I have a 2D file with 2D tree cells in the correct geographic locations and need to now place 3D tree cells onto existing 3d meshes in the same XY locations as the 2D plan. I have tried several options now without success.
I was hoping to use the stencil tool to project a point onto the surface and then export the XYZ point coordinates and use them to place the 3D trees, but it seems that it can't project a point, I presume it can't make a mesh with 1 point.
Is there a tool that can move an element vertically to a surface or something similar. Can anyone suggest something that I can try
I am using MicroStation v16.311, we also have OpenRoads latest version and OpenBuildings update 9 if there is anything in them that may help.
Regards,
John
Check the Populate Tool (Visualization > Utilities > Populate)
Please check this Wiki
Thanks for your help Leonard but it looks like the linked wiki has gone walkabout.
an alternative to move to contact is to use accudraw after replacing the cells. lock accudraw to the z axis and use the nearest snap.
Thanks David,
That will work but too many trees to do manually, 700 is just the 1st stage.
Hi John,
I'm pretty sure that it would be easy to write a VBA macro which could insert cells on the mesh with known X&Y coordinates and the intersecting Z coordinate would be calculated automatically. I made a similar macro a couple of months ago for another member to find the closest point on a B-spline surface from a specified point. What you are needing is similar, but instead needing to calculate an intersection point to a mesh along the Z vector (either up or down) from source X&Y coordinates.
John Davidson said:700 is just the 1st stage.
Good luck with that! I hope CONNECT is capable of handling that number if the trees are cells with any decent level of detail. In my experience, MicroStation is not the software you want for that kind of thing; V8i certainly can't handle that amount of geometry whatsoever but I don't know if CONNECT fares any better. I'm not even sure using Shared Cells and Fast Cells enabled will help much, compared to what I used to do many years ago in 3D Studio Max with Evermotion Tree's made into V-Ray Proxies.
The other thing worth considering is that even if you can place all these tree's and aren't finding slowdown due to large amounts of geometry, the trees are going to (initially) look terrible because they will all be identical in scale and rotation. With the aforementioned V-Ray Proxies, I used to have a Maxscript where I could select the trees and set maximum and minimum range percentage values for scale and rotation (from their original size and rotation) so that they had a more natural variation in appearance. Again this is something that probably could be written in VBA although calculated randomness is far from truly random
Barry,
Barry Lothian said:the trees are going to (initially) look terrible because they will all be identical in scale and rotation
The Populate tool has settings to randomize scale and rotation, so you can avoid that problem,
It also automatically places the cells as Shared Cells which definitely reduces the impacts on system resources when working with large populations.
Regards,Ron
Ah well that's a good option to have built-in already. It's not a tool I've used as I don't use MicroStation for 3D work where mass amounts of geometry needs populated, I've find MicroStation is good for modelling buildings etc.. but when it comes to trying to create Arch Viz images and adding all sorts of content to enhance realism (different grass types, Trees, individual stones/leaves, people, vehicles etc..) it simply can't handle the data and navigating grinds to a halt. Performance in CONNECT might be a bit better, but in my previous tests it still struggled. Couple that with poor quality render engines in V8i/CONNECT(compared to V-Ray/Octane/Corona/Cycles etc..), I limit my 3D work in MS these days purely technical.
With any luck your suggestion will give John what he's looking for.
Barry,Here's a link to a very realistic animation I created in V8i about 9 years ago that contains over 23000 3D trees. While navigation slowed down with all geometry visible it was easy to turn off levels that contain the trees and navigate more fluidly.
Morning Ron,
Yes I recall seeing that before and I'm sure it was quite effective for its purpose.
In my post above, I'm not referring to animations but still images. Animations can get away with much less detailed scene content typically, your animation is a classic example due to its speed; it moves quick enough that the human eye doesn't get a chance to focus in on the detail of the tree's. From what I can make out, it looks as though the 3 trees are much less detailed than the equivalent's I'm referring to e.g. https://evermotion.org/shop/show_product/archmodels-vol-163/12684
Respectfully, I think also our definitions of 'Very realistic' differ somewhat, although my area of interest is in Arch Viz and your example was a new highway ( I think?) so the aesthetic and LOD are perhaps quite different for those differing fields of work.
To illustrate what I consider relevant examples of that quality classification from my perspective:
I'm also not making a direct comparison of your example against the works of the above artists. My point is as I said before is that MicroStation cannot produce this quality of work, its simply not capable and doesn't have access to the superior render engines which make it possible, either.