Print width not working correctly in Rhino 8

[tiberiu_matala]

Hello,

I have to print to PDF a Layout.
Layers in the model have assigned PRINT WIDTH set to 0.3 and 0.5
When in preview, these look alright, but once I open the PDF the thickness were not applied. PDF shows as default thickness.
Curiously, if I have the titleblock in Layout area and is on one of the layers mentioned above, these lines HAVE the thickness applied.

Note: I tried opening with Rhino 7 and there is no issue with this. I have been working in Rhino since 2011 so I know how it worked up to R7…

Can someone help me understand if there is a different approach in R8 or this is a bug which needs fixed?

Thank you,

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

can you please run the systeminfo command and post the result, and your file if possible?

[tiberiu_matala]

file with issues.3dm (662.7 KB)

here you go.

[wim (Wim Dekeyser)]

Hi Tiberiu -

@tiberiu_matala

my system info.zip (153.0 KB)

The SystemInfo data that Kyle was requesting is what you get when you run that command in Rhino.

From your 3dm file, I see that you are running 8.5. I would recommend changing your update frequency to service release Candidates and let that download a newer version.

Here, in 8.7, this appears to work as expected. When I print to PDF and open that file in, e.g., Inkscape, the line is set to 0,5 mm:

→ Page 1 - 8.7.pdf (62.1 KB)
-wim

[tiberiu_matala]

Hello,

It does not work.
When saving or printing to PDF, as VECTOR, from LAYOUT (not from 3D space), it just keeps the same line thickness as the Default. Are there any specific settings that I need to apply when saving/printing to PDF other than the default ones?

I have updated Rhino to latest.

I still get the same result… What is highlighted supposed to have same thickness as the drawing border (yes they are on separate layers, but the line thickness is the same - drawing is in viewport whilst the border is in layout)

T.

[ARC_Guitars]

Hi all - I’m having an issue that might be related to Tiberiu’s. Since upgrading to Rhino 8 I’m finding some layers that are set to Hairline are printing much thicker in PDF outputs. Hairline layers work fine when set to that thickness globally, but when I override a layer’s setting in the Detail Print Width column for a given detail view, the thickness shows as “0” in the layers list rather than “hairline”, and the objects print thicker than hairline.

I’ve updated to 8.6 but same issue. It used to work fine in Version 7.

Any help would be gratefully received!
Andy

[ARC_Guitars]

Hi all - I’m still having trouble with this. The latest service release (8.7.24101.10002, 2024-04-10) seems to have fixed the issue with displaying Hairline as “0” in the layers list described above.

But I’m still struggling to get things to print to PDF correctly. I’ve attached a couple of examples to this post:

• Drainage plan v7 - correct line widths.pdf shows how the whole drawing used to look in V7 - the interior walls are over-ridden to Hairline so as to background them
• Drainage plan v8 - some hairline too thick.pdf shows how the drawing looks now in V8 - the stuff set to Hairline for that view now prints thicker.
• Test default set to 0.13.pdf shows some example boxes set to different things
• Test default set to hairline.pdf similarly shows example boxes

The latter two files show how layers I’ve set to Hairline for that detail view appear to be printing at their global setting (0.13 in this case).

Can anyone help with this? It might be I’ve misunderstood how this all works!! But it does seem to be behaving differently since V7, and I can’t think of a way to resolve it - I don’t want to change the global settings as they work for most drawings, and I’ve got lots of drawings sheets referring to the same model.

As an aside, the issue doesn’t appear to be with objects that are part of a linked block - I get the same behaviour whether the object is part of a linked block or just drawn straight into that file’s model space.

Grateful for any advice!!
Drainage plan v7 - correct line widths.pdf (768.1 KB)
Drainage plan v8 - some hairline too thick.pdf (1.1 MB)

[NMA]

I’ve been having issues with layer print attributes in Rh8 too. Part of the problem is that official documentation doesn’t explain how these attributes are applied.

