New Gumball is devastatingly bad. Here are some proposals how to fix it

Is not the scale’s square handle located at the exact opposite of the arrow handle used to move objects? In my opinion, this is a very smart solution.

And why does it need to remember any value to a precision of 15 digits?! This is absurd.

1 Like

Sorry to say that this behavior still happens in this version: Version 7 SR11
(7.11.21257.7001, 2021-09-14)
I didn’t notice it specifically until Bobi posted it. Now it explains a lot of the mysterious movements I’ve been having.

Dennis

Hi Dennis - it has to - if the number were rounded, then asking to repeat would not, exactly. How much rounding would be enough but not too much? I don’t think file tolerance would be good enough - if it showed a rounded number and it was measured by a user as inexact… well, you see the mess. Maybe it should say ‘Use last’ or something…

-Pascal

2 Likes

Where does the madness end? Why stop at 15 digits then? Aren’t you rounding off from 16? Exactly how fine does one need to measure? I just think the limit should be user select-able. For my work, three digits to the right of the decimal is plenty. More to the point, clicking off the Gumball arrow should not execute a move. Sometimes I click the gumball arrow to see what my last move was, clicking away shouldn’t initiate another move. The Enter key also works. Why not stick with that?

16 digits. we use em all.

Say you drag a thing with gumball and you want to drag again the same - rounding will cause the second move to different from the first - if you want things to line up, being within .001 is not good enough, moving is an exact operation, unlike others that use a tolerance.

-Pascal

1 Like

For instance, a nanometer is .0000000001 meters. Does Rhino really need to allow for something 10,000 time smaller than that? What am I missing?

This redefines splitting hairs :thinking:

1 Like

Well, it does that - whether it needs to show you that is a different question I guess.
Now, with all of that, repeating say Circle, shows a rounded number but uses the real one - though it gets slightly fuzzy 13 places out or so. I’ll ask.

-Pascal

hi @pascal Is it possible to divide this topic, with a new topic, and add this wish. Use last

1 Like

I also think that remembering the exact distance to repeat next is the better way to do it. Maybe adding a dedicated option specifically for this operation with Gumball would suit more people, as everyone has their own preferences.

By the way, those who prefer to move objects in full numbers (or at 0,1 units etc) could use Grid snap and set the grid size to their preferred size. I use Grid snap all the time and it really helps me keep my models more precise and well organized as it lets me keep the random numbers at minimum.
In my early years with 3DS Max and Rhino I didn’t paid attention to the importance of using Grid snap, thus my models were messy and incredibly difficult to measure or edit accurately. :innocent:

How about having a display precision and an internal precision, just like with e.g. annotations?
(Personally I don’t care if there are lots of digits displayed)

lol yes me too.
Took a long time to realise that accuracy is fundamentally important !!

1 Like

The single tap to enter a numerical value is something I use all day every day.

Maybe an option to turn it off would make gumball more versatile for different users, but getting rid of this feature entirely will confuse more users than it helps. It’s been there for years. When I want to drag, I drag, when I want to enter a numerical value, I tap. It’s simple and easy.

4 Likes

is this just because McNeel isn’t applying our display options in this field?

precision is good. showing it me the precision that… precisely… when I asked for display in thousandths is not good.

not only the better way, but whom does it hurt when it does not round the numbers? does not cause havoc in the system so why even arguing :man_shrugging:

1 Like

fun fact, even though you can’t draw or have anything less than a 1/32 or 1 mm in Revit the absolute tolerance is 0.0005233832795 or 0.000159527224 m.

1 Like

Plot twist with a non fun fact: The square handle of Gumball still feels downtrodden due to its unfortunate dependence by the Ortho… :innocent: :expressionless: :sob:

Before the last update to R7, the gumball remembered distance or angular values which were typed after selecting the x,y, or z arrows. This was really useful when editing a Sub D model, eg straightening vertices using a zero input value. Having that zero automatically pop up was a big time saver. Now it seems to change the number after any manual dragging, which is super annoying. It would be great to be able to change this back to the old setting.

4 Likes

Adding an option to choose either one of those two settings would suit everyone.

1 Like