Transparent Masses

[pat.cooper]

I have a set of drawings that have included several masses. The default mass material was changed to include "0" transparency. In each view and or sheet the object looks just fine. However, when printing only the outline of the mass shows. It seems the mass prints wireframe when the rest of the drawing is hidden line.

I did a test and found that if the view setting was changed to shading w/edges, the views print just fine. I don't want to include the color and such in the views though.

Note: all views have mass visible through the visibility settings.

Pat

[SkiSouth]

same result on 8.1 - displays fine, prints as an outline. Can't explore now, but check for plotting known bugs.

[ford347]

Has anyone looked into this issue any further? This is happening to me right now. I used the massing tool to represent some funky shapes in an office infill and thought I had the whole thing licked, and to my dismay?!, wireframe when I printed (dwf, & pdf). In the future, if there is not a current fix for the issue, what should I be making all of these special shapes and accessories from. Is this commonly done with in place families? What is the best practice?

[Andre Baros]

Massing elements are intended to be guides. If you need to create forms inside your model, in place families give you all the same modeling ability and can be categorized for tracking and visibility in you project.

[ford347]

Would you suggest only using massing elements when they are intended to become a wall, roof or floor, since these are the only things that massing elements can be turned into? Of course they are still good for studies etc., but is there any way to get these masses to become in-place families or would I need to redraw all that I have created so far?

Thanks for the reply!

Josh

[Andre Baros]

I use masses mostly for drawing context, for building masses mostly for complex roofs and as guides for in place families. I don't know of any way to convert masses to other categories.

[AP23]

Would you suggest only using massing elements when they are intended to become a wall, roof or floor, since these are the only things that massing elements can be turned into? Of course they are still good for studies etc., but is there any way to get these masses to become in-place families or would I need to redraw all that I have created so far?

Thanks for the reply!

Josh


You can copy the masses to clipboard and paste in an in-pace generic family (edit mode). Once they are converted to generic masses you can either leave them as they are or select the faces and turn them into building components at any time.

[twiceroadsfool]

Ive found that even when i give the object a trasn. of 0, and set up my visibility stuff, the masses will still show up looking like *hidden lines* if it is made of multiple masses assembled together in a family.

(For instance, i made a Fireplace and stack in a family, out of masses. On the First floor plan, the flue stack outline was visible, as well as the decorative cap). In the family, i had to go in to the properties of each mass component, and change it to only be visible *if cut*, instead of *show on all plans*...