Rectangle command suddenly only draws squares - why?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

I use the rectangle command (corner to corner) a lot.

But I just started a new drawing and now it only wants to draw squares.

It was working fine yesterday.

I can’t figure out how to get it working normally again.

I am using version (5.10.41201.11145, 1/12/2014)

Any ideas?

Update: I just realised that I had ortho set to 45 degrees. When I set ortho back to 90 degrees, the rectangle command works normally again. I don’t know why, and it’s a bit of a nuisance.

2

Are you holding the Shift key when dragging the corner? Holding Shift is a feature of the command to do exactly that.

3

Thanks John. No, I wasn’t holding down the shift key to produce the ‘square lock’ of the rectangle command.

Although, now that you have raised that, I can say that:

  • If ortho is set to 45deg, the Rectangle command will produce only squares unless you hold down the shift key, in which case both oblongs and squares can be drawn.
  • If ortho is set to 90deg, the behaviour is vice-versa, i.e. holding down the shift key produces only squares, releasing the shift key produces any rectangle including oblongs.

So my conclusion is that there is interaction between the ortho setting and the Rectangle command’s behaviour. I’ll just have to bear that in mind when changing the ortho setting.

4

That’s a bug then.
The 45-degree Ortho setting seems to be the key.
I’ll get it on the pile.
Thanks

5

I was wrong.
It’s NOT a bug.
The second pick of the Rectangle is just following the Ortho setting.
If the Ortho angle is 45, then Rectangle will draw squares unless Ortho is suspended.
The exception in the command is an Ortho angle of 90. If it followed Ortho then a rectangle would be impossible with Ortho enabled.

Does that makes sense?
Try setting your angle to 30 or 60 and see what it does.

6

A change for V6 was just checked in that adds 45 degree Ortho angle to the same special exception as 90 degrees.

This means two things:

1 - If Ortho is on AND set to 90 or 45 degrees, the Rectangle command will ignore the ortho and give you free cursor movement for the second pick. If you want a square, press and hold Shift with a 45 degree Ortho angle.

2 - If your Ortho angle is 22.5 degrees, then with Ortho on you will be able to make a square without holding Shift if you move your pointer out the 45 degree vector direction.

If this is too confusing to users, it’s easy to change the behavior back.

7

Personally I think that case 1) is a good idea. The problem originally for me was that I did not appreciate that the ortho snaps would alter the Rectangle command’s behavior. And in any case, if you want a square, then, as you say John, just hold down the shift key.

I am not too keen on case 2) for the reason that it would require quite deep knowledge of Rhino to know that such behaviour would occur upon the special case that ortho is set to 22.5 degrees. To the casual or intermediate level user, the Rectangle command is not obviously connected to the ortho snaps, and even if the special behaviour is mentioned in the F1 Help guide, that requires ‘reading the fine print’. It would not be intuitive. KISS.

8

My take on 2 is since Ortho effects everything (unless specifically overridden), the 22.5 degree angle makes the Ortho effect discoverable just by moving your mouse a bit. with 90 and 45, the Ortho effect overrides everything. At any other setting, it shows up.

I’ve set my default Ortho angle at 22.5 as a result of this change. It will be interesting to see what other users think once it’s out. My strong suspicion is very few Rhino users will ever even notice it.