP (via 'Edit Design Layer') + you have lots of options for how the objects beyond the screen display via the Hidden Object Display settings so might be a useful technique...


This may be easier because stacking viewports is almost a non starter as it's incredibly difficult to select which viewport to work on when two are stacked. I'll try it but it strikes me as just the type of work around you needed in Sketchup... and that made me crazyyyyy.

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18 hours ago, markdd said:

Side note: Rather than stacking viewports, did you know that you can slice them as well using the trim tool?

 

You can also use the clip tool.

 

@markdd Are you saying you can slice, trim or a clip a viewport - how? unless you mean within the crop?

 

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1 hour ago, blanger said:

Are you saying you can slice, trim or a clip a viewport - how? unless you mean within the crop?

Yes. Just select the viewport and run the trim tool (scalpel). Works a treat. Clip tool also works well. 
 

there is a bit of jiggling with section lines and it’s best to leave the original in place and not generate any new ones from the new viewports. 
 

When you slice up viewports, all annotations are copied so there is a little bit of editing to do if they are already in place.

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Just now, Tom W. said:

I'm unclear how this would help achieve the effect that @blanger is looking for in his section viewport

@blanger talked about stacking viewports. I was instead suggesting a way to slice up the single viewport instead. It would make the "stacking" process easier by simply using two of the tools in the basic palette rather than having to fiddle around with the class visibilities which is what you would need to do phorensically in order to achieve the desired results. 

 

If the viewport was sliced up and then Layer Colors applied it should be possible to achieve the results a little easier.

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Yes but I think he was talking about looking through one section VP to see another section VP behind rather than arranging VPs side by side. So objects in the foreground in one VP with one set of attributes then objects behind in a second VP with a different set of attributes. How could the one section VP in his screenshot be sliced to show the counter with black lines + the wall + sliding door behind with grey lines?

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The screenshot is just to illustrate the different zones he wants to have graphical control over in the section VP. He wants to see the objects in the foreground one way + the objects in the background another way. At the moment all the geometry beyond the cut plane is subject to the same graphical control unless it is hidden behind another object, hence my workaround

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12 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Yes but I think he was talking about looking through one section VP to see another section VP behind rather than arranging VPs side by side. So objects in the foreground in one VP with one set of attributes then objects behind in a second VP with a different set of attributes. How could the one section VP in his screenshot be sliced to show the counter with black lines + the wall + sliding door behind with grey lines?

 

Yep! Im talking about the resulting section that happens from these lines.  I had mocked up a version of the result I wanted and then the file froze and I didn't feel like redoing it!!!

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