Feature request Rotational Hinge Objects

HI,
I think it would be functional to have “rotational hinge objects” in Rhino.
I’ve been currently doing this by moving the gumball to a specific area on the part, then it allows me to open and close the part using the rotate function in the gumball. I know I can do it with named positions but that is over kill and not as flexible.
I think this would be easy for the programmers to make “rotational hinge objects” as it could just be modified gumball code maybe with different colors and name.
RM

Hi RM - here’s a really quick and dirty go at this - might help. The workflow is a little ugly due to the way Rotate3d works, so you need to confirm after every rotation if you want to rotate again - this is ugly but better than starting over each time.

The script has one command with options to set up a hinge or run or remove one. Setup = select an axis line, then select the objects attached. Running one = select an axis line - it should know what objects are attached to it and rump right into Rotate3d. Remove lets you select an existing axis line and it removes the axisness from the line. I’ll try to smooth out the workflow…

To use the Python script use RunPythonScript, or a macro:

_-RunPythonScript "Full path to py file inside double-quotes"

Hinge.py (2.9 KB)

Probably can be made to work on brep edges as well.

-Pascal

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Another quick and dirty one is to group your objects with a circle that is larger than the objects you want to rotate, then gumbal will default to the center of the circle

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Hi Pascal,
Thanks so much for the script. That’s pretty cool!
I still think it would be nice for V7 to have a gumball/rotation hinge that works like this maybe with a little popup menu like the gumball that says angle for rotation (or manual manipulation) or “close” to get it quickly back to it’s start position.
Thanks again,
RM