Make Block Instace display color of Instace current layer?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

I wonder if there is a way to do this or maybe can we consider it for the near future?

I don’t really know how Blocks are managed in other CAD software, but having two set of layers for each block is quite annoying (The layers of the geometry inside the block + the layer the actual block object/instance resides on).

Not only in terms of geometry organization but also when working.

I use colors often to make sure things are in the correct layers. Often my instances end up all over the place because they just have the colors of the geometry inside the instance, but not of the layer they currently are.

Basically there is no visual way to tell on which layer a Block instance is…

I would like my block instances to get colors from their current layer, and yes, if a block has many layers, the instance can naturally only have one, so this means the entire block will display with a single color.

Being able to have a switch for this would be nice. The same way we can switch between display by layer, by color, etc.

2

If you set your geometry display color to By Parent before you make a block instance out of it.

After that the display color will be what the block instance is set to. If it is set to layer color the contained geometry will show with that color.

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The same approach works also for materials. Set the geometry material to By Parent and once put into a block instance will take the material set to the block instance, which in turn can be also either directly set to the block instance or to by layer.

4 Likes
3

Oh and then I can switch back by clicking the instance and setting display color by Parent too. This makes the instance display the current colors of the geometry.

I can then set it by layer again and it takes the color of the layer.

Awesome!

This should be default behavior IMO.