I think there should be some kind of agreement to clear up confusion regarding “Attributes” and “Nested Blocks”.
ATTRIBUTES :
If you look at the Rhino interface panels, the word “Attributes” is only mentionned for “User texts” as “Attributes User texts”, so it seems to mean that “User texts” are a one of the attributes of a Rhino Object.
Then , in Elefront, everything is an “attribute” :
I think that “Attributes” should only designate components which either extract or condense “Rhino properties” + “User texts”.
"Attributes" = “Rhino properties” + “User texts”.
@krahimzadeh you might want to consider this for the Elefront update…
NESTED BLOCKS :
This one is really bad. So what is a “Nested block” ?
A block which contains other blocks ?
A block which is contained in another ?
This term is so murky that is should be completely avoided.
I say “sub-block” to designate blocks that are inside another.
From this, there are two categories of blocks :
-Those with “sub-blocks” , which I also call “Parts”
-Those without “sub-blocks” , which I also call “Assemblies”
UserText may store texts while UserDictionary may store other serializable objects, like Points, Vectors, Numbers, Images, etc. But UserDictionary can be accessed programtically only.
I’d much rather have a proper User Texts (Key-Value) manager / explorer…
Blocks and metadata are central to BIM, and instead of improving them (it wouldn’t take much !) , McNeel prefers to let Revit and ArchiCad eat the cake.
This morning, I was talking with an Architect who is trying to convince his boss to move from Sketchup to Rhino+GH, but honnestly, given the poor* drafting capabilities and the lack of in-built tools to manage BIM in Rhino, they would certainly be better off with ArchiCad.
*extremely poor, outdated, lame, 25 years behind !!!
Rhinoceros is rarely intended as an architectural tool. So it lacks abstractions used by architects and I don’t believe things would be better anytime soon
Blocks and attributes are indispensible in Architecture, but even more so in fabrication of the built object.
There is a grey area these days between architecture and fabrication, and GH is universally used and loved there.
Rhino, on the other hand hinders this. It makes no sense.
Well, the problem is the same with industrial design.
Beyond a certain level of complexity / parts and assembly count, you just can’t do without some kind of hierarchy and metadata tracking.
Rhino is stuck with this weekend hobbyist mentality when if fact many industries want to use it (again, mostly thanks to Grasshopper) .
