behaviour of clipping options from the file options culling tab

[koeltzsch]

Dear all,

can anyone please explain the behaviour of this file options clipping planes from the culling tab.

There is automatic, constrained, fixd as possible option for near and far plane.

We do not get along with the description from help and also never experienced any difference while using the constrained option compared to the automatic option.

- we never faced any remarkable behaviour when working with the constrained option - it simply does not cut/clipping anything - and behaves from this point on like the automatic option (nothing is clipped)
- during enabled fixed option the model is clipped at every time with the given values for near/far distance

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you all.

Regards,

danko

[Patrick_Aps_9121]

Hi,

can you specifiy which version you are working with and provide a screenshot ?

I'm not sure what you are talking about

[koeltzsch]

Hi,

the version is either Navisworks Simulate 2014 SP1 or Navisworks Manage 2015 SP3, but I think it is not related to a particular software version it's more or less a generic question of what is the purpose and behaviour of this "Constrained" option from file options --> culling --> clipping planes, see attached screenshot.

As already mentioned we cannot see any difference between "Automatic" and "Constrained" because in both cases it is not clipping the model even the values are keyed in.

Only during "Fixed" option you can experience a clipped model with the exact values of near and far plane parameter.

So from our perspective it was worth a post to hear from the community if there is any beneficial scenario when "Constrained" option is recommended to use and under which circumstances this options shows any effect/behaviour.

I don't mean the sectioning functionality of Navisworks (tab viewpoint --> enable sectioning). This is quite clear to us.

Thanks for any helpful advice.

Regards,

danko

[Patrick_Aps_9121 · Accepted solution]

From the help:

Constrained: Select this radio button to constrain the near clipping plane to the value set in the Distance box.

Autodesk Navisworks uses the provided value unless doing so affects performance (for example, makes the whole model invisible), in which case it adjusts the near clip plane position as necessary.

Fixed:Select this radio button to set the near clipping plane to the value provided in the Distance box.

So this would mean that Constrained works exactly as Fixed, unless Fixed messes up things or Fixed tries to make soo much visible that performance suffers.

As there are no ways of telling when Fixed messes up and when "Contstrained" jumps in to action, you would not see the difference I quess.

Anyway, I have it set to Near = Constrained 0 and Far = Constrained 1.000.000 meters and i have not had any problems for years so that I forgot about that setting.

[koeltzsch]

ok, thanks.

This explanation is imaginable.

I also fear that due to less model size and/or too strong computers we never saw any "Constrained" clipping jumping into action.

In most cases we work with "Automatic" or "Fixed" in case of need and didn't face any issues so far.

Regards,

danko

[mdoyle]

The quick and dirty solution to clipping planes:

Near: 1      Far:10000000000

Done!

[james.yount]

I have similar issue as to a problem with clipping plane but the same settings works in one project NWD but not in another. I have Near set to 30 and far set to Automatic, my units are Feet and Inches and in one project NWD works like I want but opening another project NWD created the exact same way the same settings do not work at all.  

[tommy.leclerc-dube]

I noticed that geometries are disappearing when using a value that is too high for the far clipping plane... Is there any display setting that could help to increase the display range of a model that has elements located far away from the main building? Using the automatic setting leads to the same issue... So I have to enforce my own value. I'm using 10 000 at the moment but in some angles, I'm losing stuff. I'm using a high-end PC and performance isn't an issue.