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Strange artifacts on part when rendered

Question asked by Mark Jackson on Dec 20, 2017
Latest reply on Feb 21, 2020 by Luke Thompson

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I'm baffled by the strange artifacts showing up on a part when rendered in a model I'm working on. In Preview mode the artifacts don't show, but in Fast and Accurate modes they are there. I've tried a generic appearance with no textures, and I've tried various appearances with textures. The appearance does not make a difference. Could it be some sort of corruption of the part brought in from SolidWorks?

^ Preview mode with Brushed Aluminum appearance applied

^ Fast mode render

^ Accurate mode render

Brian Hillner

Dec 20, 2017 8:30 PM

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Hi Mark,

Might this be 'z-buffering' you are seeing from co-planar surfaces? If 2 surfaces in Visualize are co-planar (exactly on top of each other), then you will get this jagged artifacting.

If there's indeed only 1 surface there, then you might try 'Repair' or 'Rebuild' normals - these are buttons in the Models Tab when you have the desired part selected with the blue Part selection tool. This might fix your issue.

Thanks,

Brian

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Rich Fagioli Dec 20, 2017 6:57 PM
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That looks like a "fitting" artefact: where the appearance is, "for whatever reason known only to Visualize", poorly fitted to the part.

Try adjusting your appearance parameters, namely, tiling and mapping method. Manipulating the texture around an axis may also remove this effect. Try fitting the appearance to the part, as well.

I used to get these artefacts too when rendering brushed metal appearances with bump maps. Given the low relative size of bumps in brushed metals, I no longer use "bump strength" and almost always use a specular appearance.

And, no....there is nothing wrong with the SW part.
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- Mark Jackson @ Rich Fagioli on Dec 20, 2017 7:09 PM
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  That doesn't seem to be it Rich. Here it is with a generic appearance with no textures at all. Did I understand you correctly that you thought the issue might be textures?
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  - Rich Fagioli @ Mark Jackson on Dec 20, 2017 7:18 PM
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    Mark Jackson wrote:
    
    That doesn't seem to be it Rich. Here it is with a generic appearance with no textures at all. Did I understand you correctly that you thought the issue might be textures?
    
    Yes....That was how I had resolved this problem (if I can remember that far back): correctly fitting the appearance to the part. I also remember what a PITA it was too because it didn't seem to make sense at the time, as I was doing nothing to the part that I hadn't done to the others! Sorry I can't be more help....
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Brian Hillner Dec 20, 2017 8:30 PM
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Hi Mark,

Might this be 'z-buffering' you are seeing from co-planar surfaces? If 2 surfaces in Visualize are co-planar (exactly on top of each other), then you will get this jagged artifacting.

If there's indeed only 1 surface there, then you might try 'Repair' or 'Rebuild' normals - these are buttons in the Models Tab when you have the desired part selected with the blue Part selection tool. This might fix your issue.

Thanks,
Brian
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- Andreas Olofsson @ Brian Hillner on Dec 21, 2017 2:05 AM
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  I'd go with Brian's guess. Looks like overlapping geometry.
  It's happened to me too when Visualize decides to import duplicate parts that were hidden in Solidworks.
  
  What I do when that happens is suppress in SW instead of hiding and then re-import to Visualize.
  
  Here's a tip for finding the hidden part (assuming you're using Solidworks):
  Right click anywhere in the empty space of your viewport. Click on the "select" dropdown menu and choose "select hidden".
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  - Rich Fagioli @ Andreas Olofsson on Dec 21, 2017 10:21 AM
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    I've seen this "Z-buffering" artefact before, notably at the plane where two imported (non-treated) surfaces meet. When I have to import multiples of the same part, this artefact will always pop up in some surprising ways; but it's an easy artefact to kill: just move the entire part, or change its scale, or simply delete it. However, the artefact never shows up on surfaces with "properly" assigned appearances, where "properly" means "whatever works". For example, in my project below, I've 3 rendered flanges visible, all of which are of identical overall dimensions. In fact, I could keep exposing new parts until the cows come home and never see this z-buffering artefact, perhaps because a (properly fitted) appearance has been assigned to each surface.
    
    As proof, if I delete my appearances, and adjust the opacity of one of my parts slightly, this z-buffering artefact pops up:
    
    Now I've applied an off-the-shelf brushed metal appearance to only one part and made both parts 100% opaque. Even if I apply the same appearance to both parts, nothing changes and this z-buffering artefact persists. 15 minutes spent weaking all other texture settings also changes little.
    
