Underlay issues for ceilings

[kristian.pal86]

Hi Everyone, 

We have an issue in the office where we are trying to show ceiling bulkheads in our floor plans by using an underlay that is set to 'look up'.  It seems to work relatively well, but with a minor issue where other elements are also showing beyond the view range specified for the floor plan.   

Ex- Floor 4 floor plan shows bulkheads as an underlay on the floor plans, but the railings, stairs and some other what seem like random elements on the 5th floor are still visible, half-toned, on the same floor plan.  

Does anyone know how you can better control the view range of the underlays or whether there is a better method for completing this task?

Thanks in advance,

K

[ToanDN]

Elements on Floor 5 should not show if the Range: Top level of the underlay is set to Floor 5.  Do the elements on floor 5 have negative elevations?

[barthbradley]

FWIW: The Underlay does not represent the View Range settings of each specified view but rather shows all elements that fall within that slice of the model. 

[kristian.pal86]

Thanks for everyone's replies, 

I checked the model and found that the elements in question were in fact not at a negative offset, they were right on of level 5.  When beginning to hide elements manually, especially slabs and such, it only revealed more elements to have to hide underneath.  Manual hiding is actually even more of a pain because of this..

I am trying to do some troubleshooting on the issue but it seems to be the 'look up' underlay feature should be able to do this, but is there absolutely no relation between the view range and the underlay cut plane?  Any advice or some insight on how the mechanics of underlays work would be very helpful in figuring this out for us.

Thanks in advance.. I will post any results I dig up

[ToanDN]

Create a new level 4.5, above your bulkhead and below level 5.  Then, change the Top range of the Underlay to this level instead of level 5.

[kristian.pal86]

This was a cool idea until i tested it. Unfortunately it will only associate the level if there is a plan associated to it. Also, if I made a new level with plan then we would have to hide this level in all sections, elevations, details and other views where they may show. 

Our railings are detailed to cover the front edge of the slabs so that puts them below the level line of the floor above, and therefore within range of the underlay visibility. 

Any other solutions or ideas would be welcomed!

Thank you for the feedback either way

[Sahay_R]

Plan Regions? With some artful tweaking, they may allow you to show things that are outside the view range. I've used them for clerestory windows - no reason why they shouldn't work for bulkheads.

[kristian.pal86]

The major reason would be that we already have some plan region on the plan for other elements. The project is quite large, and putting plan regions on top of each other wont work 😞

[Sahay_R]

Then tweak the VR for the RCP to show the bulkheads. 

[ToanDN]

Put the level 4.5 in a workset that is invisible to all views and you don't have to be worry about it showing up, ever.

[kristian.pal86]

We ended up manually hiding the elements as some of our details required elements to be below level lines so that the detail callouts would work nicely/as intended.. 

Thanks for all the suggestions though!