What is the Max distance you can have objects and not get a visual glitch in 3D window?

[Miner]

I found that if I place an object (or anything) too far from my "work area" I see glitches in the rendering in the 3D window.  I'm trying to put a simple object about 90,000 feet from my building.  This object represents a mountain peak important that is important to the design for views.  When the object is visible the model near the camera disappears as I explore.  It's as if I'm standing in a bubble with a 20'30' radius and nothing within the bubble shows up.  

Has anyone else experienced this?  Has anyone found a fix?  All I figured out is that if I move the farthest object no further than 5,000ft away I get the "bubble" cutaway.

Thanks for your help!

[CosminF]

Hi, 

I don’t know the exact value when the clipping starts to happen, but I also assume it is not the best idea to model far background as it would be in real life.

archviz modeling can sometimes rely on trickery and illusions to give a sense of depth and surroundings.

Why not place it closer and scale it down?

Or replace it entirely with a picture of it (using a picture object) and orient it such that it has a good angle for the camera.

And so on..

hope this helps.

[Karl Ottenstein]

@Miner there are a variety of distance things that can cause glitches... not necessarily two objects' distance from each other, but the project itself far from the origin.  Trying to model a distant mountain peak has worked for me in many cases...where I brought in Google Earth terrain (when that used to be easy) for both site work and showing views from the project.

You might want to look at the old 'cyclorama' technique that rendering and GDL master Dwight Atkinson (and David-Nicholson Cole) describes in this 20+ year old post as you can make a panoramic photo to apply to the cylinder and the rendered views from interior windows will be much more realistic than a model.  The steps will obviously be different with today's rendering engines/etc, but you'll get the idea.  You may need to illuminate the cyclorama (or make it glow) in order for the views towards it to look th way you want.  And, obviously, this technique of faking a distant view only works with a big enough cylinder (but not too big to glitch) and perspective/camera views:

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Visualization/Cyclorama-Background-where-and-why-and-how/m-p/567...

[Miner]

@CosminF , thank you for your response.  You have good suggestions however in my situation I need to have the mountain in its exact location, scale, etc.  I am showing view corridors and how existing objects obstruct the view.  I can't achieve that with a static background or by scaling the object down.  

Much appreciated advice though!

[Miner]

I'll look into this.  Thanks!

[MitchD]

Under 3D styles there is a view radius that may be causing you issues.

[Miner]

That didn't seem to make a difference for me.  Also, it wouldn't let me change the distance to greater than 328'-1 1/64".

[runxel]

In short: You should never do that.

Always model close to the origin, and always model things tightly together.

I don't think there is a "hard" cutoff where this happens but everything above 1km tends to be tricky.

The ol' cyclorama trick should do it too.

If you persist on continuing doing this I would rather model the mountain in a different file into which you hotlink your main model.

Otherwise you will ruin the whole thing since the precision will go down massively.

Another tip: Save the new file once and open it again. On every open Archicad internally recalculates precisions. It could be that after that the "invisible cutting sphere" issue goes away – but walls might not align anymore because of the lost precision. (that's why you should have the main model separate)

[Illes Papp]

Hi @Miner ,

You may be interested in this article:
https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Graphisoft-Insights/Tip-of-the-Month-September-Realistic-environ...

[Miner]

Thanks for the reply.  I was hoping to get realistic views from the residence by placing the mountain and then being able to observe my views from various points.  it's unfortunate we can't do that as in my area we have a couple of mountain ranges that are important to capture views of but situating the house just right (around neighboring homes) makes it challenging.  I can stage each view by taking pictures from the site at set locations and then using those as backgrounds.  I just can't design dynamically and explore the model to confirm view corridors.  

I don't think I have the ability to capture a 360° photo to make the cyclorama trick work.  Plus it appears that that still is only good for a set camera location.

For now I found that I can turn the layer of the mountains on/off to see if I have clear views of desired mountain peaks.  I set the camera at a location I want to confirm a view and turn the mountain on.  The nearby structures disappear but the objects about 40' + away are still present, so that kinda works for me! 

Cheers!