Showing Hidden Lines in Viewports with 3D models

[Anonymous]

I have a fairly complex wall panel which includes rebar, steel inserts and several other objects that are placed on different layers.  Our company normally drafts in 2D, we need to move to 3D to solve a few issues.   Our production drawings are done in several colors to differentiate items in a typical panel, thus using Viewbase isn't really an option due to limited design control (colors, line weights...etc).

We have two CAD operators working on this issue and we've lurked through this forum as well as many others to find a solution but we can't find a stable, repeatable option.  In the photo's included below, a simple file which is also attached, has a block with 4 square holes running through it is shown.  We've turned the 'Show' parameter in the hidden visual style to 'Yes' but the hidden lines do not appear.  We've attempted several iterations of this solution, making our own visual style, changing to the 3D hidden style and a lot of different things happen:

 

1. In one of our files several objects clearly show the hidden lines but some objects do not.  In one instance we copied an object from a drawing where the lines were not appearing and they did in the new drawing where it was pasted.
2. The hidden lines are seen at different zooms, we adjusted the annotation scale which seemed to solve the problem on some objects but not all.
3. The lines never appear.

At this point we think there's a display issue we're not seeing or a setting we need to change.  I've tried to use a simple example so that we can find a solution and extrapolate from there.

[Alfred.NESWADBA · Accepted solution]

Hi,

>> We've turned the 'Show' parameter in the hidden visual style to 'Yes' but the hidden lines do not appear.

How did you create the screenshot with the hidden lines when you write "hidden lines do not appear"?

Because opening your drawing shows hidden lines (using AutoCAD 2017 Update 1.1 ... which version and service pack are you using?)

What you might try is to turn off the hardware acceleration (in the dialog of command _GRAPHICSCONFIG) and see if that changes the display.

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

This works in our simplistic model but when we try to apply the solution to an actual job we lose the visibility of our rebar since its mainly a surface and not edges/line work as seen in the image below.

Viewport in 2D Wireframe View:

Viewport in Hidden View:

Is there a way to effectively show the rebar as hidden lines or even solid lines will work for now while still showing the Grey 3D solid with the hidden lines?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

if you have that sample as DWG then we can look into it, why it does not show the hidden lines here.

For now I'm in the state of not being able to see your issues within my AutoCAD session.

BTW: which AutoCAD version and service pack do you have? Have you tried my suggestions with disabling the hardware acceleration?

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

Yes, we did the hardware acceleration and it did solve the initial issue, now we see the hidden lines of the concrete solid properly but our rebar disappears and we can only see the edges (since rebar is a cylinder with no edges).  Is there a better way to make the rebar so it will be properly visible?  I've included the file.

[Alfred.NESWADBA · Accepted solution]

Hi,

great to know one question is solved! 😉

>> but our rebar disappears and we can only see the edges

Change that two settings in your visual style, then run command _REGENALL

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

Thank you, problem solved for now!

[Anonymous]

One last question,

Everything is working as you've shown but is there anyway to adjust the linetype properties such as Weight, Type?

I can adjusted the Visual style setting but I'm looking for a little more control if possible.

[bfalconr]

Hi, I have a 3d model, I'm printing from vport space, using legacy hidden, OBSCUREDCOLOR=252, OBSCUREDLTYPE=2, it looks good, but, I wonder if there is a way to make the dashed lines smaller, I tried OBSCUREDLTYPE=4, not what I need, any ohtewr variable I can use like ISOLINES, FACETRES ... Thank you

[bfalconr]