Topic: Flattening drawings.

[Josh Nieman]

Every discussion, regardless of any other aspect has some benefit.  I've learned quite a bit from this thread.  Quite a bit indeed.

Until it turns negative and loses any benefit it may have had.

Sorry no disrespect intended, I'll step back out,
It just seemed liked one of those situations where folks should agree to disagree.
Are you going to convince them of your beliefs? Or vise versa?

I usually like to explore a topic until I've learned as much from it as I can I guess (not just talking of this topic here, since I'm a relative newcomer to it) but sometimes it's hard to not get the last say, and when in a joust of ideas, back-n-forthing is hard to stop because of that :p 

That's me any ways...

yea yea, let the "typical male" comments come in.. I know it's a fault of my impetuous youth, but whaddya oldbies have as an excuse?

[Dinosaur]

. . . yea yea, let the "typical male" comments come in.. I know it's a fault of my impetuous youth, but whaddya oldbies have as an excuse?

gas

[Keith™]

Randy, this PDF shows the exact same area on a 3D model and 2D representation of that model, same plot scale. The one that would be "correct" by your standards not only displays incorrectly in the viewer, it plots incorrectly, as can be seen in this plot. You should be able to see the difference between the two.

[CADaver]

Because AutoCAD cannot display or plot a correctly drawn 3D model in my line of work.

What is failing? If you have an accurate model what's missing from the plot??

Nothing is MISSING, there are EXTRA items that cannot be hidden during a plot

No, it is infinitely easier to REMOVE stuff that displays incorrectly when plotting from a 3D model, in fact, it is IMPOSSIBLE to remove the offending items in a 3D model, and if we explode the item in question, it then becomes IMPOSSIBLE to edit the offending items without stepping on it.

Which items are those??

AutoCAD displays and plots lines where they do not appear in the model, more often than not along curved surfaces. I am looking for a drawing that I can show you the difference between the two. When I find it I will post it.

Sounds like a driver problem or something.  We do pipe, can't get much curvier than that and ours plot just fine.

If the creator of the file placed inaccurate 3D data I would not rely on his 2D data.  If that works for you carry on (that's seven or nine times now)

Granted, but I am not talking about huge amounts of data here ... I am talking about something that can be checked for accuracy in less time than it takes to plot it out, not much point in redrawing something to make it useful, if I can step on it and make it much more useful.

If you wish to rely on an inaccurate file, carry on.

You keep insisting the file is inaccurate yet it is not ... you seem to be using 2D and inaccurate interchangeably ... while it is inaccurate in a 3D environment, once stepped on, it become an ACCURATE 2D drawing, and yes, I would rather use a "stepped on" 3D model that I can check and correct if needed in a couple of minutes than recreate the thing from scratch with several hours invested.

If part of it is inaccurate I question the rest and will return it to the originator for repair.  If you wish to assume their liability, carry on.

[CADaver]

I know just what you're talking about keith, that's one of my biggest gripes with Autocad's 3d package.  Persistent errors.  I have to say, though, that every 3d package I've run into has had very similar problems.  Autocad seems to be (as far as the release versions of others I've used) the worst at handling the plotting of 3d objects.  Too much glitches, eh!

We had some trouble with R13 and R14, but that was a long time ago.  You guys still having plotting issues??

[CADaver]

I'm currently on my own time, so no harm

To you. But what about others?

Their fingers their keyboard, they don't HAVE to click on the topic.

Every discussion, regardless of any other aspect has some benefit.  I've learned quite a bit from this thread.  Quite a bit indeed.

Until it turns negative and loses any benefit it may have had.

I learn as much or more from those as I do from any

Sorry no disrespect intended, I'll step back out,
It just seemed liked one of those situations where folks should agree to disagree.

Sorry that's a cop out.

Are you going to convince them of your beliefs? Or vise versa?

That has never been a goal either way, nor should it ever be a goal.  If we can only discuss those things with which we all agree or with which we KNOW we can sway a position, we'll be left with "Morning."

A discussion (even ones like this) about work processes educates everyone to some degree.  I can bet that Joe thinks differently about his program know than he did last week.  I know I do.  I've learned that Keith has a completely different issue about which I was completely unaware.  Even this thread did not go south (in my opinion) until it was (in my opinion) gutted.  It was a little spirited, but that's not a problem, unless you want it to be a problem.  Every position needs to be measured every so often to check its validity.

[Josh Nieman]

I know just what you're talking about keith, that's one of my biggest gripes with Autocad's 3d package.  Persistent errors.  I have to say, though, that every 3d package I've run into has had very similar problems.  Autocad seems to be (as far as the release versions of others I've used) the worst at handling the plotting of 3d objects.  Too much glitches, eh!

We had some trouble with R13 and R14, but that was a long time ago.  You guys still having plotting issues??

