Transparent Surface in Shaded Mode

[neilyj666]

I'm trying to view boreholes in relation to a surface but the surface is obscuring many of them - can a Civil Surface be made transparent in Shaded mode?

[tcorey]

Change your visual style to Xray.

If a material is applied to the surface, you can change it to Bylayer on Information tab of Surface Properties. Optionally, change Material display to Off in the Visual Style.

If you are stuck on using Shaded visual style, edit it and change its opacity. If Opacity is greyed-out, click the toggle to turn it on.

[jmayo-EE]

There are also a number of transparent materials in AutoCAD. Type materials, search CLEAR or TRANSPARENT in the dialog. Drag the material into the file and assign it to the surface.

[neilyj666]

Thanks for the replies - the Shaded style seems to be the best for displayiing the boreholes but I'll try your suggestions and come back with any more feedback

[darrenr]

Hi all, I am trying to work with transparent surfaces and am getting these patchy spots in areas. I have played with different view styles and played with all the settings in the view style. Also tried applying clear materials but am having no luck removing the patchy areas. Hoping someone has some good ideas. See attached screenshots.

[cwr001]

You could try to set a transparency to the the layer on which the triangles are drawn in your surface style - it gives you a cleaner look, those "patches" remain though (there must be duplicate elements or something):

A better solution would be to extract surface solids and view it in an IFC-viewer (for example Navisworks) where you'd get a much cleaner look:

[darrenr]

Thanks for the quick reply. I tried opening it in Navisworks and it does remove the patches. Just my autocad text isn't showing up now. Will see if I can figure that out now. Thanks so much. Darren