Layout & Drafting: What's the plan?

[osuire]

@scottd

This is not a simple plug and play kind of solution. The generation of the drawings is deeply embedded in the rigorous modeling process and object model of each solution

Sorry, but this is complete BS, in particular if you refer to Spaceclaim, SolidWorks, Inventor, Fusion, NX,… These CADs can import STEP from anywhere and do the 3D/2D magic, no problem.
Our sub-contractors do that all day long.

@scottd

VisualARq can automate a lot of the work for creating drawings in Architecture

Have you actually tried to use VisualArq ?
We have, and we still have the scars, so please don’t talk about what you don’t know.

EDIT : Here’s a nested block made in Rhino

…and here’s the layout I made in Fusion in 5 minutes, with no experience in this software :

The important thing here is not the speed at which the views were created (blazing fast), but the fact that it is 100% dependent on the 3D model, including dimensions, and parts list (which was created with one click). Of course, if the RHINO model is changed, you’re screwed.
This is standard, this is normal, this is found even in free software like FreeCad.
McNeel has been out of touch with their users on this point for over 15 years !

[MattE]

I’ve been giving this (Layouts and drafting) some careful thought while working on other stuff. I fully appreciate the cautionary comments about making overly complex requests and I also think that demanding of McNeel a magical new conduit that delivers 2D results that match those of software costing many times the price of Rhino at the drop of a hat is pretty unreasonable and is equally unlikely to bring forth a satisfactory solution. It hasn’t done so for many a year

So, I took stock of the current Rhino features and tried to envisage a solution that pulls them together in a way that, whilst not perfect, could go some way to easing our collective pain. Please appreciate that though I have V6, I still predominantly use V5 because of the many plugins I use with that version. As a result, I may have missed some new features.

As a starting point, we have:

1. Production of fully featured (i.e. hidden lines, silhouettes, tangent edges etc) vector drawings of 3D objects can only be achieved with Make2D.

2. The closest thing we have to associative 3D to 2D drawings is only available using Layout.

3. Truly associative dimensioning and parts calls aren’t available, by any means.

4. Generation of parts tables and BoM isn’t catered for natively by Rhino, though attempts have been made by others to address this. Peter’s Tools is the main one that comes to mind. The new Rhino user functions could also augment in this area.

It occurs to me that 1 and 2 could functionally overlap. If ‘Details’ (I hate that term - why not just call them Views? - but I’ll live with it…) are placed in drawing space in a Layout, with Technical Display mode enabled but used solely as a ‘preview’ mode to set up viewpoints and extents for the Detail and so give a dynamic idea of what the drawing will look like, then could Make2D be used to feed off of those viewpoints and extents to produce fully vectored views that match? A bit of display trickery similar to the ‘per object’ rendering options could then be used to allow a switch between the ‘Display Mode’ and ‘Make2D’ views.

It seems to me that Layouts are in effect the ‘.2dm’ format, by another name. Or they could at least be treated as such. Is it possible to see a Layout tab as anything other than 2D, with the view normal to plane? It has holes (Details) cut in it to allow a peek of the 3D world, but of itself it’s solely 2D.

Dimensions and annotations could be added at either stage. Further thought in that respect may reveal good reason to prefer one over the other. Details using rendered display modes could have the option to remain rendered and just become bitmap images when the Layout is exported.

Once a Layout is defined, getting it out of Rhino comes down to either Printing it or exporting it in some kind of vector format.

For the Print option, if the current dialogue window had an option to display thumbnails of all Layouts in the file, it could be used to prepare and control the production of a set of drawings. Double clicking a thumbnail could maximise it within the Print window to allow detailed settings to be made. Requests: 1. Allow zooming within the window to allow detailed inspection of the drawings to be made, prior to Print; 2) Provide access to PrintDisplay within the Print dialogue window to give a better idea of the finished appearance of a drawing. 3) Keep all of the existing LH menu options that Print currently offers.

In Print thumbnail view, a checkbox next to each can dictate which ones are saved out. Dragging the thumbnails can give control over page order, when saving out to a multi-page PDF.

A similar approach (to maintain GUI continuity) could be used for controlling multiple Layouts if required, prior to export to dwg, dxf etc.

Other points: The placing and control of Details within a Layout needs tighter control. Inventor has a nice system whereby one Detail (the first one placed) is the ‘Master’. Subsequent 2D views can be ‘dragged’ off of the Master and depending on whether First or Third Angle is set in preferences, one immediately gets the correct view appear at the cursor in accordance with the direction that one is dragging. Even diagonal views. I wouldn’t expect that level of functionality, but I would think it reasonable that the default behaviour would be to have 2nd, 3rd, 4th Details to be aligned with the Master in X or Y and also to the same scale, unless the user subsequently breaks the link. Moving the Master in Y should take Left and Right views with it and maintain alignment; likewise moving it in X should take Top and Bottom Views with it.

