Rhino 8 Development

Hi @andrew.nowicki,

I’ve used section tools occasionally, but this plugin doesn’t address the fundamental features that many uses have been asking about for years: Object exclusion and clipping extents.

There’s actually another plugin that gets a bit closer called Dynamic Display. Add object exclusion to this and we’re all set. I’ll gladly pay Asuni $35 bucks for this functionality (but of course, it’s preferable to have this integrated into native Rhino as a first-class citizen so it would get the continued attention it deserves.)

Since VisualArq can exclude objects from clipping and Dynamic Display can control clipping extents, It appear to me–as someone who is not a software developer–that all the ingredients already exist within the McNeel/Asuni ecosystem and it’s just a matter of convincing our friendly developers to devote resources to exploring this feature in the next WIP.

I did not use the SectionTools plugin for many years, so I do not remember it well, but it seems that ‘Edit Sections Object List’ Option can do it. Take a look at this video from 4:36 to 4:50: https://vimeo.com/18666799

My v8 wish list (so far) is:

-sketching
-radial subd symmetry
-more robust topo snap in subd
-variable SubD creasing
-voxel boolean and offsets
-particles and atmospheres in rendering (hair fur, fog, etc)
-non photo real rendering (watercolor, sketchy, poster-ized, etc…)
-Robust cloud library for materials and rendering assets from inside rhino

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That’s actually a perfect example of why SectionTools doesn’t cut it. At 4:35 when the tutor updates the object list to only cut through the roof, you can see in perspective view that it is still clipping through the blue polysurfaces. I don’t care about the 2D section cut–I want this to work in 3D. We need the ability to create perspective and orthographic “peel away” assembly illustrations with a non-destructive workflow.

I would love @rajaa to weigh in on this discussion. :upside_down_face:

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Some of your descriptions are hard to understand because they are very terse.
-Sketching is already available. It is called SmartTrack.
-Radial SubD symmetry, more robust topo snap in SubD, and variable SubD creasing, particles and atmospheres in rendering (hair fur, fog, etc) are good ideas.
-Voxel boolean and offsets are hard to understand.
-Non photo real rendering (watercolor, sketchy, poster-ized, etc…) is available in old Penguin plugin.
-Robust cloud library for materials and rendering assets from inside rhino seems to be less important than fundamental flaw of Rhino textures. You can see this flaw when you apply wood texture to a sphere. The only solution is volumetric texture mapping.

example of volumetric texture mapping:
Clipboard01

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Oh, come on!

Everything in this thread is moot before this gets fixed! :stuck_out_tongue:

Yes, that thread is OLD, so it’s bloody due!

(And yes, people are still asking, screaming, shouting, begging, pleading for updates here…)

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You can solve these block problems with SetUserText, SelValue, and SelKeyValue commands. For example, each part, including blocks, may have several keys: fabrication, material, part_number, etc. The fabrication key may have one of several values, for example: made_in_china, made_by_our_machinist, etc. If you use one key only, you find the objects with the SelValue command. If you use many keys, you find the objects with the SelKeyValue command. (You cannot use spaces in the key names and their values.)

You can also use free Rhino plugin called SmartTags. The SmartTags plugin creates four new commands: Tag, TagFilter, TagManager, and TagsFromLayers. Its main advantage is that it can use Boolean operations to select the objects. (Rhino cannot do it.) You can download SmartTags plugin from here: http://www.food4rhino.com/app/smarttags-rhino

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Maybe that solves one problem although with some extra work, but I hope you realize that both threads I linked contain literally dozens of major issues going back several years? :laughing:

According to @Pascal people are 15-20 year late complaining about it, but that also means that there has been no development in that area in Rhino for 20 years… which kinda explains the price tag on Rhino…

But hey, I’ve said it twice before, why not a third time:

I’d literally pay double the price of Rhino for robust filleting with history and deletion, and if I could choose only a single feature for Rhino 8, it would actually still be that, despite the atrocious block situation.

