Masking AutoCAD and ACA content

Have you ever wanted to hide both AutoCAD and AutoCAD Architecture content such as lines, hatches, text, walls, doors and windows? Well, a Wipeout will only work on AutoCAD content and an Mask Block will only work on ACA content. The solution? Something I haven't had to use in a while but was brought off the shelf for a customer recently - the AEC Polygon tool.

To find this tool, do the following (see images):
* Click your Content Browser
* Click the Stock Tool Catalog


























* Click Helper tools
























* Click AEC Polygon tool eye dropper

Then, fill the eye dropper up, drag to model space and pick points to outline the area you want to hide (similar to picking points for a wipeout). You can edit the AEC Polygon style to set specific things you want it to do such as using a Background Mask, telling the edges to be set to a no plot layer, etc.



Its a fairly simple Style to control in ACA since there are few options for it, but should greatly simplify your creation of areas to mask.

Getting Zapped

Well I finally got thru my most anticipated class at Siggraph. It was entitled "Miraclels and Magic: mental ray in Photo-real Rendering for Production" - delivered by the one and only Zap Anderson. I am so hyped up on the brain dump I just got. So much info and no where near enough time for him to cover everything. I got so much info from an hour and a half that it will take me several weeks to digest it all! He covered everything from gamma and how it works on monitors, computers, softwares & also in MAX and then proceeded to answer my deepest questions on what many settings do within mental ray. I hope to be able to share these things in upcoming posts.