Section Perspective

Perspective Drawing, Still Image Representation

Objectives

Show depth, project movement in space.
Show activity in the process of happening.
Show shadows, how light goes through the building.
Site relationship to the context, what is happening in the background, which other buildings are present, how it relates to the street.

Prerequisites

Existing 3D model of building

- - Make sure all surfaces are continuous and all pieces are aligned, this is done by making sure all curves are continuous before they become extruded
  - Make sure you don’t have any open faces in the model, only solids
  - Window planes should be individual elements between moleons, avoid continuous plans through other objects. Same for columns, have sets of columns for each floor, instead of continuous ones through the building
- Camera settings - 1-point perspective, 35-50mm

Set up 3-4 new layers

- Other (structure, particular objects of interests…)

Limitations & Disclaimer

The time estimates represented in this workflow is estimated based on a specific model / input. Actual time required may vary depending on specific use scenarios.

Contents

Estimated Total Time: 2.5 - 5.5 Hours

1. Setup (1 hour)

Define what you want to show - 20min

- Select the whole building, add bounding box by using BoundingBox. Split the bounding box on the clipping plane to get a surface which is the extent of the model at the cut
- Extract a plane coplanar with the clipping plane, which is the intersect of the cut and the bounding box.

Then type oRIENTCAMERATOSRF (invoke Between, let’s you select two points diagonally opposed on the plane to align to plane). This allows accurate orthogonal 1-point perspective aligned to bounding box plane of the building.

Make2d of the building

2. Create + Clean Cut Line Vectors (0.5 hour)

Create the cut lines of the floors and walls

- Use the previous cut plane (coplanar to clipping plane) and INTERSECTTWOSETS with the building model. This will yield all the “cut lines”.
- To create the cut profile (outline), use CURVEBOOLEAN. Remember to remove interior voids. That makes all the cut lines as a polygon
- Add these lines in
  layer.
- Alternative: For a clean model, you can also select all lines of the
  layer.

Cleaning inside the cut lines
- Select the new
  lines, hatch (make sure it is solid)
- Bring the cut outline above the
  of the building
- HATCH fill cut outline

Export to Illustrator (Hatches export as solid fills) or Go to top view, make2d again

3.A. Rendered layered section perspective (1 hour)

Tip

Make sure you do not have any open faces and only have solids.

Open Vray Interactive on the locked Named View
Open Vray Materials, choose the Countour channel (This changes the material set for the different layers to get the raster lines of which you can alter the width)
- Set color to white or grey to create undertone
- Set up the width to 0.5

Render the cut-away model with the contour assigned to each material of the original model.
The rendering product should have lines associated with each hard edge of the model.
This image can be used directly as a backdrop for the section perspective.

Export the render to Photoshop, update the lighting
Add figures and trees in Photoshop save as PSD
Export the
lines to Illustrator and place the PSD as backdrop layer