Trimble Business Center

I understand that the project cleanup tool has to be run a few times to purge out the nested "junk" but the "set elevation outside of range" is one area that never seems to get to zero no matter how many times you run the function. Usually after the second or third time this command is run the number of entities becomes consistent but is there a reason this will not reach zero? Is there a workflow to address this?

I see this on most projects so it is not necessarily a specific file issue. 

Thank you!

I just ran some tests on this to see what is happening and it is a little complex. As a result of my tests I have submitted a request to increase consistency in TBC. The test I carried out was as follows

1) I imported a CAD file. It had the following 2294 Entities

• CAD Text 149 Objects
• CAD 3D Polyline 114 Objects
• CAD Arc 36 Objects
• CAD Blocks 253 objects
• CAD Circle 42 Objects
• CAD Ellipse 5 Objects
• CAD Hatch 33 Objects
• CAD Line 340 Objects
• CAD Multiline Text 808 Objects
• CAD Polyline 504 Objects
• CAD SPLINE 10 Objects

2) I then selected All and changed the Elevation of All to 10'

3) I then reviewed each Object Group above to see what Elevation Property if any was shown

• CAD Text had Elevation 10
• CAD 3D Polyline - did not show an Elevation when selected as a Group, but each one showed an elevation property of 10. A 3D Polyline can have variable elevations and so while it can have a constant Z I would have expected it to show a Min and Max Z of the same values (but it did not).
• CAD Arc - had an elevation of 10 (As a group and individually)
• CAD Blocks - had an Elevation of 10 as a Group and Individually
• CAD Circles - Had an elevation of 10 as a Group and Individually
• CAD Ellipse - DO not report an Elevation Property yet displayed at the same Elevation as CAD Line elements in 3D View (so apparently do have an Elevation it just is not displayed (and maybe native CAD does not allow an ellipse to have an Elevation - need to verify that
• CAD Hatch - said Varies despite all being set to elevation 10 - I could select as a Group and Change the Elevation to 10 so that worked - but Change Elevation failed to do it correctly for all Hatches
• CAD Line - Has Z values but doesnt display when selected as a Group - CAD Lines can have 3D elevations (more than one, so again I would have expected these to show a Min Max of 10 (as they are all the same and Varies if Not when selected as a Group, and Individually to show the Min Max Value (unexpected behavior)
• CAD Multiline Text - showed Elevation of 10
• CAD Polyline -Showed Elevation of 10 - Polylines are fixed Elevation only so this is expected behavior
• CAD Spline  - Showed no elevation values. Again like the Ellipe they appeared in 3D View at the same elevation as a Cad line, yet display no Elevation Property - again in CAD maybe these have no elevation or a fixed elevation and we are not displaying properties appropriately.

4) I then ran Select by Elevation and selected a Range of 12 to 3 and it stated that it had selected only 1396 objects - I also tried between 3 and -10000000 and got 0 Objects and then tried between 12 and 3 and between 10000000 and 3 and got 1396 Objects (which looking in 3D View left other objects that were placed in 3D at Elevation 10 unselected. Those objects included CAD Attributes, CAD Attribute Definitions, CAD Circles, CAD Ellipses, CAD Hatches, CAD Multiline Text, CAD Splines (not entirely unexpected as the objects unaffected by these commands 0 but inconsistent behavior in my view.

5) Then I ran Project Cleanup on the Entire Project and changed all elevations in Range of 3 to -10000 to 3 to undefined. You would have expected all objects (2294) to be selected and changed, however it stated that only 2246 objects got changed, leaving 48 in a different state - however this doesnt match up with the Select By Elevation Command above at all

So based on this analysis, there would appear to be some inconsistency in terms of what is actually happening here, I can explain that through the development of Project Cleanup predates the addition of all the extra CAD Objects into TBC database, and that it has never been updated to reflect the new object types, I can also say that the Object properties do not accurately reflect all of the properties that an object possesses including Elevation as one specifically.

I have forwarded this analysis to the Development Team and hope that they will bring consistency to Object properties Pane and also the Elevation Behaviors that we would expect based on what the native CAD objects support

Thanks for flagging this to me - it would be great to increase consistency of behavior to what is a great command otherwise

Thanks

Alan