Hello,
When exploding (or exporting to ACAD) a Plan or Section View Block, all lines are exploded, which makes the drawing pretty unmanageable.
Is there a way to get all Lines joined (ie. the perimeter of a table or a wall layer, to be a single polyline, not four lines) or at least grouped by object?
Retaining layer structure (ie. keep doors in layer “doors” and so on) does help a bit with the issue, but since the lines are exploded, joining is unpredictable.
Thank you in advance.
Hi @flatform, this request makes sense but unfortunately it’s not possible right now and actually quite difficult to implement. The main issue is that objects in plan and section views might be partially hidden by other objects, which might break their boundaries.
We could do this with sectioned contours of objects (keeping them as closed polylines after exploding plan/section views), but with projection lines I think it is not viable right now.
Imagine a plan view in the following case, where a box is covering partially a slab.
Should VisualARQ create 2 polylines (1 and 2) with the edges A and B duplicated belonging to each polyline?
VisualARQ is aware of the source object of each line, so the procedure could be something like this: step 1: Try to join lines (that belong to same object), 2: Group output (per object) so that even lines that were not joined stay within the same group.
Sectioned Walls that intersect and have bolleans applied, appearing as a single object in the section, should be treated as single objects, but per Wall layer. One closed polyline per Wall layer. The outline should be joined and a closed curve and hatches joined in one as well.
Now hatches are split in every corner, or even more than that.
A manual test with your existing plan view output can be made and see how the above would work now (manual test based on, ie. object colour).
As for line duplication, which is an issue, there could be a solution based on filtering (keep the projected line closer to cut plane, discard the duplicate lines below) or on user switches, like a tick in object parameters"force line output in plan views".
So in the case you provided, the slab would lose it’s inner edge and become an open polyline and the box would be a closed polyline, as the box’s top edge Z is higher. But if the slab had “force line output” set to on, it would appear as a single closed polyline as well, but with drawing order according to height, which in this case would be below the box.
The “force line output in projection views” could become an Attribute in object styles, but overriden in object level as well.
The main intent is to use VA output for collaboration or precise plan view rendering.
Many people still work plan views and sections in AutoCAD, either for cleanup, structural details (things that are not perfectly modeled in 3D and corrected in 2D) or, mostly, to quickly make some changes to the plan for brainstorming or for communication with authorities.
Because there are multiple changes in the building (which is why VA is so useful in the first place), multiple plan view and secton views outputs to AutoCAD are executed in every design step and many people are needed to even slightly work on those plans.
While VA accelerates the biggest part of the procedures, it dramatically decellerates (making some colleagues extremely irritated :)) the very end part, documentation for ie. bulding licence, that usually is done by people with more classical approach to drawing, and very picky with the plan view outputs! It is also awkard to collaborate with AutoCAD users in general (engineers and so on).
Nevertheless, can’t wait for any of the features above being implemented. Starting with a simple grouping per object would be just fine.
