Far from origin

Old thread, but is anything done regarding this subject to Rhino 7?

Hi Rasmus - a lot has changed since 2015. It would likely be more productive if you were able to provide specific information about something that is not working right for you.
-wim

One thing Revit does which is nice is having two origins, the world origin and the project origin (an origin you can set anywhere, they call it Project Survey Point and Project Base Point). It could be nice that calculations happen based on relativity to the project origin but the project itself is positioned in relation to the world origin. (Some fields like surveyors always have their projects positioned in real world space which is usually very very far from the world origin, think longitude and latitude, as well as height above sea level).

Michael, yes that is also possible with rhino. Set a Cplane out in negative space so that the original coordinates can be referenced if you want. And set the base insertion point property if you want it to align on an insert.

But this leaves the building closer to the universal origin so there is enough mathematical accuracy to intersect very accurately.

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Sure that is true, I think many have this issue because they miss or don’t understand that as it is less obvious. I guess it is more obvious with Revit (I am far from a Revit advocate :smiley: ) because you are essentially forced to set these points, where I think many Rhino users just rely on the default 0,0,0 world origin (which for the most part makes sense, anything not located in the real world really has no business being so far away from the origin :smiley: ).

Does this affect attached models and directly importing? I currently use a macro that remaps to cplane when importing or exporting. But that’s a bit clunky, I’d love some robust Project Origin type of function as Michael described, like in Revit and Tekla. It’s necessary to work in world coordinates to fit material together and to be able to place it in reality.

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This was more of an open question to find out if something is happening :slight_smile:

But yeah, working with material that’s in world coordinates is a pain, everything needs to be moved near origo and checked. Importing, exporting, attaching and inserting should be possible to be done by referencing an origin point in world coordinates in a robust way.

Sure, agreed. So, anyone want to write a set of AEC utilities to aid in the management of building models? There are a couple VisualARQ and Lands Design. It would make sense to have them there.

Writing a few things in Python would work too. Perhaps an open source project? We could even put a nice ETO interface on it?

And how would it coordinate with Rhino.Inside.Revit and Rhino Direct connect with Tekla? Some of this is already there.

Any interested volunteers?

The Command ModelBasepoint will affect the importing and exporting location. So if that is set right, multiple models will stay aligned.

Not me! Product design stays at the World Origin :smiley:

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Ahhhh, now we understand why it might not be required in all Rhino models!

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:open_mouth: I thought I tested this in Rhino 6 and nothing happened, guess I need to try again.

If ModelBasepoint functions as desired, basically it’s only lacking UI like NamedCPlanes etc have.

I have ModelBasepoint set and literally nothing is happening. I tried importing DWG’s, exporting from Rhino to DWG, export from Rhino to .3dm.

Now that I read the help page of ModelBasepoint, I could argue your description doesn’t match it: “The ModelBasepoint command sets a base point in a model that is used when inserting the model into another as a block definition.” This is definitely not the function that would be required. There’s need for relocating everything when you’re importing, attaching and exporting.

Then that is a bug, we will take a closer look.

Are these DWG files being inserted into a specific version of AutoCAD?

Inserted? I’m only opening them with AutoCAD.

Hi All,
Rhino’s ModelBasePoint only affects the 3DM file format and other 3DM files that reference it with the Insert command in Rhino. For example:.

  1. Open a file A and set the ModelBasePoint is set to 10,10,0.
  2. Save
  3. Open a file B, and Insert the file A.
    The location that is used for insert is the ModelBasePoint 10,10,0.

Currently, the ModelBasePoint does not Export or Saveas to DWG/DXF format.
So if you are using AutoCAD, and you insert the DWG that was exported from Rhino into AutoCAD, you are correct, nothing happens. The world origin is used as the insertion pt.
(of course, the ModelBasePoint also does not export to to other formats like AI, IGES or others, where there is no corresponding setting of which we are aware.).

One workaround here, is to use the ExportWithOrigin command. This will export the geometry and set the origin in the new file to the selected point.

I have logged a few items on the tracker related to the discussion here.

Request #1
When Rhino does a SaveAS or Export to the DWG/DXF flavor, Rhino’s ModelBasePoint location should be set to the AutoCAD BASE. When the exported DWG is inserted into an AutoCAD drawing, it will use the correct BASE location.
RH-59222 Export/SaveAS DWG/DXF and ModelBasePoint

Request #2
Conversely, the Import or Open DWG and DXF in Rhino should assign the BASE setting to Rhino’s ModelBasePoint location.
RH-59225 Import or Open DWG and DXF Should Set the Rhino ModelBasePoint

Request #3
RH-59224 Wish: Add a Project Base Point to Rhino

You may register on the YouTrack system and watch the items as they are discussed and worked on by our development team.

Let me know if you have additional suggestions.
Thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
Mary Ann Fugier
McNeel Technical Support and Training
Seattle, WA

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Wow, thanks Mary! =)

As for the ExportWithOrigin workaround, that’s what I’m basically doing but with a RemapCPlane macro with import/export.

RH-59225 is fixed in the latest WIP