DimAngle Needs a little love

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

It is really difficult to create an angled dimension in layouts without creating unneeded geometry, it would be really great if I could pick an edge and draw a dynamic line for the opposing side of the angle. I tried using the points option but it doesn’t seem to work very well.

Thanks,
Don

2

Hi Don- what is not working with the Points option? Where does it break down?

thanks,
-Pascal

3

For me, I often have to trace the geometry in layout space (and then sometimes hide the detail) to pull a dimAngle. It can be hard to get picks to work successfully while in layout space.

My other hope is you get the tick direction sorted out as well. It seems more often than not, the tick direction will be reversed (compared to any other dim) when pulling a DimAngle.

4

http://screencast.com/t/EeXz6xgsHTE

It just doesn’t seem to work.

5

Hi Don- this is what I see:

Does that make sense with what you want to do?

-Pascal

6

So, apparently when I hit the Tab key to constrain a direction it is killing the DimAng command some how. Seems to work as long as I don’t do that.

Thanks,
Don

7

I am not having any trouble with Tab here so far…

-Pascal

8

Are you trying any of this in layouts?

Don

9

Yes, there as well- clearly there is something you are trying to accomplish that I am missing with my tests.

-Pascal

10

Hy Pascal,
I was posting a bug about dimangle and layouts and found that this can be linked to this post.
Attached some screenshots of what happens.
In layout the reference points we click to obtain the dimension are offsetted to another place.
Probably the layout’s origin is offsetted than the viewport’s one…

11

Hi Lucio- I can reproduce this one- thanks.

Bug item, for future reference:

http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-23182

-Pascal

12

Since the images and videos don’t seem to be working after 10y I can’t tell if this is really the same issue, but I’ve tried using DimAngle to label angles both from model space and from layout space and I can’t get a result that’s legible when printing.
In this pic the red DimAngle output was made in layout space, and attempts to move it where it is on the layout and will print breaks it; the black DimAngle output looks great in model space (second pic) but in layout space is enormous, is located in a completely different place compared to the angles it measures, and extends out of the layout detail to such an extent it can’t even be read. If I were making screenshots in model space maybe I could use the second one, but that prevents me from creating the legend I need and interferes with anything else I want to do in model space, which I prefer not to be cluttered with lines that will show up in renders even if they’re located somewhere they logically would be completely obscured by opaque 3D objects.
Layout space:

Screenshot 2024-05-04 at 11.38.06 AM
Screenshot 2024-05-04 at 11.38.06 AM1920×1087 93.7 KB

Model space (I would like to make something that looks like this appear in the layout view but you can see above that’s not what I actually get viewing this exact scene unedited in layout view):
Screenshot 2024-05-04 at 11.46.50 AM
Screenshot 2024-05-04 at 11.46.50 AM1080×1158 64.3 KB

Is there a way to get in Layout view dimension labels that look as they do in model space? If so I can just hide those layers in model space and enable them in layout space. In layout space I can’t even get these on printable areas of the page.
Thanks in advance for any advice or pointers to a relevant tutorial. I appreciate it!
(I’ll add: when I make an arrowhead visible in model space it is undetectable in layout space and vice-versa, is there some solution to this? I struggle to make model space text usable from layout space and keep ending up building objects that look like text, which is brittle in addition to being labor-intensive, I’d really like Dim and DimAngle to give me usable labels that will show up readable in layout view. Please tell me there’s a “Click here to make this do what you expected from this function when you read its description” option hiding somewhere!)

13

Hi -

Please post a 3dm file with only the necessary geometry. I don’t know if you are using Rhino 3 or Rhino 8, …

When using dimensions in both model space and layout space, the settings are meant for layout space and there is a scaling factor for model space. Scaling can be turned on and off for both model and layout space.
-wim

14

Thanks, Rhino8 file attached.
When creating a new DinAngle there doesn’t seem to be an opportunity to enter arguments. Can this be preset universally somewhere so I get consistent behavior once I figure out the settings that make readable layouts?
Exit_Angle_Illustrated.3dm (10.9 MB)

15

Hi -

Yes. That is set in the annotation styles.

Your model units are in feet and your layout units are in inches. All of the annotation styles in your document are metric styles. Did you start out with the wrong template and changed model and layout units?

On the Document Properties > Annotation Styles page, you can create a new style and pick a built-in style in inches.

image

When you do this and set that style as the current style, without modifying any of the settings, a new dimension will be correct for both dimensions created on the layout, and dimensions that are seen in a detail on a layout.

In the following picture, I’ve placed an angular dimension on the layout, and one in model space that can be partly seen on the layout. They both use the same style.

image

→ Exit_Angle_Illustrated-Perhaps.3dm (10.6 MB)

(The only change to the default “Inch Decimal” annotation style is that I’ve added a background mask so that the text is legible on top of the picture).
-wim