Wall Composition Appearance

William Arens

I am trying to determine how to change existing compositions or create new compositions (for use as 3d walls) to mimic typical walls I use on my project drawings (see attached Wall Legend.png for examples). I typically show existing walls with no hatch/infill and figured out how to mimic them in 3d using 3d solids with AIR as the only ply. I have tried to create a solid (or crosshatched) grey tone shaded composition to represent new walls similar to that shown in my legend by assigning a solid or tightly cross hatched pattern to the composition (via BLMATERIAL command) with the material appearance set to a screened layer I have previously set for new wall shading (under my .ctb settings). I would like to plot using the 2DWireframe Visual Style in my viewport (for most preliminary plans and construction documents), which I typically do with everything printed in black and white except for the grey shaded new walls. However, any 3d solid walls I have with solid or cross hatching plot completely solid black as shown in the 3d Wall Legend Test.pdf file attached. I was able to use the Reinforced Concrete standard material for 3d concrete wall compositions (this plots using the default concrete hatch assigned) but again the hatch doesn't reflect the layer lineweight settings...the concrete hatch is extremely thick, regardless of layer wall is on or layer I try to assign within the composition material. Layer assignments within materials/appearance do not seem to hold (no layer is set whenever I revisit material settings). I'm curious if other users have had more success with custom compositions or if I'm doing something else wrong. I tried various viewport Visual Style and Shade Plot settings but have had no luck achieving the proper look for construction drawing plots. Thank you.

Michael Mayer

For the cavities, in Vectorworks I would assign a Component (BC = Ply)
to an invisible Class (BC = Layer)

That might not work in Bricscad, as
a) the whole Wall with Composition is still a single Solid and
b) it is very hard to get away the auto hatching of cut surfaces in BC Sections
(I don't seem to be able to really get that away)

So for 2D, it may work by adding a solid color Fill as a Hatch and a 100%
transparent Material for Renderings.
The auto hatching might still be a problem and may need working into
new Drawing customizations to get full control over your appearance in Plans.

William Arens

Michael,
Thanks for your response. I agree the hatching of cut surfaces is hard to avoid, which is why I only used "Air" on the existing wall as a ply material, since I didn't want to hatch that at all in my 2d plans. I think if the layer settings under the ply material appearance would work it would likely be fine for my needs but all hatching I have seen for "ply" infill material seems to default to very thick pen weights, even when the 3d solid itself is on a light/screened layer (as noted, the material appearance layer setting doesn't seem to save either). I should note I'm on a Mac using v21.1.06...not sure if this is an issue on Windows.

Michael Mayer

I think there were lots of changes with Drawing Customization,
moving Section Settings into Viewport Settings (?) and such things.

For me that all is not very intuitive or easy to understand.
Maybe just filing a Feature or Technical Support Request will make
someone explain how it was meant to be used and set up or how
you can reach your desired look.

William Arens

Support request sent. I'll report back if I receive a resolution from Bricsys. Thanks, Michael!