3-D View Window Fit View Zooms out due to Invisible Elements Out in Space
We’ve had a few calls on ‘invisible’ elements in 3-D view causing issues with the Fit View command and possible crashing of Micrstation. The following steps will help locate the erroneous ‘invisible’ elements so you can delete them or manipulate them to correct the problem usually due to the profiles relationship to the terrain.
1. Make the 3-D view the active view.
2. Rotate view to the Top View.
3. Navigate to the Level Display dialog.
4. Set the Level Display Filter to (none).
5. Click the Name column header to arrange the Levels in alphabetic order.
6. Click the Used column header to list all the used levels to the top and in alphabetic order.
7. Set an unused level as the active level.
8. Click the Fit View command to expand zoom to the extents of the 3-D data.
9. In the 3-D View, navigate to the Microstation Menu Bar > Edit > Select All. This will select all elements in the 3-D View.
10. Use Microstations Element Selection > Subtract tool to deselect the Main Roadway 3-D data. This will leave the ‘invisible’ elements still selected in 3-D View.
While the ‘invisible’ Elements are selected there may be more elements selected than just the erroneous elements. You can chose to delete them or narrow down the search to find the actual problem elements. To find the problem elements follow the steps below:
11. Navigate to the Level Display dialog and turn off all levels.
12. Systematically, turn 1 level on. (Best to start at the top of the Name column and work your way down).
13. Click the Fit View tool. The contents on that level will center in 3-D View Window, while still maintaining the ‘invisible’ elements in a MicroStation Selection Set. (If you know or suspect what level the problem elements are on you should select those levels first, but you may want to perform this on all levels to make sure you address all potential issues.)
14. Turn off that level off and the turn on the next level. (When the level with the problem elements are on the View will zoom out.)
15. Repeat steps 12-14 until all levels of the erroneous elements are known. This is important as the next steps will require the level to continue.
In this example the problem Elements are on the Sidewalk_pm level.
16. While the Problem Level(s) are on, use the Element Information tool to review the problem areas/elements.
This issue is has been narrowed down to 3 elements with Profile Line Between Points Rules in our example, though it’s not obvious what the issue is. Notice in this example that there are 109 elements selected, but only 3 seem to be the problem. Each issue and each project will have different results at this point. The important thing to remember is you, as the designer, should know your project data quite well to decipher where the problem elements are in the selection set. You can use the Element Information dialog to review the Elements in the Microstation Selection Set for other potential problems and/or choose to fix what you can and/or make notes of issues better suited to be fixed by other techniques or tools or through the Project Explorer.
In this example, the problem is related to the 3 Line Strings listed in the Selection Pane of the Element Information dialog. However, there’s more to it than meets the eye.
When you expand the Line String(3) category, and expand the tree list below that heading, you will, more than likely, see the initial Line String (in our example FSW384) Depends On another Line FSW376.
Changing the Slope Value to 0.00% in the Profile Line Between Points Rule section as well as the same change to the other 2 3D Linear Elements or deleting the elements, in this case will correct the Fit View issues. More than likely deleting the elements will be the best course of action in these cases.
However, I used the Element Information dialog to find 3 other errors in the Civil Custom category which indicate there is Terrain Triangulation issues.
These issues cannot be fixed in the Element Information dialog and its best to make note of the trouble areas/terrains and fix them with other tools or techniques or in the Project Explorer. More than likely the Terrain Triangulation issue is the cause of the Sidewalk 3D Linear Elements shooting out in space.