Polygon Objects - Vertical Extrusion

Polygon vertical extrusion objects are created in Elevation view and allow for any user-defined profile to be uniformly extruded through a specified depth. The applications of this object type are numerous including; furniture, ducts, architectural elements, people, trees, cars, etc. Polygon vertical extrusion objects may have curved surfaces attached to the current endpoint by pressing the F4 key on the keyboard. First, you will be prompted to enter the endpoint of the arc, then the arc curvature will be specified. If desired, you may flip the arc in the opposite direction by pressing the F5 key. Once the arc is complete the cursor will be attached to the second point so that you may continue specifying additional vertices.

The object’s properties are specified in the Object-Polygon-Vertical Extrusion dialog. These properties include a unique object label, description, wireframe color, labeling options, object depth, and surface reflectances. When the object is initially specified, all surfaces are assigned the same reflectance value. You may edit the object, after creation, to assign a different reflectance (color) to each surface individually, if desired.

1. Begin by specifying the appropriate Elevation view. Locate the viewing plane, which specifies the view location and direction in Plan view. From the View menu choose Elevation, or from the Common toolbar select . Locate the left hand corner of the elevation view and click. Drag the cursor along the viewing plane and click on a second alignment point.
2. From the Add menu select Object-Polygon - Vertical Extrusion, or from the Rooms/Objects t\Toolkit select . Click on the down- arrow adjacent to the Polygon Object button and select Vert-Extrusion.
3. Specify a unique label for the object up to 32 characters long. The default label will be Object_1. Unless changed, subsequent labels will be Object_2, Object_3, etc. If a number is used for the label, subsequent labels will be incremented accordingly.
4. If desired, a description may be entered, up to 80 characters long. Meaningful descriptions including size and color will be useful for schedules.
5. The object will be created in AGi32 using the selected Wire Frame Color. This color is not used in AGi32's Render mode, it is only used to represent the object's shape in the graphics window. By default, this color is blue. To change it, click in the color cell. The Color dialog will appear for your use.
6. If surface labeling is desired, click on the Labeling button. A separate dialog will appear for specification of text labels for the object and/or its surfaces.
7. Enter the object depth in the Depth of Object text box.
8. All object surfaces are assigned a color. By default, the surfaces are assigned a shade of gray corresponding to a reflectance value of 0.5You may change the reflectance of a surface by simply typing a new value in the Reflectance cell for the Top, Sides, or Bottom. You may change surface color and its corresponding reflectance by clicking in the Color cell for the Top, Sides or Bottom. The Color Selection dialog will appear allowing you to select surface colors based on user defined reflectances.
9. You may assign a texture to the surface by clicking in the Texture cell. The Select Texture dialog will appear so that you may choose a texture from the Textures database. Alternately, you may browse for a texture anywhere on your system or assign a texture already in use on another surface in the job file. Once the desired texture is selected, you'll determine how the texture should be applied to the surface. Textures may be stretched across the entire surface, applied in a grid pattern or assigned a Static size (representing real dimensions) and tiled on the surface accordingly. In addition, you may opt to rotate the texture on the surface.

To delete a texture from the surface, Ctrl-click in the Texture cell and select the Delete key on your keyboard. When a texture is deleted from a surface, its correlated color and reflectance are used as the current color and reflectance.

• To apply additional surface properties (such as Texture, Transmittance, Transparency, Luminance, Specularity, Color Bleed control or surface specific Mesh Levels) to any of the object surfaces, you must first position the object in the environment. Then, either Edit the object and select the Surface Edit button in the Edit dialog or use the Edit Surface command to select the object.
• Removing Surfaces - Removing surfaces allows you to append other surfaces to factory defined shapes and create more complex models. Surfaces may only be removed from an object after it has been initially located in the environment. Surfaces may be removed by Editing the object and selecting the Surface Edit button in the Edit dialog or using the Edit Surface command once it has been placed.

10. Click OK to return to the graphics window and locate the first point of the object. Click the left mouse button.
11. Drag the cursor to the second point on the object 's profile and left click again.
12. You may specify an arc at the end of the current vertex by pressing the F4 key on your keyboard. Locate the second endpoint of the arc and left click again. By default, arcs are created in the counterclockwise direction, but their direction can be changed on the fly by pressing the F5 key. Specify the arc's radius by dragging the cursor and left clicking the mouse button. The object line will be attached to the arc's endpoint.
13. Continue locating the profile vertices in this manner until you reach the last corner of the object. You may undo individual segments on the object profile by pressing Ctrl+Z on your keyboard or clicking on the Undo button on the Common Toolbar.
14. Click the right mouse button to close the object shape and extrude the object. The side of the object between the last point and the first point will be automatically created.

Note: When specifying the profile in a non-orthogonal Elevation view, the snap is changed to .01 and is locked at that value. This small snap setting ensures that the object surfaces will be created correctly.