Pipe Object Rendering when plotting

[Anonymous]

Help needed!

I have pipe objects that were exported from open plant to .dwg, they reference fine into the file and look good in modelspace/paperspace but when I go to plot autocad renders a bunch of lines on the pipe and they end up printing as thick black lines. 

Is there some setting I need to adjust??

I have attached pictures of the before and after as well as a .dwg of the pipe file.

[Kyle-L]

From what I can tell from the Pipe.dwg is that your pipe is a circle that has a thickness applied to it to make it look like a cylinder in 3D:

I have not used the thickness property before but my guess is that I know that Civil 3D actually renders circles as polygons with lots of edges to approximate a circle, well I believe it is doing the same with a circle that has a thickness and is basically making a cylinder made out many edges to make it appear circular. You can see this happening if you orbit your viewport to view the pipe in "3D" and then zoom in or out and regen. Depending on how close you are to the pipe then more edges will appear or disappear.

So, in your case the pipe looks good at your current zoom level, but when you plot the viewport regens and more edges (lines) appear on the pipe before it plots. And since you most likely have your viewport set to "2D Wireframe" all the lines of the pipe are visible.

As a solution (although not a very good one) you can change your viewport visual style from "2D Wireframe" to "Hidden" and it will make Civil 3D render the outline of 3D objects (see below). The problem with this option is that it will make Civil 3D much slower to navigate, it will affect any other 3D objects you may have, and it may affect other object is ways you cannot predict.

I am not that familiar with the 3D modelling tools in Civil 3D, so perhaps someone else can advise on how to possibly convert this thickened circle to outside lines.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Kyle-L! I saw that it was a circle, but didn't know if there was a way to flatten it. I tried the "hidden" view and it created new problems with my plot styles... not ideal. We found a way for the Open Plant designer to export a 2D version of the object, and that will do the job. I was just hoping there was another view setting I could adjust.  Really helpful information though, Thanks for the Reply!

[cwr-pae]

If you plot from paper space, select the viewport and change the "shade plot" setting in the properties window. Id you are plotting from model space change the "shade plot" setting in the page setup or plot dialogs.