3D views of piping

[civman_daar]

C3D 2014 SP1

Win7 Pro

I want to be able to orbit and pan beneath a surface to see the relationship of pipes and structures to the surface.  Its as though you were looking up at the ceiling in a room.  Using orbit is limited because it flips the surface over (upside down), when trying to view the underside of a surface.  Any ideas?

Thanks

[castled071049]

I use 3D Orbit all the time for this, and it always shows me the view of the surface from beneath, as if looking up at it like at a ceiling. Not sure what is causing your problem. 

[david.zavislan]

I find it helpful to use transparency when viewing pipes and surfaces with Orbit. Set the transparency value of the layer used for the triangles component of the surface style. This allows you to see the pipes and structures from above and below the surface.

The following image shows the proposed triangle layer with a transparency value of 30.

[MikeEvansUK]

I suspect the OP's problem possibly lies within his surface style triangle colour.

The triangles will display darker on the underside when viewed from beneath so you can see the difference between top and bottom. If your triangle colour is already dark (ie close to the screen colour) then it may be difficult to differenciate between the background and the surface.

If you really want to look at the model differently in this way then you should consider exporting a DWFx or Nwc file and having a pog in Navisworks. You have more control over the orbit function and also the walk function allows you to travel around just under the surface and clips the surface from display as you go.

David I prefer the Xray view style as it does the same thing without having transparency which can sometimes reduce speed etc.