I do get some derelict lines every now and then.  It's kind of like an issue that keith shows, except it'll just show one or two lines, and it'd be short segment, and we get issues with lines that SHOULD plot... not plotting.  I get that when I have... for say, handrails.  This one happens somewhat often.  I'll have the top rail union'd with the posts, and the bottom line of the top rail (when looking at the elevation) will just 'not plot' for some reason, as if it were a tangential edge to be ignored due to the 'hidden' plot style.

[CADaver]

Randy, this PDF shows the exact same area on a 3D model and 2D representation of that model, same plot scale. The one that would be "correct" by your standards not only displays incorrectly in the viewer, it plots incorrectly, as can be seen in this plot. You should be able to see the difference between the two.

Can you send me the 3D model? I'd like to see what it does on our setup.

[CADaver]

I know just what you're talking about keith, that's one of my biggest gripes with Autocad's 3d package.  Persistent errors.  I have to say, though, that every 3d package I've run into has had very similar problems.  Autocad seems to be (as far as the release versions of others I've used) the worst at handling the plotting of 3d objects.  Too much glitches, eh!

We had some trouble with R13 and R14, but that was a long time ago.  You guys still having plotting issues??

I do get some derelict lines every now and then.  It's kind of like an issue that keith shows, except it'll just show one or two lines, and it'd be short segment, and we get issues with lines that SHOULD plot... not plotting.  I get that when I have... for say, handrails.  This one happens somewhat often.  I'll have the top rail union'd with the posts, and the bottom line of the top rail (when looking at the elevation) will just 'not plot' for some reason, as if it were a tangential edge to be ignored due to the 'hidden' plot style.

That could be why we don't see the problem.  We have a different work process.  We don't model with solids directly.  We use unit blocks for nearly everything, like your handrail here.  For visual clarity of handrail in the model, we've made rail blocks using 3dFaces of the outside of the legs.  They still clash detect, but the "back-face is invisible when viewed from "outside", it helps when doing walk-thrus and fly-overs.

[Josh Nieman]

I know just what you're talking about keith, that's one of my biggest gripes with Autocad's 3d package.  Persistent errors.  I have to say, though, that every 3d package I've run into has had very similar problems.  Autocad seems to be (as far as the release versions of others I've used) the worst at handling the plotting of 3d objects.  Too much glitches, eh!

We had some trouble with R13 and R14, but that was a long time ago.  You guys still having plotting issues??

I do get some derelict lines every now and then.  It's kind of like an issue that keith shows, except it'll just show one or two lines, and it'd be short segment, and we get issues with lines that SHOULD plot... not plotting.  I get that when I have... for say, handrails.  This one happens somewhat often.  I'll have the top rail union'd with the posts, and the bottom line of the top rail (when looking at the elevation) will just 'not plot' for some reason, as if it were a tangential edge to be ignored due to the 'hidden' plot style.

That could be why we don't see the problem.  We have a different work process.  We don't model with solids directly.  We use unit blocks for nearly everything, like your handrail here.  For visual clarity of handrail in the model, we've made rail blocks using 3dFaces of the outside of the legs.  They still clash detect, but the "back-face is invisible when viewed from "outside", it helps when doing walk-thrus and fly-overs.

I remember you telling me about your process for doing handrails, and I haven't done a project that required very much handrail work, so I haven't tried a different way of doing it yet, because copy/paste/slice/union was faster for me atm, but I think I'm going to try what you suggested before, next time around.

[Keith™]

Randy, this PDF shows the exact same area on a 3D model and 2D representation of that model, same plot scale. The one that would be "correct" by your standards not only displays incorrectly in the viewer, it plots incorrectly, as can be seen in this plot. You should be able to see the difference between the two.

Can you send me the 3D model? I'd like to see what it does on our setup.

I'll send an excerpt of the offending parts , that is if I can remember to do so on Monday

[CADaver]

Randy, this PDF shows the exact same area on a 3D model and 2D representation of that model, same plot scale. The one that would be "correct" by your standards not only displays incorrectly in the viewer, it plots incorrectly, as can be seen in this plot. You should be able to see the difference between the two.

Can you send me the 3D model? I'd like to see what it does on our setup.

I'll send an excerpt of the offending parts , that is if I can remember to do so on Monday

Cool, I'll try to remind you.

[craigr]

So I started reading thru this topic and discovered that it ended up turning into a discussion on whether or not one SHOULD flatten a drawing. I gave up reading after a few pages when I noticed that the topic has 16 pages.

I absolutely don't want to discuss whether one should or not, but, what I didn't get out of the discussion / arguments is that - how does one flatten a drawing?

I have LT2008 and can't find any reference to it in the help file.

craigr

[Keith™]

well, there is the flatten command in ET .. but LT doesn't have it

[craigr]

Thanks