Selected item highlights layer it is on...has V5 this ability?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Hi,

Can V5 do this, desperately hope so.

V4 has no ability to show in the layers palette the layer a selected object is allocated to.

e.g. I am currently wishing to turn off layers for objects I dont want showing.

As I select an object, to see the layer immediately and turn it off is what I want, instead I have to open the object property window, see the layer name in there, then mentally note where it is in the many layers I have, or write it down, then go and find it in the layers palette, then turn it off. This is taking ages to do as I have loads to turn off. I could do the whole task in seconds not minutes if only the layer itself would show highlighted when I click an object.

Throughout the day I reckon over 30 mins is lost to trying to find layers without this aid.

Even more frustrating, if I have grouped two objects or more, then it says Layer varies…aaaaaaaaaagh !
havent a clue now what layer to turn off. hells bells !

…but if the layers were to highlight for this grouped item I could turn them off in a second, instead I have to ungroup the item , maybe two or three times, so losing the whole reason for grouping them, then jot down the layers involved, regroup them, if I can get at the parts without missing bits, regroup them, then turn off those layers…nightmare. get a few grouped items and suicide thoughts start to occur !!!

I often avoid grouping because of this yet would find grouping so useful.

I will pay £1000 for V5 if it can show the layers up as I click the items !

I use Freehand9 in graphics and this function I have taken for granted, it is central and massively useful to workflow and speed, but with Rhino I am taking chunks out of my day ferreting around with its loss. Time is money and to lose it just on this is a killer.

I flagged this up as a feature request for V5 as it was being developed when I first started using V4. It would be so useful, and there is no reason why it would be detrimental so I truly hope its in V5,…is it ?

Steve

2

Steve, sounds like the command OneLayerOff could come to your rescue. I use it all the time for the process you are describing. No need to know what layer an object is on. Just point and click. Voila!
As for layer display, when selecting, yes v5 has a handy layers display and control feature in the bottom status bar. It shows what layer a selected object is on and allows you turn off directly from the pop up.
Also, your ungrouping issues are easily fixable: You can easily select within groups, leaving the group intact. Use ctrl-shift to select (point and click or window select).

(Mcneel, I’ll take the balance of Steve’s $1641 in a check or paypal payment. Thanks! :smile:)

3

Hi,
Doesnt fit the bill though, as I have as many layers off as on, having one go off still doesnt show me the layer something is on as I select the object. All I know is that its one of the many now turned off.
Its taken me the entire afternoon to delete layers using object properties. If they had shown up it would have taken seconds !

Please McNeel hear what I am saying here. Looks like this oh so useful feature has been overlooked, is it that its beyond coding ability ? I can’t go losing time like that as I have to charge for time from now on. I cant charge for that lossage so I just wasted an entire afternoon.

V5 you say has something that appears indicating the layer its on, but separate to indicating it in the actual layer stack, as I then want to get hold of the layer and move it, or alter its colour, or delete it, or place it within another etc. Does the pop up display all the layers as object properties does which looking at the slider bar gave me an idea where in the list to find it.
If not again I have to write down its name and try and find it in my layers list.
To have the layer indicated in the actual layer palette, the most logical place as far as I am concerned, saves writing down names and hunting for it, is what is needed
Looks like I keep £1000.
What a shame we are no nearer this.
Steve

4

Steve, Maybe I don’t fully understand what you ultimately need to do. What is the EXACT end result you are looking for? Tell us that and maybe there is another solution available.
Right now I’m getting the impression you are trying to purge layers that you don’t need (based on your other posts). Is this correct?
If so this is the workflow I would use in your case (assuming i’m assuming correctly):
-turn on all of your layers
-use the onelayeroff command to go in and turn off the layers of all the objects you can find
-now sort your layers list by layers that are on/off and just shift-select highlight the layers you want to delete. That will not take you all afternoon, more like a few minutes unless you have hundreds of layers.

Is this helpful?

5

Hi Steve,

like Robert, i´m not shure i fully understand. From your description i´m asuming you´re trying to set a layer current for the current object selection. This should be possible in Rhino 4 using the _SetLayerToObject command but be warned that only one layer can be current at a time.

It wouldn`t be too hard to write a script which deletes all other layers if your selected objects are on multiple layers. Is this what you want ?

c.

6

@Pascal, after reading this more closely (and other related requests from the past) i would like to ask for a Layer highlight command / method which works on multiple layers and performs a selection in the layer dialog. Or is there anything already in the sdk ?

It my fit to LayerTableEventType Enumeration, similar like “Current” but “Highlight”.

c.

7

Yes Clement this would be nice! Make me think of Adobe Illustrator’s brilliant solution (but they probably have it patented :frowning:) Select an object and a little icon lights up next to the layer name. You can drag this icon around to move the objects to other layers. Also amazing is clicking on the ‘inactive’ version of the icon and it will select all objects on that layer.

8

I use Macromedia Freehand9, click an object I have drawn and the layer in the layer pallete goes blue showing the layer the object is on. Illustrator does similar with a little icon I see. I want the layer to remain on, I simply want to identify the layer IN THE ACTUAL layer palette, not elsewhere and have to try and find it IN THE ACTUAL LAYER PALETTE. There are a host of reasons I need this.
I wish to change the colour of the object and others on the layer, two clicks its done if the layer was to show up.
I wish to alter the line type, two clicks its done.
I wish to turn an object off, but not all my layers ! Select the object see the layer immediately (not have to go to an option icon and show another palette) and turn it off.
I have a very busy file, lets say 90 layers Turning all on to then see which one goes off (so identifying the layer the object is on) gives three problems, firstly how do I turn off again those that were on, without writing out notes on what was off just prior to doing so, secondly things are then in the way of what I wanted to do with the object, also the file would slow right up maybe crash with all on.
I see something that appears to be on a wrong layer, two clicks its sorted. Having its layer go off loses me the tricky selection I just made of it. I could click it see its layer, click an item I want it to be with, see its layer, then allocate it to that layer.
I am coming up with these examples off the top of my head having needed to do this today but I bet I will go back to rhino shortly and need this function for something totally different, I am always wanting this function.

Five times today I needed to alter the colour of a layer, and had to hunt up and down 80 layers to spot the name, having seen it in object property.

As clement says, a layer highlight command…also select two objects from different layers and see both layers highlighted.

Steve

9

steve are you using the layer state manager pallet? Extremely useful for busy files. Save and restore any number of layer on/off/locked states.
I know its still not the interface you want, but try this simple button macro if you want to be able to change the color of a layer an object is on w/o having to know what layer it is on, or having to find it in a big nasty list of layers. Just run it, pick your object, change the color, volia:
-layer r s pause c enter enter

10

Not against a wish that would make the layer box highlight all layers that contain objects that are selected in the viewport.

Having said that, I feel that one thing has not been mentioned. In V5, the status bar at the bottom not only tells you what layer a selected object is on but also lets you do basically all that you ask for. Select something that appear to be on the wrong layer? Two clicks, it’s sorted. Change the color of the layer the selected object is on? Two clicks, it’s sorted.
The only things you cannot do is change the line type, render material, print color, print width. Perhaps a wish to have these also available as a right-click is in order?

11

Steve- this is not the same interface as you are used to but it should work:

! _-Layer _Off _Select

Does that help?

This should work with pre-selection but does not. We can fix that.

-Pascal