Road not showing correctly after using solid element tool

[Anonymous]

I'm working on a large masterplan model and am trying to model a rather large and complex mesh over a contour map.

First of al i created the outline of the mesh i required and then added all the contour points, adjusting the heights as necessary.

This then shows fine in 3d and everything is ok.

So to this i then need to overlay the road surfaces. So i created the road as a single slab with a total thickness that allowed it to intersect the entire mesh at all points. Using the Solid Elements tool i then went through the process of selecting the mesh as operator, slab as target, Operation as intersection. to trim of the excess slab above the mesh. then selecting the road as operator and mesh as target, Operation as Subtraction with upwards extrusion.

When i then switch to the 3d window my computer will spend the next hour thinking and doing the calculations before showing the trimmed slab but without the upwards substraction applied. trying to re-apply the subtraction does not work either.

Given the area that i'm modelling covers 750m x 350m am i just asking the SE tool to do too much.

Given i've already removed all the excess areas of mesh that i dont need.
What are my options?

- Do i need to simplify the mesh and remove some of the node points?

- Would breaking the slab down into several smaller roads help?

Any other ideas would be greatfully recieved.

I'm currently running
ArchiCad 14.0.0 build 3636
IMAC
Mac Os X 10.6.6
Intel Core i5 Processor
2.66ghz Single Processor 4 cores
8gb memory

[Dwight]

Sometimes the calculations get too large for a single go.

I recommend doing the roads as segments or judiciously splitting the mesh.

[Achille Pavlidis]

Same problem Paul... when using a lot of SEO's with a mesh will take forever to create a 3d view...

nevertheless it should look OK in render window

[David Maudlin]

Paul:

One option to cut down on the 3D Window generation time:
After the slab has been cut by the mesh so its top surface follows the mesh, save the slab as an object (library part), (select the binary option for the script). This part will be huge in file size. Delete the original slab (or save as the pln file so you have a copy of it) so the SEO operation has been cancelled, then place this object into the project, and elevate it so it is slightly above the mesh surface. Unless you are making sections through the mesh, you don't need the SEO anymore, and the 3D generation time will be much shorter. Also, as the object has all the trimming embedded in it (hence its large file size), the objects shape has been pre-calculated in binary code.

Large scale projects with roads with curves will create large 3D generation times when executed as SEO, as both the slab and mesh will have many facets.

David

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the feedback, i'm currently going throught he mesh with a fine comb and removing all the redundant node points. i'm then going to try and split the slab into sections to reduce the burden of each individual calculation.

Hopefully this will speed everything up and still give me a 90% realistic mesh with road.

My actually proposals/development centres around some reclaimed land so the backdrop doesn't need to be 100% just a realistic representation.

[Anonymous]

A variation on David's suggestion is to create the site in a separate file which you use to save the entire site model as a library part which you then place back into the building model.

This retains the entire site model so that it can be easily edited while relieving the building model of the long generation times. Keep in mind that you will still have the same complexity in the rendered model (polygons are polygons regardless of how they are arrived at).

You can also hotlink the building model into the site model file for reference, fitting and SEOs.

[vfrontiers]

To reiterate and validate the stories here, I too have used this technique extensively. And even on modest projects, the SEO'ing of a mesh really increasing 3d viewing lag... In addition, once you've got the 3d display up and running, any modification to the mesh or any one of the operators/ targets linked to it will send you for a cup of coffee... Often, my meshes are cut by ROADS, BUILDING, RETAINING WALLS and many other site features for proper HIDDEN LINE / ELEVATION viewing.

It's a great technique, but there is no free lunch!

I like Matthew's and David's suggestions about creating the library part. And BINARY always gives you a faster 3d display result. I am not sure of the overall workflow if you need to change the site significantly and it depends on matching the building... Hotlinking the building back to the site creator plan works well...

I've just relegated myself to trying to fix as much for the site in PLAN view at one time before going back to the 3d (or instead of fixing in the 3d window itself)...

[Achille Pavlidis]

As I understand there are 2 solutions:
1) Saving mesh as object
2) Hotlinking the mesh

I have not used any of those so, I don't know if they cut time significantly.
I would like to say that not only it takes a lot of time to create a view in the 3d window, but also in Sections.

[vfrontiers]

I truly don't believe hotlinking the mesh will help in rendering times... I think the essence was to build the mesh + roads in another file and saving an OBJECT from there... The hotlinking was the building back to the site to just for coordination while building the site...

Depending on the Site Mesh itself, there is a 3rd option that might be worth looking into...

If you DUPLICATE your mesh and use the slab (or any polygon) to CUT the mesh, you avoid getting into SEO's at all.. So make several copies of the terrain such that you can piece together the EARTH and ROAD as separate meshes...

No free lunch here either, because further editing of the mesh will result in potentially needing to coordinate with the other PIECES you've created.

It is CLEARY the SEO function on the mesh that is the time BINDER... The same complex mesh with no SEO's will generate much faster (imhe)...

[Anonymous]

Another time saver is to cut the mesh up into smaller pieces. It seems that several smaller meshes rill recalculate faster than single large ones of the same complexity. I think it cuts dow the number of relationships that have to be calculated for each SEO.