For years I’ve wished for the ability to use FlowAlongSrf (Rigid) on groups of objects and have them flow as if they were one object, maintaining the relationship between the parts. My workaround has been to block the objects and then flow the block, but that is a bit cumbersome, and causes problems (for instance, I sometimes want to use SelColor to sub-select parts in those groups for further action, like changing the material).
Naturally, I was Delighted to see that V6 now respects groups with FlowAlongSurface. However, the current implementation is of limited utility and causes it’s own problems. I have two issues.
First off, there needs to be a command line option to chose how to flow groups, as I have many files with large groups that I want flowed as if they were individual objects. Something like: “Flow Groups As: (Groups, Objects)” Yes, I want to have it both ways, easily chose-able.
Second, once the parts are flowed, I usually use the history to permit me to nudge the originals around in 2D space and have the flowed parts update in 3D space. Doing this currently breaks the association of the grouped parts, and they re-flow as if they were not grouped. I gave up on V6 and went back to V5 and Blocks today, because that was easier than deleting and re-flowing the group every time I nudged it.
I also wished for, but as an option. It’s really messing me up now that it’s being forced. Can we please have an option like with bounding box, i.e. transform objects individually?
I primarily use groups for a logical association, as in all the objs that flow rigid are in group 1 and those that deform are in group 2. I would love to use layers for this purpose, but it is not ergonomic. I can’t spend half my day searching a right-click menu on the layer manager when ctrl-g exists.
Youtrack says the option is slated for V7? No longer being able to group objs is killing me. I have to use layers to define obj function and groups to define obj sets. Losing the ability to use groups has made my life a nightmare. I have to select objects from a half dozen layers, isolate, then window select the set to make changes.
Hello - I guess I need a bit more information - if Rigid=Yes, then you get to set whether groups are treated as rigid - does that not do what you asked?
I tried to work around it with superfulous grandparent sets of objects way out in the corner. I tried to window select the ‘group’ and run SelChildren 1 or 2 times to get what I want, but you can’t clear selection before selecting the children and it was too messy.
RigidGroups works great in the WIP, but I would strongly urge you guys to add this to V6 as well. This is a huge source of pain and confusion for jewelers coming from V5.
No new features are added to core Rhino after it is released. Service Releases continue until then next Version is released.
The Work-In-Progress is where new tools go and are exercised by the people using it. That’s just how Rhino development works.
Words cannot describe how much pain this caused. It broke our V5 workflows with no workaround. Plus, we still have to use the old V5 block workaround since the new behavior has never worked correctly.
@Fred_C are you referring to my old thread on 3dcadjewelery with RhinoGold?
Yes, I spent a lot of time figuring out repro steps for major bugs (gems stopped being gems, cutters wouldn’t mate to stones, etc) in RhinoGold and would get up at 4 in the morning to walk Rafael through them. We never got the bug fixes, but the list of improvements on the next paid upgrade was almost identical to my list of bugs.
I haven’t had anything from Rafael on my machine since.
@EricM I didn’t dig into the details… saw the comment, “… intutive parametric…” and just wanted to give you a heads up.
Have a wonderful Christmas holiday!
