About clipping

I’m curious about the clipping issue, and what the easiest way to fix it is. I saw one possible solution, that I’m testing. To see if it works I have been searching for example cases. After about an hour of searching I only found one example model that actually has clipping. Most other posts are on the lines of:

“my model is cut off”
“that’s a known issue, see this article”
“sigh, why don’t Trimble fix that!”

Only a couple of posts had a model, and one didn’t have clipping after all, and the other had severe clipping. The approach I’m trying (on my Mac) easily fixed that model.

Do any of you have example models that are still a problem, or know of posts where there was an example posted that did show clipping?

I seem to run into it when I’m up close to a large model in perspective view. If I switch to parallel and use Zoom Extents, it usually fixes it.

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There are a number of work arounds, including going into perspective and zoom extents. Some people make the point that they are in Parallel Projection for a good reason, and they may need to be in a close up view. What I’m trying fixes things without stopping you from doing either of those things.

I just made one for similar experiments…

small_spidder_clips.skp (470.4 KB)

the typo tells you what to zoom in on…

john

Thanks. But how do I make it clip? It’s behaving well, even if I look at the small “spidder”.

I did afterwards find that in Perspective, and going super close, I would pass through the walls of the spider’s legs. But that seems normal. I couldn’t get any clipping in Parallel Projection.

sml_spider

the model has the fov set to 45˚ which makes it happen sooner…

and in PP

sml_spider_PP

john

No such clipping for me, even before I try to fix it.

I found an angle where I could get some clipping. Here are recordings before and after I tried to fix it.


I made versions of the file that had worse clipping, and hopefully no clipping. See if you can find any way to make the good one clip.

small_spidder_clips_bad.skp (472.0 KB)
small_spidder_clips_good.skp (519.6 KB)

I am a new user and seem to have this problem when I rotate, pan and zoom. Is this what is called “clipping” ? Seems to occur when I am in “Parallel Projection”.

@colin, it’s much the same in Perspective, and I would never model in PP…

trying to fix the eye on the small one is the kind of issue that results in forum complaints…

john

Yes, it’s the ‘near’ clipping plane used by the openGL rendering engine in many 3D programs…

john

Is this expected or am I causing this accidentally ?

That is what I am looking into. Can you attach your model, or upload it somewhere and give me a link? If I’m right I should be able to fix the model.

I copied the model into a new file and find that I cannot reproduce the problem. So, it must be some mistake I am making, or a peculiarity in my software/hardware. And this is the typical pattern that I encounter. I create a model, everything is fine, and then the clipping occurs. My workaround has been to save the model, then reopen and I am good for another period of time.

Hi,

Maube you could be interested by Daniel TAL’s clipping plane extension

David

Seems like I am a “Clipping” magnet today. :tired_face: Here is another example. I note that in this case I switched between xray and normal view before the behavior started. Very frustrating for any SU user, but especially for a new user trying to establish a consistent workflow.

clipping1

And simply switching to “Perspective” solved the issue, this time!

clipping3

As it seems there is a solution, could this functionality be put into the native tools given that it is an issue that has existed for years.

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I mentioned earlier that I’m doing my fix on my Mac. That extension is PC only. If my fix does work for all cases, it ought to work on PC too.

If you switch back to Perspective, does the problem come back again? If it does, can I look at the file?