I have Rhino 6 for Windows. I would like to have one color for the inside of a tube and another color for the outside. Understand, please, that I am just talking about the display on the screen or when printed. I am not talking about rendering.
An earlier message asked about different colors on a polysurface, so I am not sure that I am talking abut the same thing. In any event, however, the suggestion was to create a subobject. But that didn’t work.
So, can this be done — have one color for the inside of a tube and another color for the outside.
You can also apply a different color to the inside surface(s) of the object by sub-object selecting the face(s) and then applying a color via Properties for example… You said this did not work - where did it fail?
But I am confused. I am in the display panel, and under “Object settings” I clicked “Color Backfaces” and chose red. But the color of the object does not change — neither the inside nor the outside of the tube. It continues to be yellow, which is the color that I selected in the Layers panel.
Could you be so kind as to explain what I am doing wrong.
That depends on the specifics of your file. If you have a tube with wall thickness, the Color Backfaces will not do anything and you’ll have to use the technique that Mitch described.
-wim
Color backfaces only works if the object is an open surface or polysurface. If it is a closed object, all faces are front-facing, so you will never see the backface color.
The backface color is also display mode dependent, you need to set it specifically in all the display modes you want it to be active in (shaded being the most useful I guess). And, of course, your viewport needs to be in that display mode.
If you have a solid object like made with the Tube command, only per-face colors will work and it’s not automatic, as I outlined above, all faces are considered “front-facing” (i.e. outward-facing) even if they face “backwards” from the viewpoint. And, if the object is an EXTRUSION object (on by default) per-face colors do not work. You need to convert extrusions into polysurfaces in that case, using the ConvertExtrusion command. Better yet, turn off the creation of extrusions entirely by running UseExtrusions and selecting the Polysurfaces option.
Lastly if you are using the current WIP, there is a bug in the display panel - in fact there are two display panels, one that works correctly and one that doesn’t. The one labeled “Display” works, the one labeled “Display Properties” doesn’t.
I figured out what to do to solve the issue of not being able to produce a separate backface color for my solid tube.
I put a surface — so a surface, but not a solid — inside the tube. Of course, the surface had no thickness, and thus its inside and its outside diameter were the same. I made that diameter equal to the inside diameter of the solid tube, and therefore the surface fit tight inside the tube.
Using this configuration, I applied my separate backface color to my surface, and now it’s as though I had a separate backface color for the solid tube.
Once again, I thank both of you for your great help. I could not have done this without your getting my started.
I will post the entire file with all the layers shown. I am a member of the National Association of Rocketry, in which organization I am certified at Level 1 in high-power rocketry (the highest level is Level 3). This is a drawing of a high-power rocket kit that I intend to construct in the future.
For our purposes the relevant sublayers are under the layer entitled “Body tube”. Those sublayers are entitled “Body tube 1” — the solid tube — and “Interior surface” — the surface which has the separate backface color applied in black (with RGB values of 1, 1, and 1).
Hi Stanley -
Thanks for that file. I see that you are on Rhino 6. Custom sub-object colors are not supported in that version and the way that you have solved that issue for you is the only way to do it in Rhino 6.
-wim
