Anyone seen anything like this...?

Whenever I try to use the "DWG to PDF.pc3" driver, I'm getting TIN triangles in my PDF.  They don't show up in the "Print Preview", just in the resulting PDF.  They also don't show up if I print directly to a printer.  Only in the PDF.  Never saw this before installing SP2.1.

The triangles are set to not display.  I've tried editing the Surface Style so they don't display at all, I've tried putting them on a "No-Plot" layer, and yet they still appear.

They ONLY appear in a PDF.  I can print the drawing to a printer, and they don't appear.  I can look at a "Print Preview" while using the "DWG to PDF.pc3", and they don't appear.  Then they appear in the resulting PDF.  I can't figure it out.

Hi,

>> And it also doesn't explain why the problem suddenly appeared, after years

>> of using "DWG to PDF.pc3" without ever seeing it

• As you might have updated the AdobeReader?
• Or you might have got an update of DWG to PDF.pc3 -driver?

Anyway, it's not the triangles of your surface, it's the hatch of type solid, that AutoCAD triangulates to sent "filled trianges" to the PDF and the antialiasing is quite bad as each triangle "antialiasis" to the background white and not to the neighbour-color. The setting of the Adobe-Reader repairs then the display as you do something like deactivating the antialising.

It's not special to Civil3D, not to 2012/Sp2.1, it's sometime appearing since AutoCAD has built in the "DWG to PDF"-driver and when hatches of type solid are written to pdf.

- alfred -

I don't think so.

I'm using standard C3D Surfaces, and never saw this problem until now.  And it also prints just fine using an alternate PDF driver.  It prints just fine to our printer.  Your explanation doesn't really make any sense to me.  The only thing that makes sense is that either Autodesk revised the "DWG to PDF.pc3" driver in C3D 2012 SP2.1, or there's some sort of corruption in this drawing that can't be fixed by an AUDIT.  I'll do some more poking around....  I tried printing a different drawing with a Volume surface in it, and I didn't see the TIN lines.  So I'm starting to lean toward some sort of corruption in this particular drawing....

Do you have a Acrobat on your PC Jeff?

I had issues the first yr they gave us the pdf driver. Like Alfred I fixed the problem in Acrobat. I forget exactly the issue but since that release we stopped buying Acrobat, removed it from all PC's and have not had issues since.

Perhaps the Acrobat driver is conflicting, providing more function or overriding Autodesks?

Sinc,

Did this start immediately with 2013 or perhaps after an Adobe install or update?

I have AcroReader and PDF995.It does not occur in every drawing, but once I see it in a drawing I think that drawing always behaves that way.

I just tested in a new drawing, set the elevation banding on, and it pdf plots just fine.

<shrug>I dunno</shrug>

Hi,

>> but is there not a setting in the PDF driver to rasterize the output?

Not only for PDF, the output is rastered if you turn on "transparency" in the plot-dialog.

But that raises the filesize and it disables searchability for text-objects in the pdf.

But again, also as Sinc wrote, it's not a problem of the plot-function (as direct plotting to printer works, as plotting this pdf to a printer works), it's a problem just of displaying this pdf.

- alfred -

Hi,

again to:

>> No, your message wasn't ignored

I have now opened your PDF with Adobe ReaderX and with the original settings after installation it shows your hatch-triangle lines.

If I change the options to the ones I showed in the thread I already linked I see this image (without trianglulation lines):

- alfred -

Had to move on...  Wasted too much time already on this issue.  I'll look into it again later, when it happens again (which hopefully won't happen, but not holding my breath).

If we're reaching the point where creating PDFs from AutoCAD involves flipping very obscure default settings in Adobe, then something is seriously wrong.  And never saw this before installing C3D 2012 SP2.1, although I create tons of these volume reports, and have for several years, back to at least C3D 2009.  Although, admittedly, Adobe seems to issue a new update almost every week.  This "He said, She said" argument is getting very tiresome.