    However, applying a different, customized appearance that dispenses with a bump texture, and the z-buffering artefact disappears. I won't claim to know why, just that this seems to work for this case:
    
    However, even armed with this knowledge, getting to this point still required considerable fiddling with the texture mapping dials. YRMV!
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- Mark Jackson @ Brian Hillner on Dec 21, 2017 12:13 PM
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  That was it Brian. It was a co-planar surface that I was able to find per Andreas' instructions.
  
  Thanks very much Rich, Brian and Andreas for the early Christmas present. I love this forum. It saves me so much time and keeps me from getting big headaches! Merry Christmas you guys!
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  - Brian Hillner @ Mark Jackson on Dec 21, 2017 12:46 PM
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    Awesome! Glad that fixed it.
    
    Happy to hear you enjoy this forum. It's because we have loads of active Visualizers who are willing to help each other and give advice. I'm truly thankful for everyone's support on this Visualize Forum!
    
    Here's to an even more impressive 2018 year of development and new features
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    - Damir Galic @ Brian Hillner on Jul 18, 2018 1:50 AM
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      Hi, just wondering is this is considered a bug, that hidden parts are invisible in visualize but don't show as hidden or disabled?
      I also noticed that "envelope" parts from solidworks are shown in "fast render" but not "accurate render".
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      - Brian Hillner @ Damir Galic on Jul 18, 2018 2:45 AM
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        Hi Damir,
        
        What version of Visualize are you using? You can find this information by clicking 'Help > About' and then the version will be shown in small text in that window.
        
        Thanks,
        Brian
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        Damir Galic @ Brian Hillner on Jul 18, 2018 2:54 AM
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        It's visualize professional 2018 SP 3.0.
        SW is 2016 SP 5.0
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        Brian Hillner @ Damir Galic on Jul 19, 2018 6:21 AM
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        I'm having difficulty trying to reproduce this issue you're describing. Could you please attach a small example file of what you're experiencing, with exact reproducible steps and images showing the unexpected result? This way our Dev team can try to reproduce what you're seeing and try to fix it. Thank you.
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        Damir Galic @ Brian Hillner on Jul 19, 2018 7:38 AM
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        If you mean artefacts like above, the problem is if you got exactly the same object over another except that one object is hidden you get artefacts (so you need to hide or disable that object):
        below is a duplicate of a stand for 2 vessels, so they overlap on the same spot.
        
        if you mean envelope part:
        1. solidworks file
        2. fast render
        3. accurate render
        
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        Ron Bates @ Damir Galic on Jul 20, 2018 10:02 AM
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        Hi Damir,
        I'm not able to reproduce this issue with envelope components from SW. In 2018 sp03, they seem to take on their part level appearances in all render modes (fast/accurate) consistently.
        Ron
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        Damir Galic @ Ron Bates on Jul 20, 2018 10:46 PM
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        weird. I'll try to render butterfly valve alone and see if this happens also. then put it up here.
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        Damir Galic @ Ron Bates on Jul 23, 2018 1:16 AM
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        ok it's like this. if I import solidworks file where envelope part is hidden I get this:
        If it's not hidden I get then this which is a true envelope part but non-transparent:
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- Daniël Falkmann @ Brian Hillner on Feb 14, 2020 4:49 AM
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  Hi I tried every solution mentioned in this post but I still get some locally surface disruption.
  I can't show you the whole image due to company rules.
  The surface is only disorted at the length of the winch. This part is also used on the other side of the winch and there is no issue. I've tried fiddling with the rebuild/repair/normals etc... but nothing helps.
  Any suggestions?
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  - Damir Galic @ Daniël Falkmann on Feb 15, 2020 3:59 AM
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    Maybe another part that is hidden is touching the surface. You need to disable the hidden part. Part will disrupt surface if 2 surfaces are on the same plane even if one of them is hidden.
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    - Daniël Falkmann @ Damir Galic on Feb 17, 2020 10:10 AM
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      Thanks for quick respond, but I allready checked that and that is not the case..
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Lily Martin Dec 22, 2017 8:09 AM
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In Preview mode the artifacts don't show up to you as co-planar surfaces in your artifacts are bipolar to one other.
The buttons in Models Tab will fix this issue of z buffering
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Luke Thompson Feb 21, 2020 10:31 AM
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I usually fix this problem by manually shifting that model by 0.0001 in the Z direction to get the parts out of the same Z location. This is easy, but causes re-import issues though so be careful.
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