Topic: 3d to 2d views engine

[Jim Yadon]

Wow! I hadn't a chance to give this thing a whirl yet. I've been up since 3am EST this morning with Training prep, job duties and a head long 4 hour truck through the muck with some sophmore CAD Jockies so I'll have to beg off 'til saturday to try it out. What the others have drawn up and used it with looks great though!

DaveW, did you try it on any Architectural Millwork models yet? What did you think of the results there?

[DaveW]

Mick's code works great. It is a different way of doing things that has other uses then what I need currently, but others need it real bad.

Mick,
Not an issue. It is just the weight of viewport in the dwg, that is all. They do add up though.

[Tom]

Hi Mick
Just ran a test on a 8.5 meg dwg with 500 solids in it worked out verry good
Then ran it on a 22 meg dwg with about 1200 solids and it crashed me out

[MickD]

Thanks Tom,
I still need to put a lot of work into it to make it a safe, robust and flexible tool. I guess that's why it's free
Serously though, the only 'safe' way to handle that may result in the engine not processing the complete model and I'm looking into it as we speak. I may be able to make it so it only misses a few lines here and there and continues  but beyong the scope of my function it's in the hands of AutoCAD and the memory gods as there's a LOT of curves being accessed, split, processed for visibilty and added to the drawing database all at once!

I've also just added a 'snap shot' tool that takes a snap shot of any current view and projects it to world, very cool, but I have some linework placement code to fine tune before putting it into production. This is good for iso views and such for that wow factor .

[MP]

Hey Mick just a quick note. We do TONS of 3D modelling, oil / gas production facilities etc. I plan to put your utility thru some tests on some of our models; just haven't had time. Perhaps next week. Tangent: I/We had repeatedly asked Autodesk for hires / intelligent hidden line removal utilities in the past ; even asked them to expose the core HLR algorythm to lispers; meh. Anyway, thanks again, looking forward to trying it out. Eeek, starting the zopiclone babble, out-a-here.

[MickD]

Have you had a chance to have a look yet Michael, I'd be interested in your feedback.

Here's some pic's of what I'm working on at the moment, a 'snap shot' tool. It takes an piccy of your 3d parts from the current view, you can use 3d orbit or what ever, and it takes a snap shot and projects it to world for those nice looking iso views in your details. It still needs some work on the placement of the projected lines but it works quite well.
The first one is taken from the actual view (the 2d line work looks distorted) and the second is from 'top' or world plan, standard for 2d.

[Tramber]

Back from my little trip around northern Europe !

MickD, I still have problems within nested blocks. I'm able to recognize the exact gaps that there are between the basepoints of the blocks.

Would you like we go on the feedback ?

[DaveW]

Hey Mick,

Can your utility be made to accept entities as seen in a paperspace viewport?

The reason I ask is that if somone wants to send out a 2D dwg with my software, they are required to have the 3D model in modelspace. Your utility may reduce the file size and allow the removal of the propritary 3D model too.

[MickD]

I can't see why not Dave, In fact the way I have it configured I use saved views complete with clip planes set for sections or elevations and I can iterate through them to throw separate drawings of each view to be placed into the final drawings so it should only be a small step to vports.
I can see the advantage in your case though as you can have your annotation done in PS ready to go, in our case we need to pull the model apart more so exporting the details is easier for us. Other model sections are detail in the model and views are generated and simply placed into drawings as a finished item, helps for updates too to keep the model and details sinc'ed.
There could be some small issues with the final projection in the case of iso views but plans and sections would not be a trouble. Deleting the solids can be done on the fly, in fact that was what I did originally. I used to copy the solids into another drawing to be converted and the engine deleted the solids on the way.

'Bert welcome back, hope you had a good trip!
I really know very little about blocks as I have had very little use for them other than section symbols etc. I've always used groups which I find much more flexible. Is there any particular reason to use blocks instead of groups?, blocks could involve quite a lot of work to get it right.
Bert, you can send your friends here -> http://dcservices.net.au/MickD/article.php?story=2006081108254180
and I also have a list of what's in development here -> http://dcservices.net.au/MickD/article.php?story=20060811101758905

[Bryco]

Mick, I love blocks and use them all the time but they are nasty to work with. The simplest way may well be to explode all the blocks and delete them when you export the drawing. It worked for me to solprof objects as you cant solprof a block, I run a little routine that explodes all the blocks (including nested) then deletes everything that isnt a solid. Now there is no translation problems.

[MickD]

hmm, I may leave that for an exercise for the user, that way they can do a final check before continuing perhaps?
The main problem would be with nested blocks but I guess it wouldn't be too hard to implement.

[Tramber]

To answer about the use of blocks :

Groups are nice but they show all the grips of the elements and they don't allow to save weight. If you multiply blocks insertions (several insertions of one block), you just don't make the size of the file much increasing and that's the advantage number 1.
Advantage number 2 ; blocks are easy to programm, and even more to update. This is why I use them a lot.

Of course, nested and "sub"nested blocks make the exercice difficult.

I'm currently working on a new exemple I'll join soon. I allow myself to think that it will work perfectly soon.

[Tramber]

Feedbacking is not over !

I run the ARX almost everyday, even if it becomes a bit boring to all sub-explose due to the basepoints variations.

There is a bug if I type pt1 = 0,0,1000 pt2= 0,0, then it crashes at pt3.
This is the first time I use this routine from top to down.
Maybe this doesn't work in the case we do a "plane view" VIEW !

Don't worry, it is not too bad 

[Tramber]

Dear Mick,

I've been talking about your program to my friends on the french forum I'm used to going. I suggested them to download and try the ARX. We developped so many topics on SOLDRAW...

It is a plebiscite. Some think that it'is great to use your routine 'cause it works on blocks, on surfaces. Some keep on thinking that the SOLDRAW family functions are better because it is easy to reset the views by cliking the windows and redraw (SOLDRAW) and it remains a ream paper space utility.

An other point is that it appears to be practical to some people to obtain as many layers as they drew views.

One thing is sure : there are, at least, several people in my country using it now almost daily. For some reasons, they can't read and write English and they don't come here to express their happiness 

[MickD]

Thanks for the feedback Bert, good to see it's going to good use
At it's current stage of development it is more of a proof of conception application. Now I know it works (and how to configure it for different purposes) the gates are open to many possibilities. Things such as automatic projected views and sections and a 1 to 1 relationship back to the model for updates with a click of a button.
Note that I've also put a quick demo up on the download site showing a basic way to use it. -> http://www.dcservices.net.au/MickD/Downloads/

Cheers,
Mick.