Inventor Parts/Assemblies: Curves tend to look blocky.

[jeffg28CLY]

Attached: This is a 6.77"-diameter opening for a fan.

Inventor draws me some pretty blocky curves until I zoom in quite a bit. All quality settings are maxed out already. Are there any Registry settings that affect this? Inventor runs real smooth, barely taxes the videocard, and doesn't use much RAM, so it's got plenty of headroom to do better.

- Application Options --> Hardware: This is already set to Quality, and Software Graphics is turned off.

- Application Options --> Display --> Display Quality is already set to Smoother.

- I tried playing around with HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Inventor\RegistryVersion26.0\System\Preferences\Display\Faceting Options but couldn't see any consistent changes when I changed it up or down by orders of magnitude. (that was based on this thread from 2008: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/my-circles-look-like-polygons/td-p/2203195 )

Inventor 2022.3

Ryzen 5 1600

24GB RAM

5GB Quadro P2000 with latest drivers

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Please make sure Inventor runs on the dedicated graphics card as opposed to the embedded one. For the graphics card settings, use a Studio or CAD oriented profile, not a Gaming profile. In Nvidia Control Panel, go to Workstation -> Manage GPU Utilization -> select "Use for Graphics and compute needs." Let me know if it makes a difference.

Many thanks!

[jeffg28CLY]

This computer does not have integrated graphics. The Quadro is the only GPU shown in Task Manager, and when Inventor is active, there is activity shown in the "3D" graph of Task Manager for the Quadro.
No other display adapters are installed.

The "Use for Graphics and compute needs" was already selected.

Other settings:

NVidia control panel: 3D Settings --> Manage 3D Settings: This is set to Base Profile.

3D Settings --> Adjust Image Settings With Preview: This is set to "Let the 3D application decide."

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Jeff,

Then your settings are quite similar to mine already. How much system RAM and graphics RAM do you have?

Many thanks!

[jeffg28CLY]

24GB DDR4 system RAM, usually running with at least 10GB free.

Graphics card has 5GB GDDR5. Edit: I've got Inventor up right now, under a typical workload. Dedicated GPU memory is showing about 1.7GB in use.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Jeff,

The blocky display can be unpredictable depending on the geometry, the hardware, and the operation. One thing you may consider is to disable auto refinement. Go to Tools -> App Options -> Display -> check "Disable Auto Refinement." After that, when the edges become blocky, go to View -> Refine Appearance. It is like REGEN in AutoCAD.

Many thanks!

[jeffg28CLY]

Is there anything beyond this for the quality settings? 

Attached: I even tried this with and without auto-refinement, and tapped "Refine Appearance" a few times. It didn't do anything.

This isn't extremely small geometry either. For scale, the overall part (not shown) is 4x7", and this is about 0.90" wall thickness.

I have to zoom in pretty close before the refinement does its thing.

What does that "Faceting Options" Registry entry do? Someone in the linked thread said they changed it value from 0x00000042 to 0x00010042. Is that a numeric change, or do the individual bits/bytes in that key correspond to certain settings in Inventor?

There's also a RefinementMode value there. Auto-refinement enabled sets it to 2, and disabling auto-refinement sets it to 3.

There's also a bunch of settings in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Inventor\RegistryVersion26.0\System\Preferences\GraphicsUtil

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Jeff,

I would not change any setting in the GraphisUtil registry. Those defaults were carefully chosen. Any change could lead to unpredictable behaviors. Let me work with the project team to see if there are other options.

Many thanks!

[jeffg28CLY]

Or if you know anyone there who knows some Registry tricks. 🙂

It wouldn't be the first time I've had to do Registry things with Inventor.

You can change the amount of Undo memory to 8192, but out of the box, Inventor only allowed me 30 undo levels, regardless of that memory setting.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\Inventor\RegistryVersion26.0\System\Preferences\Transactions

"UndoLevels" was 30. I've since put it at 3000 and have been running that way ever since.

