ClippingDrawing Placement and Alignment impossible?

Rhino
1

Hello,

I’m trying to place and align two clipping drawings of two floors vertically.

  1. How do I align the two drawings when the placement of the centroid seems to be arbitrary or not practical? This seems to be an issue not only for me.

    WISH: ClippingDrawings to Layout

Then I redid all the sections carefully placing them in known points related to the 0,0,0 coordinate.

What I have described and you suggested above is simply very difficult to do. The insertion point of each drawing is not the 0,0,0 is the centroid of the resulting drawing.
WHY !!! if the scene changes, grows or shrinks, it will be simply impossible to match new plans or sections to the previous ones. It also make matching rendered views and dynamic section simple guess work (another reminder for placing sections in different CPlanes).

from this thread…

When I unlock the Drawing Layers and properly aligned it with the move command, the drawing jumps back to its original insertion point when updated, making it impossible to have properly aligned ClippingDrawings, or what’s the correct way to achieve this?

I couldn’t find any explanation or tutorial, only other people struggling with this, which makes the whole dynamic section completely useless for me.. When I also set up the layout sheets according to the ClippingDrawings and then, after an update, I need to go and look again for the drawing in the detail of my layout sheet….?!

  1. There seems to be a bug in Rhino 8 Mac Version when using EditClippingDrawing > All and then placing the insert point again. It jumps to some, for me completely random place. Pls see the attached video.

An idea for an update of the SectionDrawings:

  • the drawings should have an insertion point like Blocks, e.g. when making the ClippingDrawing, ask for the reference point in the model space

-This reference point should be visible when selecting the ClippingDrawing. It should be possible to it like any other object in Rhino to be able to properly align multiple drawings that don’t jump to new places when updated.

  • Updating a drawing should be easily doable by clicking on the actual drawing, not only by finding the tiny ClippingPlane symbol. It would be also nice if there was a dropdown menu when using the command EditClippingDrawing.

Thank you for your help in advance.

1 Like
2

Can you please let us know the service release you are using (and if it is the latest)?

3

Hi Rajaa, thanks for reacting so quick.

According to the “check for updates” I’m on the current version: Version 8 (8.21.25188.17002, 2025-07-07)
Rhino 8 SR21 2025-7-7 (Rhino 8, 8.21.25188.17002, Git hash:master @ 2e05bb7e11ec03aa58cc543d92330d59df05d32b)
License type: Educational, build 2025-07-07
License details: Cloud Zoo

Apple macOS Version 15.2 (Build 24C101) (Physical RAM: 32GB)
Mac Model Identifier: MacBookPro18,2
Language: en-DE (MacOS default)
.NET 8.0.14

Metal GPU Family Apple 7
Metal GPU Family Common 3
Metal GPU Family Mac 2
Graphics processors
Apple M1 Max
Color LCD (1728 x 1117 @ 120.00Hz)
GPU Vendor: Apple

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1 Like
4

Thanks… That is interesting. I’ll test in the Mac…

When testing with Windows though, I can typically align more easily. However, I am looking into adding more controls in Rhino WIP for reference point.

image
image1686×916 242 KB

Update: Tested on the Mac, I was able to do the same thing. I’ll need to see your model. Can you share?

1 Like
5

@ice

I am writing from memory, I am physically away from Rhino and I am ‘timewiselly’ even further away, more than a year (maybe two) after giving up using the dynamic sections.

My first advice is give it up. Use make2D. Try to script as much as possible. It is a lot of work and messy, but better than Dynamic sections (remember, I am writing from the past)

My second advice is not to unlock the layout layers. That only gives you trouble. they are not supposed to be edited. It is a mistery why they are unlockable.

There is if I recall an option to relocate in editClippingDrawing. Nevertheless, it is not easy to align stuff because the insertion point is the centroid of the total model and you on the moment you did the section (again as I recall). you are aligning two points that do not exist (unsnappable), that have no relation to your model, and that may even be different from each other. Why is it like that? Another mistery.
This has been brought to the attention of Rhino in several occasions. It renders the whole thing completely useless in large complex projects. Imagine if your coordinate system followed the centroid of the model at any given time…

The workaround I found, when tried to work with it, was to model a large sphere with the center on the 0,0,0 (I am not sure anymore if it had to be larger than your model or if it was enough to turn off all the other layers). In any case, turn off all the layers apart from the sphere. Make a sectiondrawing of the sphere. The center of that drawing will be the projected 0,0,0 point (as it should), place the drawing at a known point. I like to place the plans where they are taken, (0,0, height). I would also like to place the sections where they are, but clippingdrawings did not allow that - the sections are [were] inevitably on an horizontal plane (why? another mistery). I normally would place them at a know point like (0,1000,0) (0,2000,0) depending on the scale and units of your project. but at least I new that something on the section that was on (0,1003,0) was 3 units above my zero (small blessings).
After this (remember we are sectioning a huge sphere), you would need edit the drawing, change the objects that was sectioning, to the model and remove the sphere, and fingers crossed every thing was… sufferably ok.

Well, this is why I turned back to the messy maddening Make2D, at least I could maintain the layers of the model in my drawings. (I heard something evolved on the issue of background curves, but I am not sure it was in this direction.)

I am not sure this helps you but good luck!

1 Like
6

I spent now 5h in total, watching every youtube video I could find and also Rajaa’s 2h training video, and I’m quite baffled that this is an issue that has been brought up many many times, even years ago, and still unresolved. As you said, the missing control of placement and alignment unfortunately renders the dynamic sections completely useless, even in small projects.

Please please please fix this, not just in Rhino 9! It’s being advertised as one of the great new additions in Rhino 8 but I’m now wondering how you could use it in a professional context tbh. Maybe somebody can share their workflow?

//edit: It doesn’t seem to be even on the list for Rhino 9? Or is that only the already implemented features, not the still missing features? Rhino 9 WIP Features

There a so many requests for proper drafting and documentation. I love modeling and working in Rhino, but there’s no point if documenting and communicating my designs is such a hassle.

@rajaa Thank you for looking into this. The bug seems to appear when selecting more than one clipping plane with EditClippingDrawings and trying to change the placement point, not the ClippingDrawings command as you have used in your screenshots. Rhino just crashed when I tried to replicate it. I sent a crash report.

Could you give me your e-mail address to send you the model?

1 Like
7

I am still not seeing the shift when use EditClippingDrawings command. Please send me the model, and also what options you used during the command. email rajaa@mcneel.com

1 Like
8

I totally agree on these comments. I had the same issue since Section Tools were integrated into Rhino few years ago. Today I was trying to use dynamic sections and to my surprise it is still not working.

Please, can you add it to Myjetbrains/youtrack and give a high priority?
And yes @mcneel - you are doing great job and I keep my fingers crossed on the development of Rhino!

9

Can you please elaborate on what is not working with an example?

If the issue is related to accurate placement of drawings, please check if using the new “reference point” resolves it (check the 1st topic in the list of features “Persistent placement of clipping drawings“), and please let us know where it is coming short.

10

Unfortunately me and many other users we can’t use WIPs for proffessional work because it might not be stable. And since Rhino 9 is nowewhere near, it does not really help, even if it is solved.

Forgive me i was not clear - I hope this issue will be solved soon in current version - Rhino 8.
Do you think it is possible?

11

Unfortunately, it will not be possible to port back to Rhino 8.