About those elevations that relied on the clipping bug

One trick you can do with components is to have a copy of the component off on the side somewhere, where there is nothing in the way. You make changes inside that copy of the component, and the deeply buried copy will get the same changes.

colin: Thanks for suggesting this tip. I do use this comp. technique and have just recently on uploaded model for key fob for Sunbeam Tiger which has a tiny, tiny spring hidden inside. Works great but in this case had to really scale it up (10000x) but unfortunately still required some stitching at normal scale. I was just experimenting to see if mods would work while clipped but wouldn’t really need to use much. I see my preferred browser is no longer supported and I can’t make downloads either (Collada not acceptable) so maybe it’s time to cash-out using SketchUp altogether.

I haven’t yet tried the fix in 2022.0.1, but from your description it sounds like it should fix the problem. Avoiding orbiting might be a bit unintuitive, but orbiting isn’t normal when creating elevations with Position Camera anyway, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

I have to applaud the Sketchup team for acknowledging the issue and fixing it so quickly. Thumbs up on that.

I do think, however, that a better long-term solution than backing out the camera could be found to the clipping problem. And I have to disagree somewhat with your assertion that “section planes [are] a better solution.” That is true except when they’re not. If managing a lot of section planes were much easier, and if section planes could address the interior lighting usage case, then I might agree. As they are, section planes are not always better.

Again, thanks to the Sketchup team for taking action on this issue.


Keith

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Thank you SketchUp,

Downloading version 22.0.354 fixed the getting elevations views without section cuts and using Camera positioning work around and using Parallel projection.

Thank you for getting this fixed quickly!

While this has been ‘fixed’ for use in Sketchup, If I set up a scene using the described method here and then send the scene to Layout for documentation purposes, the viewport appears as expected only while in raster mode. I noticed if I change the viewport to hybrid or vector mode then any edges (not faces) which are hidden by the clipping plane, ie ‘behind the camera’, become visible in the viewport thereby obscuring the intended elements of the scene. This kind of puts us back to square one and makes the method usable, sort of.

In previous versions of SU, this was not the case…

I’m on a Mac, I’d be interested to know if this happens on Windows.

The problem should show on Windows as well.

Do you have a small example file, where lines are not visible when set to Vector in LayOut?

It’s the other way round - edges in front of the clipping plane become visible when the LayOut view is switched to Vector or Hybrid.
Still, nothing has changed in that the original workflow was based on a bug and it is not the way sectional views should be created.

On close inspection of the attached SU model, I’ve got a suspicion hybrid/vector might make visible the edges both in front and behind the clipping plane.

There are open shelves in a different room which become visible when the viewport is set to hybrid mode. This room is behind the camera position/clipping plane in the scene. I’ve attached the pair of linked SU & LO files for your perusal…

The scene/viewport which illustrates this is 'D, shower, WC’.

Here are two screenshots, the first set to raster, the second set to hybrid…


First_Bathroom_F.layout (12.9 MB)
First_Bathroom_F.skp (7.8 MB)

The original workflow was based on the logic of the way cameras work - in any view, cameras should not show anything that occurs behind the camera location, only what’s in front of the camera. Therefore in parallel projection view this method SHOULD create elevation views without section planes. It absolutely is a valid way of creating views without having to add dozens of section planes to your model.

If anything, the fact that hybrid/vector views introduce edges that are behind the camera location in Layout is still a bug - things that are not in front of the camera are still being shown in the view associated with that camera. That to me is an error in the way Layout is processing the geometry that is shown.

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I’m about to get on a plane. I have your files and will look at them more later.

A section plane?

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Verticle, horizontal, or rotated?

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I was in my section of the plane.

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As long as you keep your own section plane active.

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Hi @colin, did you manage to have a look at my files? Just bumping this post in the hope it doesn’t become buried under the piles of posts.

If those pesky edges behind the camera could be eliminated in vector/hybrid mode then this IMHO would represent the most useful application of the position camera tool.

It looks like I may not have managed to look at your files. I have now though, and I see what appears to be happening. Edges that are behind the camera are not being clipped when in Vector or Hybrid. Only work around I could see was to hide the Fixtures in Outliner, and update the scene in SketchUp. That still showed some differences, but it was a lot closer to being right.

I will ask @trent to try. We’re closed for the federal holiday today, I will check with him tomorrow to see if he has taken a look.

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Thank you for your patience by the way!

This has been very helpful to me today! Love a good workaround…

Fyi, This issue has not been attended to in the S.U. 2023 release. Edges on all visible geometry which is set behind the camera/clipping plane is rendered by LayOut when the viewport is set to vector mode.