Yo people, Bit of a newby here. I've been trying to play with Vue4 for a while, but I lost the wire frame preview in my views. I can see my objects in in 'Flat-shaded' and 'Smooth shaded' previews, but when I switch to wireframe, I loose the visibility of the objects. This happens under both OpenGL and without OpenGL. FYI - I have a Matrox Millenium II - and have never had problems w/ graphics. Lots of RAM too (768mb). Am I missing activating something in Vue? Thanks... JoeK

Hi Joe, welcome to the forum! I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you, but perhaps someone else will be along with some ideas. This is one I haven't heard about before, so I can't even make any guesses.

Maybe your objects are just out of view ? Try the following: Click several times on the "-" icon until you see the whole "world" (a circle). Then click at the cam and click several times on the "+" icon. You should get into your scene and see again the objects. If this doesn't work, write to support.sbell@e-onsoftware.com and explain your problem.

Another thing you must try before.Disable SHOW FOG in all 4 windows. If this is enabled, you may not see your objects.

And your "background draw" should be set to at least 3/4. Is it possible you might have turned it down in the Options panel? That's under File>Options, and the "background draw" and "instant draw" sliders are at the upper right. background draw detrermines the quality and complexity of the wireframe preview, and instant draw determines the quality of it as it's being moved.

MY background draw is set to 3/4 & I do not have fog enabled. The model I am trying to 'vue' is a simple mesh approx. 8km long and about 50m wide - it is a dxf of a road in a mountainous terrain, from a Digital Terrain Modeling package, exported out of AutoCad. I've also converted the DXF to a 3DS file, but get the same result.

Oh, DFX and OBJ and 3Ds sometimes shows up only as small points. Do you get an image when you render ? Try to add a tree or another Vue object. If you can see them in the windows, then it is a format fault, not a Vue fault :-)

Gebe, That is the perplexing part, I can SEE the image in the little render preview window. I can see the mesh in the shaded or box modes. The only mode that is not functioning is the wire frame. When I render, the mesh is there. And I am trying to use wireframe because it is accurate, but does not slow my system down the way Shaded views do. I'm running a Celeron 450, fast enough for wireframe but a definitive time lag on shaded previews. By the sounds of it, I'll have to re-install Vue, then try it out before applying each patch. I know I had wireframe, but I've been using Shaded displays. I might have lost it in one of the upgrades, and only noticed it on this large job when using shaded displays proved too slow Thanks Gebe...

There's something in the preferences that cause this. Something to do with clipping. I don't have Vue on this machine, or I'd look it up and see if I remember what I unchecked. I'll take a look later and see what I have unchecked. Kevin

There is "clip objects below ground plane" but that usually applies only to the main view, so if that was the case, the wireframe should still display in the top and side views. Very perplexing.

Well, I'm no expert, but I wasn't seeing any of the wireframes in my top and side views, or even in that render window. Then when Mike told me what to uncheck so that I could see my models when I did an underwater scene, I noticed that I could then see everything above the horizon line??, but nothing below, I went back and looked the other options and I think I unchecked clip at ground plane or something like that. Anyway, I can see my wireframes now. I am running Vue 4.01 on windowsXP. Kevin

heyas; it might be that your wireframe window views are not refreshing. do they show up if you click on the view 'title' bar, or if you click on something in the world browser? that's how mine behave.

Thanks for the help tries, but it seems like I will have to re-install. No, it is not the clipping options and although my refreshes are slow (in Shaded mode), they do work. I'll let U know what the results are. Cheers, JoeK (Surveyman)

It's strange, but yes, since you say it had been working before, it sounds like something in the program might have gotten corrupted. That's the only other thing I would guess, unless you've changed or updated your video card driver since then.

Well, I deleted VUE4 and re-installed from scratch. Even with a virginal copy of VUE4 (no patches applied), I still am missing wireframe previews. Thanks for the suggestion Mike, but its not a driver problem. Had the same driver for the past 2 years (for Matrox Millenium II - the latest), and have had no problems with other apps. I also run AMAPI 4.15 for modeling, and that program relies on OpenGL a lot. I do remember having wireframe, so the only thing left to try is a small model. If that has wireframe, and this big one doesn't, it could be a file size/VUE problem. The file I'm trying to work with is large. DXF is 64mb, a 3DS version of it about 15mb. I'll post my results tonight after I try it. Cheers...

OK - did some messing around and found out what the problem is. Its the file size. When I create a small model, the wireframe displays normally. When I DXF in my 8km long model, I get the problem with displaying of the wireframes. In the 3DS model, the wireframe is also displayed, but is already missing some triangles. The DXF file is 17.3mb large, while the 3DS file is 0.95mb. Hmmmm.

Sounds like some problem within Vue for memory handling, then.