Revit 2017 Elevation Depth Cueing Pt 2

A few weeks back I reviewed the new Revit 2017 feature of Elevation Depth Cueing.
I have since realised that I may not have been entirely fair in how I portrayed this feature, particularly in regard to line weights . . .

The whole concept of applying different line weights according to distance from the cut plane is not as simple as you might think.  If Revit tried to apply thinner lines in the distance, how would it handle angled walls?  Or curved walls?  Should the line thicknesses taper as the angled/curved wall receded in the distance?  That could be pretty tricky to achieve, and the rules would be very hard to decide, let alone implement.  Or would you like an angled wall to start off one thickness close up to you, then step to a thinner line weight further back, and then step again - certainly not, that would look terrible.

So, on reflection, perhaps Autodesk chose the right option, which was to fade the lines instead of messing with line thicknesses?  It certainly is a simpler solution, which follows obvious rules and it does so more or less as you'd expect - with the exception of not applying to anything modified by the Linework tool, which I would prefer it to do.

Angled Walls

Here is a sample elevation of an angled wall - it handles the gradation very well.  Just imagine how it might look with changing line weights.

The same goes for a curved wall:

 

Conclusion

This may not be the tool that you expected, because it does not follow traditional drafting conventions of using line weights to convey distance.  However, it does very neatly handle all kinds of situations and view types (hidden line, shaded, realistic, shadows etc).  The controls over how it manages and defines the changes in distance may be very simplistic, but they are simple to understand once you look at the help file diagrams.

If we wanted a more complex solution, it would have been a lot more complicated to use, and I suspect we might still be waiting.

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