There's no setting in Inventor's Application Options for the number of undo levels, so the only way to change that is in the Registry.

[LishuangLu]

@jeffg28CLY, thanks for reporting! 

Typically, Refine Appearance command will help on this case, but seems it can't work in your side, so most like a special data issue, can you reproduce with other datasets as well? And can you share one dataset with us to investigate it? 

BTW, there's a known issue with the auto refinement, the current problem is, when you navigate the models, it may not refine quickly, might wait 1-2 seconds to see the smooth edges.

In terms of the registry settings, better not modify them directly as Johnson suggested in above, this is not user intended settings. 

Thanks, 

-Lisa

[jeffg28CLY]

It's happened across several parts. Unfortunately it's also not consistent. I'm looking at the same assembly I used for the screenshot posted two days ago, and it looks fine at any magnification level. Does Inventor start to get more "conservative" with detail-level as it has more files open? I still never get anywhere remotely close to taxing my RAM or graphics card limits though, and these are simple things - an assembly with two or three components, or a panel+cutout partfile that's got fewer than ten features.

I have also allowed several seconds after zooming, with or without auto-refinement or Refine Appearance. It remains blocky until the zoom level is changed to something Inventor likes. I didn't notice any corresponding CPU/GPU activity spike to indicate that Inventor was still working on something like refinement. 

I'll DM over some files you can have a look at.

[LishuangLu]

@jeffg28CLY , thanks for your dataset! 

I suppose you are running with Inventor 2022, please let me know if you are not. And I could not reproduce it with Inventor 2022 in my side. One thing to be clarified: when you see the blocky curves, can these curves turns better display when click Refine Appearance command? 

Thanks, 

-Lisa

[jeffg28CLY]

I'm running Inventor 2022.3, and I've maxed out every graphics quality setting I could find in Inventor; Inventor is not at all close to taxing my hardware either.

The behavior is inconsistent in all regards: If I have auto-refinement disabled and use Refine Appearance, sometimes clicking that immediately improves the blocky look, sometimes it does not.

If I have auto-refinement enabled, most of the time the blocky look does not happen, but sometimes it does and then it's persistent - if I zoom-in/zoom-out, the model flips between blocky/smooth at the same distances.

[Frederick_Law]

Are you looking at assembly file or part file?

Any different if you look at the part in assembly or part?

I usually see that in assembly.  When there are really big part and tiny part.  The tiny one will get blocky.

It take some time to "load" when zoom into tiny part.

Try change Hardware to Performance.

[jeffg28CLY]

It happens in both Part and Assembly files.

The features I'm looking at aren't too small compared to the overall part. Example: In "profile.png" that's a few replies back, that was a 5-piece assembly. Two instances each of two components, and another component overlaid. 4x7-inch assembly size, 12 inches long. Just some basic extrusions. The larger circular feature in that screencap is 0.236 inch radius, and that curve was shown using only 9 straight lines on the outside diameter.

Now, when I opened that same assembly today, it looks fine at any zoom level. So I don't know why Inventor sometimes scales back its polygon counts. I've done some 3d-printed parts too that have fillets everywhere. Something that's maybe 8x8x6 inches, with fillets down to 0.050", and they look smooth. Or a 120"-long extrusion with 0.015" fillets, and they look smooth. Usually. But sometimes Inventor has other polygon plans.

[Frederick_Law]

Segment on screen is graphic update problem, something taking too long to calculate.

The model is still smooth.

3D print segment is STL setting problem.  Use High Resolution.

Or use "Arc Welder" in slicer.

[LishuangLu]

Thank you @jeffg28CLY !

Seems the problem is not stably reproduced now. Kindly let us know if you still find a way to reproduce this stably so we can take a look. 

Thanks, 

-Lisa

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Jeff,

How much system RAM or graphics RAM does your machine have? There were a few users confirming adding more RAM seems to help refrain the behavior better.

Many thanks!