Graphic display issue--possibly related to shadows/lighting

[jbrr27]

I have a perspective view that is showing some strange graphics, see attached.  There's a storefront system (curtain wall family) with a model-in-place family centered on the glazing panels to show a pattern on the glass as required by the client.  This pattern is supposed to be gray.  In some areas, it shows dark, and in others it shows light enough it's hard to see.  It looks like this may be related to shadows or lights; I've tried turning off shadows, sun, ambient light, etc. (see GD options attached) and even turning off all light fixtures in graphic overrides, and the problem still persists.  There is also a variation where there is glazing beyond, but that I can hide if I have to.  On the left, there is no glazing visible beyond, so that's not the only thing happening.  Any ideas how to get this to show consistently?Weird graphic display on glazingGraphic Display Options for the view

[lucdoucet_msdl]

@jbrr27 

Revit does funny things when the faces of two objects are in alignment. Try moving the generic modelled with a slight projection (ex. 3mm or 1/8") towards the camera side of the view.

Here's what makes me think it is an alignment issue:

Hope this helps,

-luc

[L.Maas]

Without access to the model it is difficult to guess what is going on. Can you post (small part of) your project so we can see what you have.

[jbrr27]

I didn't mention in the original post because there's a lot going on there, but the patterned/frosted glazing (the model-in-place component) is offset 1/8" from the face of the curtain panel.  It was to the inside, not the camera side, but I tried moving it to the camera side and the result was the same.

[jbrr27]

I had that thought as well.  I'll see if I can get the chance to try and clean it up to post.  There's a lot of proprietary information from the client I'll have to purge out, as well as a lot of extraneous stuff to get rid of.

[lucdoucet_msdl]

How about temporarily isolating the model-in-place component with the eyeglass tool. Does the pattern happen when the only thing visible is the component?

-luc

[lucdoucet_msdl]

@jbrr27 

---

I'll see if I can get the chance to try and clean it up to post.  There's a lot of proprietary information from the client I'll have to purge out, as well as a lot of extraneous stuff to get rid of.

---

A quick way to extract a portion of a project to a new file is:

1. Select several objects, create and name a model group;
2. In the project browser, right click and save group as project;
3. Open the saved project and purge any additional information that may be proprietary.

In your case, you would have to recreate the view in the saved project file. If by chance, the problem is solved in the saved file, that's a new starting point to troubleshoot.

-luc

[jbrr27]

@L.Maas Here's a cleaned up version.  I didn't paste into a new file, just deleted and purged from the original.  The issue still exists in this one.    

[jbrr27]

I had not tried this--isolating the window treatment (model-in-place) family, it goes away.  It also does if the curtain wall family is isolated.  Isolate the two of them together, however, and it shows up.  So perhaps it's not a shadow, but something about how the 2 elements interact with each other?

[syman2000]

I am not getting this issue. It could be graphic card issue. Try turning off hardware acceleration. Also test exporting out as PDF or image to see if the shadow behave normally.

[jbrr27]

If your image is a screen shot of Revit, that's not where the error is occurring--it happens in print preview and in PDFs.  I have created PDFs (which is where the screen shots came from), but had not exported an image.  When I do that, it shows up correctly in a jpg.  Turning off hardware acceleration didn't affect it when creating a PDF.  I'm curious as to why this would show up differently as an image rather than a PDF?  Does that tell you anything about the underlying issue?  At the least it's a potential workaround.

[syman2000]

Hard to know the issue. As for PDF, I would keep the DPI to 300 or 600 instead of default 1200. Most often 1200 result in huge file size and sometimes won't render those plot correctly. Also did you update to the newest 2022 update?

[jbrr27]

I did install the recent update for 2022.  Interestingly, I just upgraded the model a couple of days ago from Revit 2020.  In 2020, I was having issues with the elevation of this window that also manifested in 2022, but the 3D view issue didn't come up until upgrading.  Not sure what that means, if anything.  My PDF printer was set to 600 dpi, I tried changing it to 300.  It still printed the same.

[barthbradley · Accepted solution]

Try with Raster Processing.  

[jbrr27]

That did it--although when I started having the issue it was raster printing because I was getting the raster message (Revit will use raster printing because this view uses shading, shadows, etc....).  So there must've been something else that was factoring into it as well.  Regardless, I'm just glad it's working now.