Non-destructive FilletEdge workflow, looking for testings

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1

Hi all,

I’m Yuxin, an architect and developer based in Finland, currently working on a comand-line plugin called NDFilletEdge.

To be upfront: this is NOT a better FilletEdge. It might even be less stable than native FilletEdge. Where FilletEdge fails to fillet, NDFilletEdge should fail there too.

What it offers instead is a non-destructive workflow — if your design changes, you can always modify the original geometry with fillets, rather than starting over. During design iterations, you can keep changing your geometry with the fillet remapped and previewed live, and only finalize it as the last step. So it’s a different way of working with fillets, not a functional upgrade.

To be noticed:

  • Windows only for now — Mac isn’t supported yet.
  • Under active, frequent upgrade.

Given these, I’d suggest testing on non-critical files rather than actual production work for now.

You can install via the Rhino Package Manager (search “myFilletEdge”).

Bugs, crashes and wishes, comment below or you could also fill out the Feedback Form here Google Drive link — User Guide is in there too.

Thanks for your valuable time and feedbacks.

2

hi @Yuxin_Wu that looks interesting.

I did a quick test here. First of all, I am not a fan of this changing the way the object is displayed (it should show shaded view here)

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image634×457 101 KB

When I push-pull a face I see this:

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image651×453 86.1 KB

it sometimes works then to update the fillets, but often not
[ERROR]Recompute FilledEdge failed.

It becomes a bit hard to subobject select edges. Ctrl+Shift highlights the entire object instead. I have to guess where the underlying edge is. eg:

Once I have all edges assigned, I see no way to change the radii in this mode:

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image1341×676 129 KB

I did not figure out how to disable setbacks.

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image1920×865 292 KB

3

Hi @Gijs Thank you very much for testing. Mostly clear points.

  • The problem with view mode is true. It behaves like an X-ray mode. I draw the filleted brep forcefully in the wrong channel(CSupportChannels::SC_DRAWFOREGROUND). It is meant to make the filleted preview more realistic but there might be a more suitable channel for that.

  • I noticed the same problem with recompute failure after for example push-pull. It is much less reliable when I install the plugin via package manager than directly drop the .rhp to rhino. While I will try to figure out between the .rhp to the package manager, you are welcome to try dropping .rhp into rhino direcly.

    myFilletEdge.rhp (495.5 KB)

    Subobject remapping is not 100 % reliable right now, but it should be much reliable than “often not”.

  • subobject select edges: good point, maybe I should somehow show the original brep line , possibly with dotted-line or grey line.

  • I have not considered the need of change some radii within the cmd, currently there is a way to work around it. I attached it below.

  • Yes just noticed there is a setBack toggle in the native FilletEdge. I have not implemented it yet. Maybe later.

Thank you again for testing.

br, Yuxin

4

Hi -

Just to make sure… I see that package showing up when I run Rhino 8 (but also when running Rhino on macOS, so it’s clear that the package might be missing some information).
Is Rhino 9 a requirement?
-wim

5

Rhino 8 and Rhino 9 should both work.

It might show up on macOS, but may not work there. There are some function call in the code that would not work for Mac.

I will update here when a Mac build is done.

Yuxin

7

hi Gijs,

The has been an updated version in the Package Manager now.

-The display mode changing is now fixed.

-The remapping and recomputing after pushpull should now be more stable than before.

More fixing on the way. Have a nice weekend.

yuxin

8

Hi @Yuxin_Wu
A couple of comments, after some initial testing:

  1. Great work - I really like the concept.
  2. Clicking the fillet handles to numerically enter an value doesn’t work. I can drag the handle, but need numerical precision when creating variable fillets.
  3. On my screen, if I go to edit the fillets of an object, the already active edges don’t highlight - at least not until after I click either an already active edge to start editing or add a new edge. It would be nice, I think, if the already selected/active edges would highlight when the NDFilletEdge command is executed.
  4. Ctrl+window drag to select edges in edit mode does not only unselect already selected edges, it also adds the edges that where previously unselected to the selection. I can Ctrl+click to un-select individual edges, but I can also Ctrl+click to select new edges. I feel like holding Ctrl should eliminate the possibility to add edges (which is Rhino default behaviour), thus making window selection possible.
  5. And on that note: Enable window selection in general, following the same rules that Rhino follow in general: Left to right is windowed selection, right to left is crossing selection.
  6. I usually work without any isocurves on, and it would be nice to be able to turn them off completely for surfaces made with NDFilletEdge.
    I hope this makes sense :slight_smile: If not, let me know, and I’ll explain in detail and record some video!
    HTH, Jakob