Here’s how to quickly create a mask so trees or sky behind an exterior building elevation do not show through.
It takes longer to explain this than to actually do it. It is much quicker than drawing a polygon around the building to mask objects.
- Make a copy of your elevation file.
- In the elevation file, turn off all layers that do not contain the actual elevation (text, dimensions, border, etc).
- On a scratch layer, draw a rectangle that crosses over the ground plane on either side of the building elevation and extends into the sky above the building.
- Using the Paint Bucket tool, click in the ‘sky’ area to create a fill above and to the side of the building.
- Using the Paint Bucket tool, click in the ‘ground’ area to create a fill below the building. (If the paint bucket is having a hard time with the ‘sky’ and ‘ground’ fills, you probably have gaps in the perimeter of the building that must be temporarily filled in prior to creating these fills.)
- Turn off all layers, except for the scratch layer. You should now have a rectangle containing filled areas that approximate the sky and ground, with a void where the building was.
- Look at the ‘sky’ & ‘ground’ fills, and make sure they have perimeter lines, changing them if needed in the ‘defaults’ window.
- Now, using the paint bucket tool, click in the ‘building void’ area to create a fill the shape of the building.
- Delete the original rectangle and the ‘sky’ and ‘ground’ fills. You should be left with a filled area the shape of the building.
- Change this filled area to white, with no border, and put it in a layer that is below your elevation layer, but above your entourage layer. Any objects below it will me masked by this fill.
Kind of cool, huh?