topic Re: Viewport Transparency in Civil 3D Forum

Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 18:54:54 GMT

How is layout viewport transparency controlled? The illustration under the Help topic "About Layout Viewports" shows two overlapping viewports that are mutually transparent. That's exactly what I want. BUT, in my system, overlapping layout viewports are mutually opaque by default and I cannot figure out how to change that, AND all the discussions I am able to Google up are complaints that overlapping layout viewports are transparent and everyone is trying to figure out how to make them opaque, with WIPEOUTs or whatever ... very frustrating!

How do I get transparent overlapping layout viewports? I am using Civil 3D 2014.

Many thanks for any help you can provide.

Re: Viewport Transparency

neilyj666 — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 19:05:20 GMT

Not sure I understand - can you post a screenshot?

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2014 11:23:54 GMT

HI Neilyj, thanks for your reply. In the attached screenshot, Viewport 1 is obscuring the object in viewport 2 (even tho the border of Viewport 2 can be seen). I'd like Viewport 1 to be transparent so the green object in Viewport 2 can be seen thru it, aligned with the outlined object in Viewport 1.

If you check the illustration in the HELP topic mentioned above, you can see an example of (what I think is) exactly that.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2014 11:28:58 GMT

Here's the HELP illustration I'm talking about.

Re: Viewport Transparency

neilyj666 — Thu, 01 May 2014 11:51:48 GMT

This seem to arise if you have the visual style set to Realistic

If you swap the visual styles in the viewports then it works

There may be a far slicker way of doing this but I don't know of it...:)

Re: Viewport Transparency

rkmcswain — Thu, 01 May 2014 11:54:21 GMT

For me, they are both "transparent" as long as they are both set to 2D Wireframe.

If I change one viewport to any type of shading (such as Conceptual, or Xray), that viewport now obscures objects in another viewport.

Re: Viewport Transparency

neilyj666 — Thu, 01 May 2014 12:27:14 GMT

That's my conclusion

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2014 12:34:03 GMT

Hello rkmcswain,,, Yes, that seems to be the deal. If there's any way to get around that, it would be wonderful to discover it.

The whole idea here, which I didn't really explain, is to get different renderings of the various parts of an assembly, e.g. the important parts in Realistic rendering and the supporting parts in Hidden wireframe (or some such combination of renderings). The simple problem stated above resulted from trying to do that with overlapping viewports.

Is there a more straight-forward way of accomplishing mutiple renderings on an object-by-object basis? If so, that's where I really need to be.

Thanks for your help, and thanks again also to neilyj.

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2014 12:48:29 GMT

One additional encouraging observation: The objects in the overlapping viewports in the HELP illustration are apparently rendered in HIDDEN style, unless they were just dummied-up somehow for the sake of the illustration (which I doubt), or maybe the illustration was done with a prior version when things might have been different ...?

Anyway, that leads me to believe there MIGHT be a way to do it ...

Re: Viewport Transparency

jennielowery — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:59:49 GMT

So did anyone ever find a work around for this issue?

I'm having the same problem. I need the viewports to be in Realistic Mode, and I need for the 2 viewports to have transparent backgrounds. Why is that so hard for AutoCAD to do? Is there not a feature to just turn the friggin background of the viewport OFF? grrrrrr

What good is it to have a Realistic Option in teh viewports and then limit how it's used?!?!

Re: Viewport Transparency

tcorey — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 16:09:25 GMT

One workaround would be to use polygonal viewports.

Re: Viewport Transparency

jennielowery — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 16:17:28 GMT

That is really just so dumb. I wonder why Autocad decided to make it's users work extra hard to use their "nifty" features? Ridiculous. Thanks for adding even more time to my paperspace setup time AutoCAD. Such a waste, it may seem like nothing, but when you have 14 -20 pages to set up with multiple object son each page .. thats about another hour+ worth of work.

so frustrating.

especialyl when the veiwports used to have transparant backgrounds regardless of the type they were.

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 21:10:55 GMT

Not too old of a topic to bring back, but I've run into this same issue, though in ACAD Arch.

What I've found, resides in the Visual Styles Manager. Select any Visual Style, then go to Edge Settings -> Show -> Isolines and this will make your viewport transparent.

If you have Edge Settings -> Show -> Facet Edges or None then you will have an opaque viewport.

Re: Viewport Transparency

E-Bim — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 21:13:43 GMT

Hello,

It is perhaps an old topic but in case of someone is still searching for it I think I find a good tips.

In order to have no background for a viewport in a shaded view you can open the Visual Style manager (_VISUALSTYLES) and then paste and copy the style you would like to use in a viewport and which have a non transparent background. Then select the new Visual Style you just create. In the visual style properties set "Backgrounds" to "Off" instead of "On" in the Environment Settings part.

Then all viewport using this visual style will be transparent.

I hope it could help someone.

Regards.

Emmanuel.

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 17:56:16 GMT

autocad seems to create for more kluster f ckin with more crap to confuse users

and no help

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 18:08:05 GMT

This option works

but you missed many steps

go to model space

type in visual styles

when the pop up window opens

select 2d wireframe

right click I that window

and select "apply to all viewports"

type regen

you should see your paperspace dimesions and text NOT covered up by the vport window

next time folk STOP WASTING PEOPLES TIME

with NON ISSUES other than the QUESTION ASKED

or incomplete Intructions to solve an issue

THATS INCOMPETANT AUTOCAD JOBS TO CONFUSE users

user since autocad ver 2.6

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 18:42:25 GMT

Dude, chill. E-BIM's solution works, as do a few others previously posted.

Yours, however, changes the visual style to wireframe; not everyone wants to see wireframe.

Chill out and read a bit more.

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 17:46:33 GMT

that doesnt work for me pal.

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 10:39:13 GMT

A quick work-around,

Place a white (255,255,255) polyline with a large global with under the model to block the lines from the other drawing.
Right-Click and use "Draw Order" to arrange the viewports and objects using this white screen method.

Re: Viewport Transparency

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 10:39:49 GMT

A quick work-around,

Place a white (255,255,255) polyline with a large global with under the model to block the lines from the other drawing.
Right-Click and use "Draw Order" to arrange the view ports and objects using this white screen method.