Hello!
What I would like to achieve is simply creating Details in Layouts that remember RELIABLY which layers are turned on or off, so toggling layers anywhere else will NEVER mess with this Detail’s layer states.
The Layout+Details are what I print/export in the end as PDF plan, and it’s often not easy setting it up correctly until it looks like it should. Then I’d like to leave the Detail in peace, and count on that it will print exactly the same next time.
I’m used also to Revit now, and it has this super powerful View Template mechanism to achieve exactly this. In Rhino it’s not that easy.
Of course, when I’m in a Detail, there are those extra columns in the Layers panel to toggle layers per Detail.
Problem: the ‘main’ toggle of a Layer (the leftmost lightbulb icon) is sort of a master switch - it toggles also the Detail layer visibility.
It shouldn’t! This should not be coupled.
I actually never understood what that is good for, because when I continue working in a viewport then, for sure I will need to toggle layers - which will mess up the Details!
So we have to use Layer States / Snapshots to get back the Detail’s look. Unfortunately, additionally, these are not remembered per Detail, and have to be invoked by hand each time the Layout needs to be printed.
Wish: can this ‘coupling’ of the main layer on/off toggle be removed, please?
And/or maybe add a ‘Snapshot’ or ‘Layer State’ parameter to a Detail’s properties.
Hi Eugen - from that report, I see that it was attempted fixed back in 2014 but that it became clear that it was a lot more involved. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect this to fall in place for Rhino 7.
-wim
A lot has changed at McNeel, in the Rhino code and in your customer’s use of Rhino since 2014; even more since Layer States and Details were initially dreamed up. Perhaps it’s time to take another deep look at the issue? Eugen’s request sounds like a practical, common sense way for things to work and the current setup sounds like a “first crack” design that’s ripe for improvement now that users have lived with it and reported their frustrations and opinions about how it should actually work to be convenient, useful and time-saving.
If you think it through, actually there would be no need for this ‘Detail/Layout On’ column in the layer panel.
It could be super simple:
Ditch the ‘Detail On’ and the ‘Layout On’ columns.
Let the normal ‘On’ column fulfill that purpose: be remembered per Detail or Layout, and don’t influence the layer states outside of this Detail or Layout, ever.
I wonder how many people actually use the ‘Detail On’ mechanism. I do at the moment, but it demands a strict discipline with Layer Sets not to see a layer mess in the Details, because of the aforementioned reasons.
Thanks!
Hello!
Here’s an idea how to solve that issue:
Give the Layer panel in model space a second ‘local’ layer visibility flag (lightbulb icon) - just like Detail viewports already have!
After all, both makes sense: turning off a layer locally or globally.
‘Local’ of course toggles visibility only in this viewport/detail (which is remembered per viewport - just like it is in Details).
‘Global’ toggles layer visibility in ALL viewports/details.
In other words, model viewports should just be equal to detail viewports - 2 visibiltity flags!
To repeat what the problem is: one sets up Layouts nicely, with the right layers turned on. Yet once work is continued in model space, it is almost inevitable not to turn layers on/off - which messes up the Layouts!
If in model space this new local visibility flag is used instead of the global one - problem solved!
Please think about it! This might actually be a good idea. It would be one puzzle piece in the overall picture of improving layouting capabilities.
