topic Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations in Documentation

Cover fills not showing in elevations

cocoloco — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 03:22:43 GMT

Hi!

Is there a way to show cover fills in elevations?

I’m running into some trouble with this. My goal is to save all my elevations with uncut elements displaying a simple Surface – Color Fill (non-shaded). I’m doing this for two reasons: to reduce PDF file size and because all I really need on the layouts is a clean representation of surface materials—like marble fills, etc.—without any shading or 3D effects.

I’ve found a workaround using Surface – Texture Fill (non-shaded) and by setting up my surfaces with matching texture fills. But I don’t love this method because it starts showing other surface textures I don’t want, and I’d have to override everything to white just to get it clean. Plus, the PDF size becomes huge even when everything is technically white...

What I really want is a clean black-and-white look that still shows the color fills (such as marble look to show material) that i have set up without showing real textures or increasing file size unnecessarily.

Is there a way to achieve this with cover fills in elevations?

Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations

Barry Kelly — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 04:05:15 GMT

In your elevation settings, just tick the box to show 'Surface - Cover Fill Foreground'.

This used to be called 'Vectorial 3D Hatching' in older versions.

Then so long as the surface material for the edge (or the building material if you are not overriding the edge material) has a hatch pattern, you should see it.

I also use 'Uniform Pen Colour' with a transparent pen to get a clean elevation.

I avoid using 'Surface - Texture Fill, as I find that can make PDFs very large in file size and hard to print.

Barry.

Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations

cocoloco — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 04:33:04 GMT

Thank you - I will try it tomorrow! I hope it’s really just that!

And agree with you, I have been extremely unsuccessful to save the file in pdf with the texture fills. And after finally saving it (170MB pdf file) my clients could not open or print it 😭 (as you can imagine, it was a nightmare)

Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations

cocoloco — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:49:48 GMT

hmmm, unfortunately the fill is still not showing 😞 The issue is with all elevations and items whether it is slab (like in printscreen), Ci cabs too... the fills would show on floor plan though..? I don't have any overrides . I am sending the pattern I have for marble with setting but to me all looks good.

I tried also adding different pattern from original archicad library (brick) with the same outcome, empty. I also tried different settings of elevations but nothing.... it just wont show the fill I have set up.

If I think about it, the issue goes wayyyy back to other projects I just didn't have time to look at it closely and just did what I was able to.

Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations

Barry Kelly — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:53:00 GMT

Can you show the elevation settings as I have in my post?

You must also have a uniform pen rather than 'None, as that won't have the option to show the hatching.

Barry.

Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations

cocoloco — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 01:18:08 GMT

Yes here it is!

Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations

Barry Kelly — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 01:51:50 GMT

Strange.

The only difference is I have 'Uniform pen' and you have 'Surface - colour fill'.

That shouldn't make a difference though.

However, check that the surface you are using for the slab has a hatch pattern associated to it.

The cover fill is what you see in plan if it is turned on.

The surface is what you see in elevation.

I don't have your marble surface set up, but here is an example of what I mean.

This is what I see with surface colour on for the edge of a slab in elevation.

Barry.

Re: Cover fills not showing in elevations

cocoloco — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 03:00:34 GMT

I tried the "Uniform Pen" too but no difference - That being said! Changing the cover fill foreground and choosing marble (again) made a trick. I am not sure if I understand well why it has to be done this way but oh gosh thank you endlessly as always!