Once all of that is cued up, an intermediate step (prior to Print/Export) would set Rhino underway with producing Make2D views of all Details and dropping them into the Layouts, hiding the Display Mode versions of same as it went. This could take quite a while, but if the user set it up correctly (remember Badger? ) it could be left to run unattended.

When the need arises to revise a drawing (Layout), the 3D model is worked on and the whole process is set in motion again. The original Make2D outputs are either deleted or saved to an archive version of the .3dm file. The new views drop in to place. Dimensions and annotations remain. It would be nice to have some bit of magic to re-mate the dimensions to the new Make2D but that’s a Big Ask, I think. At least most of the original dimensions would be in roughly the right place so that they can be point-edited, but checking for errors would be very tedious.

The above retains most, if not all, of the good work that’s been done to improve both Layouts and Make2D over the years but provides a means of pulling the two closer together. It’s not perfect, but it would go some way to easing our pain.

I haven’t touched on cleaning up Make2D views to make them more CAM friendly, or making dimensions and annotations associative, but they are both things that could be added as refinements to the core theme. I’m sure there are other aspects (especially on the architecture front - something I don’t follow closely) where similar moves could occur.

[osuire]

@MattE

I also think that demanding of McNeel a magical new conduit that delivers 2D results that match those of software costing many times the price of Rhino at the drop of a hat is pretty unreasonable

Not true : FreeCad* offer this basic / industry-standard-since-early-2000’s feature !

FreeCAD - Symbols and Views in the TechDraw Workbench|JOKO ENGINEERING|

*FreeCad as in “This CAD is FREE”

Just found “NanoCAD Mechanica” ; (admitedly, you’ll need to pay a whopping 300 $ for this one)

nanoCAD Mechanica 9.0. New video by Ralph Grabowski

[osuire]

@MattE

I haven’t touched on cleaning up Make2D views to make them more CAM friendly, or making dimensions and annotations associative,

You’re also forgetting section views linked to the section symbol, as well as “Zoomed” views (typically called “Detail” views in most CADs) which are also completely associative.
Doing this in Rhino is horrendous, yet, it’s the basics of drafting, be it in Architecture drawings or Mechanical.
Sections and detail views, McNeel people… Look it out, get out of denial ; it’s important stuff !

[MartinIC]

Elefront is a good tool, but it is in my opinion more a software supporting a certain workflow than a general software product. So it does not give you enough freedom to adapt the workflow to your own needs.
It probably has been developed partially to compensate features Rhino is missing.

You could argue, “Why should you invest into 2D Plan creation, when there are all the other tools on the market, that provide it. I’d rather invest my develpoing power into something other software products don’t provide.”

Some industries have gone paperless so it could be questioned, how long layouts features will we actually be need.

The requirement for plans is a workflow driven requirement. Changing workflows, will maybe require differnt solutions.

It used to be, that people actually manufactured parts from plans - many times, the parts nowadays are manufactured based on 3D data. The plans are “only” used as part of quality checks. Drawings are also used for Assembly drawings - but that could be very well, be handled by 3D Models as well.

So the real question in my opinion is: how will the future digital workflow from early design stage to production be? What software features will be necessary to implement

If you look at a plan, there is quite a bit of information in it, that needs to be stored “somewhere”. This additional information can be stored in Rhino via User Texts as of now. It however may be an idea to think of a more sophisticated ways of storing data.

[MattE]

That FreeCad video is sobering. A very good guide for anyone using the software. And it’s FREE.

RhinoInside FreeCad, anyone?

The menu panel on the LHS of FreeCad in that video is the kind of thing I’d envisage in the Layout edit view. Very much in line with what you see in the Rhino Print dialogue. FreeCad’s interpretation of Detail move and manipulate is nicer than Rhino’s implementation too. Much less cumbersome/intrusive.

[Rickson]

Autodesk products will get you 80, maybe 90% there but are always lacking and have poor development. Just go look at the issues people have on fusion. No thanks. The bleeding edge of Rhino/Gh has more potential than what they are selling. The time invested in rhino will payoff: in a few years down the road on an autodesk product will be increased subscription fees, no development & no real commitment to solutions.

[osuire]

@MartinIC

So the real question in my opinion is: how will the future digital workflow from early design stage to production be?

Paper might wane, but drawings in the sense of “informed focus on a certain aspect of the design” will probably not.
They will just be displayed on a hardened tablet on construction sites, or LCD panels in workshops, but they will still be there and be needed.

That steel fabricator with his gloves and helmet ; he needs to see the important dimensions of the steelwork to tack-weld the gussets and pipes in the right places.
The construction site worker out in the rain and cold, even if he has a tablet, is not likely to appreciate creating live sections and measuring stuff in the 3D model up there on the scaffolding.

