The Plan View

L3DD’s Plan View can be invoked at any time by selecting the Plan View Command command in the View Menu,or by clicking on the Plan View Button in the Standard Toolbar.  As illustrated, the Plan View provides a set of 2D plans of faces from the current project.  The faces shown are those currently selected in the 3D View, or if no faces are selected, the entire project (provided it will fit).  Faces are presented in numerical order going across the view from left to right and progressing down the plan.  The project file name, description, solid-angle reporting option, and plan scale are displayed at the top of the view.

Each face is presented lying on its longest side with the face number shown once in the center (or for long faces, twice – to the left and right of center).  The number of each vertex is shown adjacent to the vertex, just outside the face.  The number of each adjacent face is marked outside the middle of each edge and its interfacial angle is shown in degrees just beneath (this can also be specified as the half angle, or origin-centric angle).  The length of each side is shown to three decimal places just inside the middle of each edge.  For faces with more than three sides, diagonals and their lengths are also shown by dotted lines.  These enhance the accuracy when transferring face plans to the panel material used for building the object.

If the plan is too big to fit within its specified width and maximum length appropriate messages are displayed at the top of the view.  You can increase the width and/or maximum length of the plan using the PlanSetup command in the File Menu.  The scale of the plan and solid its solid-angle display can also be modified with this command.

For printing L3DD’s plans, both the Print Preview and Print Plan/Data commands work in ways that will be familiar to users of Microsoft Windows programs.  However, you must be in the Plan View to preview and print the plans.

L3DD’s Plan View is optimized for polyhedral objects built of material with zero thickness - or alternatively, just the plans of the outer faces, if built from thick material.   Although it is possible to draw thick objects in the 3D View (solid frameworks are an example), the solid angles shown against the outer edges may not be what you expect.  Wherever three faces share an edge, there is an ambiguity as to what the angle shown refers to.  It may be the outer interfacial angle, or it could be the angle between an outer face and a face representing an edge.  Inspection of the plans should resolve this, but the plans of thick objects or frameworks are, nevertheless, very confusing.  Best to avoid them. 

Copyright © Ligno3D Systems, 2006