There are posts going back to 2019 Difference between Print Width and Layout Print Width - Rhino / Rhino for Windows - McNeel Forum and 2022 Detail Print Color vs. Layout Print Color vs - Rhino / Rhino for Mac - McNeel Forum asking about this.

On top of this, I’ve found that layer states carried forward from a Rh7 file do not work in Rh8. That might be an issue for you as well?

I am not sure if they will help, but here are my testing notes breaking down my understanding of how all this works. It might be that the problem simply has to do with attributes inheriting (or not) from the global settings. I’ve written this as a very basic guide because I can’t find anything from McNeel, so I can’t warrant any of the info:

Each layer has 3 different settings for its lines’ Print Color and Print Width: Global, Layout and Detail.

“Global” (a word I’m using for clarity, it’s not in Rhino documentation) are the columns just labeled “Print Color” (using diamond icons, the squares are for display color) and “Print Width” (with text/number) that appear when you’re in Model Space.

When you switch to a layout tab, the Global PC + PW columns are still there, but they are joined to the right by a second set of columns for Layout Print Color and Layout Print Width. When you double-click into a detail window within a layout, these columns change to Detail PC and Detail PW.

Layout PC/PW setting affect curves/lines that are on the layout (in paper space), but not in model space.

Detail PC/PW settings affect curves/lines within the detail window (in model space).

Global settings initially carry over to Layout and Detail settings. However, when Layout or Detail attributes are directly changed, this breaks the link to the global settings and that setting becomes independent. For example, if you only adjusted the Detail Print Width of a layer, then the Detail Print Color, Layout Print Color, and Layout Print Width will still inherit attributes from Global, but Detail Print Width will now have to be adjusted directly.

To re-establish the link from Global > Layout/Detail, right click on the layer’s PC/PW setting and select “restore default.”

Layer States can be applied to all three of the layer print settings. At the bottom of the layer states panel are checkboxes to choose to apply the State to the Global or the Layout/Detail settings.

Layer States do NOT seem to be effective in Rhino 8 when opened from a Rhino 7 file. Restoring a saved Layer State shows the correct PC/PW on the layer panel, but the output will appear with Global PC/PW settings, as though the default had been restored.

[tiberiu_matala]

Hi.

I just went to Rhino 7 … I cannot use R8 because of this… and that’s how it is going to be until it is solved (if)…

T.

[NMA]

I’m staying in 8, but having to redo layer states and line attributes in the global settings and restoring them in layout/detail to have settings import from global. That’s probably what I should have been doing all along. I still need to manually adjust the print color/width in some details.

FWIW, I output my drawings to SVG, then compile them elsewhere before PDFing.

[ARC_Guitars]

Thanks for the break down on how the print width settings work. I’ve double checked and I’ve got them all set how I want them. But I’m still having the same issue. Essentially the over-ridden Detail Print Width setting doesn’t change the line width when printing. I’ve tried resetting to global defaults and then over-riding again but same problem.

It’s definitely a V8 issue as all my current files were created in V7, worked fine there (and still do) but have stopped behaving once in V8. I’m sticking with V8 as it’s better for me in other ways but this is still really annoying in terms of the quality of my pdf outputs!

Perhaps I’m asking too much of Rhino, but for bigger projects I tend to have one model with all the detail on it, and then amend the print widths, colours and display settings to get GAs and Detail drawings displaying what I want and how I want it. So changing everything to just using global settings doesn’t work for me as I’d end up either using the settings that work for GAs on details or vice versa.

Really hoping McNeel are working on this bug!

[NMA]

that’s frustrating, sorry to hear.

two things I can think of to try, apologies if you’ve already:

1. if you are changing the layer settings via layer states, make sure the right “layer settings to restore” boxes at the bottom of the panel are checked.

2. If that doesn’t work, you could try use Options > Linetypes to create new line types. In Rh8 you can specify the width, in 7 you couldn’t. Then you could assign those lines to layers and see if that carries through on the printing. This is not something I have yet tested though.

Good luck!