These guys need to get the relevant information at a glance, and that is what a well made drawing does.

We have managed to get rid of most of the drafting work because… we get it done by our sub-contractors.

Layouts, sections, detail views, leaders and dimensions are here to stay for quite a while, and it would be a real treat if the Workflow to produce them in Rhino didn’t suck so much.

[osuire]

@Rickson

The bleeding edge of Rhino/Gh has more potential than what they are selling

I wholeheartedly agree, and this is why the lack of :

-Rock-solid blocks workflow (or part/assembly ; whatever you want to call it)
-Sketch constraints
-Up-to date drafting
-Robust booleans and filetting

…is such a bummer.

Instead of filling these potholes, McNeel decided to become subservient to those AutoDesk bastards with their “Rhino Inside” nonsense. How sad…

(And you are right to specify “Rhino/GH” ; Without Grasshopper, I for one would have left the poor beast continue it’s path to extinction alone a while ago, in discouragement).

[Asterisk]

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

@scottd the original question in this thread seems to be left unanswered. You say:

@scottd

So we will continue to add and push forward where we can. Hopefully with each release we can deliver something useful for everyone

But that doesn’t really sound like a plan does it?

So who is the developer responsible for this and can we talk to him/her?

I think we’ve made pretty clear that there are industry independent features missing right now in the drafting and layout tools that would be very welcome:

• sketch constraints (I can imagine this is a hard one in Rhino)
• sections from a detail (view)
• details from a detail (view)
• bom*
• balloons*
• hatches in sections per object

*I made an attempt at this myself in my page layout tools that works for files that consist of blocks

[eobet]

@osuire

Of course, if the RHINO model is changed, you’re screwed.

This doesn’t have to be true. We often import STEP files into Solidworks, and it’s semi intelligent in keeping dimensions in place. I suspect STEP files have an ID associated with each surface, and that’s what they use.

Simple drawing from a box imported from Rhino.

Same drawing auto-updated after doing MoveFace in Rhino.

We’re currently trialing NX, and the stuff it can do to imported STEP files is just magical, so I suspect it will be just as good, if not better at updating technical drawings when the imported bodies also update (the price is, of course, also “magical”).

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

@eobet

This doesn’t have to be true

No, not with a simple cube, but this also holds true for current Rhino. Dimensions added in layout will stick to the object and update. But now try the same with a boolean difference instead of a moveface. Then I am sure the dimension will get a reference break warning. But again the same holds true if you do something like that in a Solid modeler. Changing a dimension of a feature will keep the reference, anything else will most likely break it. When I made design changes in a Solid Modeler (SW in my case) it almost always involved making changes to the drafted drawings as well.
I think this is understandable and acceptable as long as you can easily see which dimensions are broken. In Rhino updated dimension either update correctly or break, but you won’t get to see which.

[osuire]

@eobet

Same drawing auto-updated after doing MoveFace in Rhino.

Interesting ! What exactly do you mean by “Auto-Update” ?
When opened with SW (and others like Fusion hereafter), the STEP file is converted to a slurry of SLDASSY AND SLDPRT files that reproduce the nested blocks structure of the original Rhino file.
I wonder if this “auto update” works in this case…

By the way, note the stupidity of the Rhino block manager which does not allow to open-up the nested blocks to see their content, or edit directly the blocks name without having to pop-up another window.

[osuire]

@Gijs

In Rhino updated dimension either update correctly or break, but you won’t get to see which.

I remember in my old SW days that any child object losing a reference would be highlighted somehow.

[eobet]

@osuire

the STEP file is converted to a slurry of SLDASSY AND SLDPRT files

Ahh, sorry… yes, we only ever import a single body, never multiple bodies!

[osuire]

@eobet

we only ever import a single body, never multiple bodies!

Slight catch

This might prove a bit challenging …

[eobet]

Ha, I wouldn’t want to put that into Solidworks on any day!

We use it for Industrial Design only. Larger stuff like that goes into Catia/NX, and I just dabble in those.

[Rickson]

Looks yummy. Are you guys fabricating too? We do very similar work, typically fabrication and installation of facade and secondary. Biggest hiccup as of late is horrid design engineering, everything starts looking like a battleship with all the fasteners and steel.

[osuire]

@Rickson

Are you guys fabricating too?

We do the engineering work, the fabrication data/drawings and the assembly on site.
As we work with many materials (mostly wood but also steel, aluminium, tensile membranes, etc…) we sub-contract all over Europe.

@Rickson

verything starts looking like a battleship

You are right. lots of crazy steel parts and fasteners, but given the target shape and all the construction codes constraints, that’s the best we came up with.
The result is quite sleek though.