Hello,
I've been using this idea for a while, but it's still short of what a solid API update could potentially do. So the main problem with the Elevations Style is that it's vectorizing every triangle in the TIN. If you're doing this with a volume, it's a TIN composed of every vector crossing between every triangle of both tins. If you're working with high resolution TINs such as data derived from LiDAR of photogrammetry, it's exponentially larger to the point where the files are no longer attachable to an email.
Here's my solution:
1. Turn off the toggle that plots the paper space last (NOTE: do not have any linework or text overlapping viewports or the plot order will bug out)
2. Turn off EVERYTHING except for the surface containing the Elevations Style.
3. Plot to JPG. You may have to calculate your sheet size
(300 DPI / 25.4 ≈ 11.81 DPMM, 600DPI / 25.4 ≈ 23.62 DPMM)
4. Bring that plot into your Layout as an XREF from corner to corner
5. Turn off the surface
6. Replot
This rasterizes the surface, in turn reducing the vector count caused by all those little triangles. Note you will end up with some antialiasing, my solution is to turn the surface into a Contours Style that matches the color banding interval so it masks the transitions between colors with linework.
My idea:
I would like to see a setting in the Plotting panel of the Options that automatically rasterizes the Elevation Banding Style. The API could be running something of the same routine, but if it's built into the API, it can stage it in such a way that it applies only to the surface itself, it could potentially run the rest of the sheet as transparent pixels or something, it could potentially hold layer draw order, etc.
