Over the last few months I’ve been extensively trying to achieve full architectural documentation in Rhino, sometimes also using VisualARQ.
I’m still not fully there yet, I would say, but one feature that would be extremely useful is a default behavior where anything drawn inside a specific Detail View automatically gets hidden everywhere else.
In my use case, I’m producing a fast drawing package for quotations of custom furniture in a renovation project. So I enter a Detail View, hide everything except, let’s say, a desk, switch to an isometric view, and start adding dimensions and annotations. The problem is that these annotations become visible in every other Detail View as well.
In this scenario, it is also important to place the dimensions and annotations inside the Detail View rather than in Layout space, because the view is isometric.
(alternatively maybe a macro or a button to “select”. and “hide in every other detail view”? (any help highly appreciated)
I actually like the existing functionality of turning objects off by detail, along with the ability to control object visibility within individual detail views. However, I think it would be even better to have the default behavior I was suggesting: anything drawn within a specific detail view would automatically be turned off in all other details throughout the file.
It can be quite frustrating when I draw something as simple as a line, an annotation, or any other object in an isometric view, and then have to manually track it down and turn it off in every other layout where it appears. In a large project, that could mean managing visibility across 100 or more layouts.
Having objects created within a detail automatically isolated to that detail by default would make the workflow much more efficient and would significantly reduce the amount of manual visibility management required.
Hi @dale Thank you for the reply, but that is also a layer-based behavior.
What I am suggesting is an object-based behavior. To use dimensions as an example: my “DIM” layer should remain visible throughout the file and also be turned on in all details. However, the specific dimensions that I create inside one detail view do not necessarily need to be visible in every other detail (that has dimensions too)
It is not very efficient for every newly created object to automatically appear everywhere and then require manual visibility management across multiple details.
What I am proposing is a default object-level behavior where anything drawn inside a detail is automatically visible only in that detail, unless the user explicitly chooses otherwise. This would greatly reduce the amount of visibility management required, especially in larger documentation sets.
Actually “Hide In Detail” is what I have been doing. The issue is that I then have to manually use “Hide in Detail” for that object in every other detail across all layouts.
Try to imagine a project with dozens, or even hundreds, of details spread across many layouts. Every time I create a dimension, annotation, or drafting object intended for a single detail, I have to manually hide it everywhere else (or manually check if it happens to show.. and then entering the detail and “hide in DEtail”. That quickly becomes a very time-consuming task.
What I am proposing is not a replacement of Hide In Detial.. but rather a different default behavior: objects created within a detail would automatically be visible only in that detail. The user could then choose to make them visible elsewhere if needed, instead of having to manually hide them in dozens of other details.
For documentation workflows, this would save a significant amount of repetitive visibility management.
On the other hand.. as alternative.. a command like “Hide in Everyother Detail except this one” would work.. Or if anybody there could help me to “craft” a macro I would highly appreciate.!.
mmm I don’t think it is a management nightmare. Or let’s say, it is because of the lack of the behavior, or the command that I am suggesting, that it becomes a nightmare.
The layer solution, for instance, already exists, but I cannot really use it because it doesn’t seem sensible to create a specific layer for every detail. That would be a real nightmare indeed… needing to have layers named “DIM for Detail 1 in Layout 001” or “PLANTING for Detail 5 in Layout 034”, and ending up with a huge layer list containing layers whose only purpose is this isolation.
To me, that seems far less practical than having an object-level behavior that automatically keeps detail-specific objects isolated to the detail where they were created.
I mean, this is just a suggestion to improve the usefulness of Rhinoceros.
Up until now, I have simply worked around it by using “Hide in Detail” and manually checking details throughout the file.
It works, and I will keep doing it that way, but it is quite time-consuming and, to me, seems like something that could be automated to make Rhino even more useful for documentation workflows.
Apologies if I’m slightly off the mark but have to get back to work.
I might have been working on a Python script that “hides object in all detail views except the active detail view”, but I would need to check - I may have done this with layers. If you’re interested I could have a go at it. It would be a good excuse to get back into Python. I believe the detail view visibility is controlled by meta data and it’s not that hard to manipulate.
It’s of course 1) Nice to have a real command that’s tried, tested and true by multiple users opposed to a script that is only used by a few. And 2) You have to still manage things - like if a new detail view is created you have to remember to hide it in that detail.
To get an object to stay hidden when new details appear you’d need some sort of event. That’s involving but feasible I think (assuming my second paragraph is feasible).
