Need block system improvements!

[Jarek]

I agree, it would be handy to have non-uniform BlockEdit.
My understanding is that it is not enabled, because in some cases it could produce bad results. Ideally, if this is predictable, a warning would be added, or it would be allowed to work as an option, ‘at user’s risk’, but it should allow to work in basic cases. Imagine a simple scenario where your block is just a box. Non-uniform version is scaled along Z-Axis only. It should be perfectly fine to edit the non-uniform version of it.

There is some more info ‘why’ in this thread:

Impossible to modify bloc occurences of which the scale is not uniform

A block instance is (basically) made up of a collection of geometry, which is shared by other block instances, and a transformation. There are certain 4x4 transformations that require the underlying geometry to be significantly modified in order for the transformation to be successful. Generally, this involves convert non-NURBS geometry into NURBS geometry. Modifying the underlying geometry of block instances is frowned upon. Thus, you get the message with is the basis of this thread. Hope th…

but I am wondering if these special cases are detectable and could be prevented, while allowing “normal” cases to just work.

One of Rhino’s strengths is the flexibility of allowing user to do almost anything, even at the cost of producing weird, bad geometry. The non-uniform block edit issue is one of the exceptions from that rule.

–jarek