level of detail

[rmkaack-jvb]

I am using c3d 2020, did they take away the level of detail button under View/views on the ribbon? I know I can 

type the command, but was hoping to find it on the ribbon. 

[rkmcswain]

I'm hoping you want it to turn it OFF.

Turn that puppy OFF and never, ever turn it on.

It's not in my 2020, or 2019.

You can type in the beginning of the command name in the Application Menu search bar and it will search the entire CUIX file.

[neilyj666]

Add it to acaddoc.lsp and never be troubled again....!!!!!!

[samir_rezk]

Hi,

The command is no longer accessible through the ribbon. You must type it in!

I am curious to know why @rkmcswain recommends turning it off? I personally like it on!

[rkmcswain]

@samir_rezk  - for one reason, when it's enabled and you have multiple drawings open, on many occasions command line input from one drawing is directed to a background drawing. If a user is not experienced with this bug, it appears as if C3D is locked up, or at least not accepting keyboard input.

Read more: [1] [2] [3] [4]

[neilyj666]

---

@samir_rezk wrote:

Hi,

The command is no longer accessible through the ribbon. You must type it in!

I am curious to know why @rkmcswain recommends turning it off? I personally like it on!

---

You can of course add it to the ribbon via the CUI should you wish

[AllenJessup]

I wouldn't go so far as to say never turn it on. But it's better left off in most cases. The only time I use it is when I have very large surfaces created from our county wide Lidar.

BTW. That's one of the variables I track with the Sysvarmonitor.

[rkmcswain]

@AllenJessup  - how are you watching that with the sysvarmonitor? There is no system variable for that, right?

[AllenJessup]

My mistake. When I did a Levelofdetailoff from the command line. I got a message "**** System Variable Changed ****
1 of the monitored system variables has changed from the preferred value. Use SYSVARMONITOR command to view changes". So I thought, "Oh. It's being monitored". But that was about a variable that was being monitored. Not Level of detail.

What I do have is (command "LEVELOFDETAILOFF") in my acaddoc.lsp file.

[RyanR-ISS]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU . . .

You have resolved an issue several of us here have had, but apparently were content to deal with - the wandering active command lines, and having to open others dwgs to see which one received the keystrokes.  Just so happens that I was looking up the level of detail setting and it was mentioned. 

This one was right up there with the annotative hatches apparently causing the never-ending undo button clicking to go back just a few operations.  I think it was an AllenJessup post for that one, years ago.  Thanks to you both!

[brian.strandberg]

I think everything has been explained very well, but I want to add 2 things.

1. If you are looking for if something is in the ribbon, there is a search bar in the application menu.  See video below (10 seconds).

2. I have seen weird issues printing surfaces with Level of Detail on.  That is why I turn the sucker off when CAD launches.  If I batch plot items and don't have that in the startup, I could see that weird issue printing.  Its been a while since I have seen that issue, so generally happy to keep it off.

If anyone knows a way to pre-emptively prevent the level of detail warning popup from showing let me know.  I train our people to click 'don't show again' but I would love to prevent the popup in the first place.

[sandi.biester]

It's under the "Viewport tools" dropdown

[neilyj666]

As a follow up to this very old thread, the Level Of Detail functionality in Civil 3D 2025 is much improved and can be controlled per surface (if desired) and is available via right click, Prospector or Ribbon