It seems like I’ve had this discussion in the past with @pascal and @mikko.
I’m wondering again why we don’t automatically turn on points when we select an object (not in a command).
I don’t remember what the issues are. Can someone remind me?
I think it only requires a change to the picker so that picking the object is allowed even when the points are on and a point is selected. (BTW, I don’t know why we don’t do that anyway.)
This sounds like it could be useful if you know what you’re doing but it also may cause inadvertent control point editing or solid pt editing which results is wonky unintended forms. I’d be interested in seeing if it’s useful or confusing to new users.
I see Brian’s point. Would something like a right-mouse click on a selected object to turn on points be something feasible?
It seems like most 2-D programs turn on control points automatically when objects are selected. I would guess it would be less confusing if the user had used almost any 2-D software.
Some turn on bounding box control points, but they all seem to turn on points.
I don’t think it is a good idea to come up with yet another way to do a common activity.
It may need to depend on if you have multiple objects selected versus a single object -or- the object type (points on for meshes and dense point clouds may be annoying). Would a single escape turn points off but leave the object selected and a second escape deselect the object completely?
Is there a reason this is not on the Serengeti category? Seems like it would be useful to get input on.
I didn’t want to expectations going wild if there was some major (painful) technical issue.
I guess I was thinking single curve object selected…
Which ones are you thinking of? I’ll take a look.
That’s a really good point (no pun intended). Rhino’s display slows remarkably with lots of points displayed.
The denser objects’ points (like meshes) the harder it would become to deal with the top level object - you’d always be hitting a point unless zoomed way in. But allowing top level selection when points are on seems worth some thought.
-Pascal
This would have to be single select only. Otherwise selecting and deselecting lots of objects at once would get painfully slow.
Objects can have control points, edit points and solid points. Would selecting turn them all on?
Making whole objects pickable while points are on would probably be relatively easy to implement. I’ll look into it.
In the next V6 build TestPointsOnSelect command makes it possible to select objects with points on.
@bobmcneel , @theoutside , @mary, @VaneSteeg, @BrianJ, @rbarcena, et al, please try this and see how it feels - maybe add TestPointsOnSelect to your startup commands so you always get this behavior for a while. So far here, very quick test, it seems worth working with for a bit.
thanks,
-Pascal
I like this. I’m wondering how it would feel with surfaces.
I’d also like to see how it feels to turn on points automatically when a single curve is pre-selected.
Why not set the default to On and move this discussion to Serengeti?
So far so good… I would also be curious to play with points on for single surfaces and curves when selected. I don’t think we should do this for meshes or polysurfaces though for various reasons.
We’ll see- I think we should turn it (testPointsOnSelect) on for V6 and see what happens- there are certainly cases where it is too easy to move the top level object when attempting to drag a point. The selection filter helps, but it is another level of complication.
-Pascal
It’s now on by default. I guess we’ll learn soon enough if users like it or not.
I’ll try to get auto-points-on to work too, but I expect it to be a lot more complicated, and messy. Automatically turning on control points when single selecting a curve with no points on seems straightforward, but what to do with deselection?
Should all deselecting always turn off all curve points? Even if they were explicitly turned on with PointsOn or EditPtOn?
Hi Mikko-
I’d say not, off hand - I think that would be really hard to work with. On deselect of objects that are selected to get the points on, just turn them off again, I suppose. It’ll be interesting to see how this works, if you can figure it out.
It does seem like maybe all of this might be more natural feeling if we had mouse-over highlighting and did not always prefer the top level object in selection. Then you’d know when to click to select the thing you want. There may be a bigger project lurking, selection wise, once we start messing with it - maybe we should back up a little, think about it, and not do this completely piece-meal, I’m a little afraid we may back into a corner…
-Pascal
I’m moving this conversation over to Serengeti.
Just a reminder to everyone, we may or may not keep this in the released product.
May I suggest making this a feature that can be easily set on or off (eventually) For me it would be useful when implemented like gridsnapping the gumball etc:
A statusbar toggle.
I will test it for now ’ as is’ and report any issues.
Thanks Willem