How can I remove nested referened blocks?

I am trying to delete nested blocks from my file but am seemingly unable to? I wonder if someone can let me know how to do this properly?


Scenario:

  1. I have a single Rhino file with a series of CAD floor plans (each plan is a block) in it. This file is saved as a Rhino 3DM and is only about 100MB, so nothing too crazy.

  2. I have then ‘inserted’ (File / Insert…) this 3DM file into another ‘working’ file, where I am creating my actual model geometry, using the imported CAD floor plans as reference / tracing.

  3. However the display performance is very, very, very, very bad using this reference method, and so I am giving up. I would like to instead just ‘insert’ the floor plan CAD blocks directly in my working file as it is is only way to get the file to run at even a modest speed good enough to work with.

  4. However, now that I have inserted the reference 3DM, I cannot seem to remove the CAD blocks:

  • If I try and remove the individual floor plan blocks directly before, removing the ‘host’ 3DM file, I get the error:

  • So then if I delete the ‘host’ 3DM file (“CAD”) which has all these blocks ‘in’ it, the individual Floor-Plan blocks stick around in my working file? Then I cannot delete them at all. If I try, instead I get the error:

  • Note that this only happens if I select more than one block and try and delete. If I select a single block from the list and try and delete I get nothing at all - no message, no popup, not deleted. Just ‘nothing’ at all happens.

  • I cannot delete the Rhino-layer the blocks are on either. If I try, I get the warning:


Does anyone know what I should do in a case like this? I just want to get rid of all these blocks and all their information and data entirely from my working file? I do not understand what steps to take to remove all of these elements?

thank you very much for any help or advice.

@ed.p.may


System:

  • Macbook Pro M1 (2021)
  • MacOS Monterey 12.5.1
  • Rhino 7.33.23248.13002, 2023-09-05

Hi Ed -if there are no actual instances of these blocks, try the Purge command.

-Pascal

Thank you @pascal , that is helpful.

I also found that if I close the file, and quite Rhino, then reload - all of those nested block references magically disappear from my BlockManager, and I am able to delete the layers at that point.

thank you,
@ed.p.may