(In Industrial Design, Rhino is currently only good for the first 25% of the project. You have to switch to a competent modern CAD package when you approach tooling, unless you’re a glutton for punishment… and yes, that also includes drafting, which has been mentioned in this thread already and also here.)

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I never go beyond this stage, but I often make simple animations of machines with Bongo plugin and I sometimes fail because Bongo is very primitive. :angry:

I use SubDs to eliminate this problem and many other problems related to the polysurfaces.

SubDs are used in the first 10% of an ID project…

What’s this new percentage nonsense way to calculate value of a piece of software?

In a typical product development project (a complex one) the total industrial design time is about 5% of the time/effort. Make that 0.1-1% if it’s a very te by thing. So should we just stop using good software me side of that.

Should we all just use SolidBarelyWorks for a 100% of the time of that 0.1 to 5% of the effort? Or should we use tools that allow you to create the design intent and differentiation that will help your brand/client/employer make products that are differentiated from all the me too crap out there?

G

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All I’m saying is that I’d like to be able to use Rhino more in the development process. Right now, I can’t. I have to switch quite early to something else, and Rhino 7 did nothing to change that.

Unless I misunderstood you, it sounds as if you’re happy to use Rhino for just a small part of the job. And if that’s the goal of Rhino, then fine, I guess. But I thought Rhino was supposed to be a complete solution for some… and right now, attempting such a thing is a pain.

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I think you bring excellent points, and I agree with your desire to make it more useful.

I’m just realistic that such massive improvement would take a development team probably 3-5X of what McNeel has now, and will only be useful for people doing Industrial design type of work. Even though I would welcome that (that’s what we do), I think Rhino could go out of business pleasing us. It’s a lousy/demanding(no pun intended by me saying this)/small market to be in.

It makes more sense to play extremely well with MCAD packages first. For example, I cannot open a Step/Parasolid Assembly change a hard to model thing in Rhino and export it back out maintaining its structure/assemblies/naming/colors intact. I want that waaaaay before I want them to build a draft-angles/fillets/shelling/Boolean Division for Chuck to have an army of typists.

Blocks are overdue and they would help everyone. Including McNeel because we could all work with much smaller files if those things were half useful.

Also working really well with world class rendering plugins like Octane and Vray should be a much higher priority than any pet projects in rendering. Same goes for a seamless integration/livelink with Blender/Zbrush/Unreal/etc.

My thinking: Let’s pick battles where we can all win.

I’m happy to pass on shelled parts of money-making designs to Fusion, Solidworks, our clients’ engineering teams or some offshore supplier.

G

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Well, then. :wink:

-more robust booleans and overall reliability of operations
at the moment i am always tensed when i run the command if it is gonna fail again or not, get rid of all possible far from origin problems (6 still had some, probably 7 too)
-blocks
complete new way of handling them, have nesting in mind, instancing, uniqueness, hierarchies, assemblies, implement natively in gh, just inspire from other programs, there is a chance to do it all over again and in unparalled way
-constraints
constraints would open many many doors to new possibilities (parametric blocks…)
-drafting and annotations
ordinate dimensions styles, multileaders …many many more… just look at autocad and implement the features even better. rhino 7 just brought literally nothing new in this department
-dynamic, live views, section views, sections
no make 2d, select objects or depth of view, driving curve (would cover sectionviews along curve as well as basic sections and views) and direction of projection, rules (according to attributes) for which objets have what type of fills, hatches, special rules if section part is in contact with nothing make line thicker…
-enhanced BIM functionality
employ attributes heavily in any job, there are plenty ways how to enhance the functionality and use attributes for whatever organization of the model
i have complete picture how it should be but thats not for this overall suggestions thread, advanced reports from the model
-clipping of external references
been mentioned in more than one thread. it should have been in 6 already
-clipping objects
not just planes, advanced functionality in this department
-snaps to intersections and objects
curve curve srf srf crv srf
-blending with euler spiral
there is no way right now to create really smooth transition between curves, euler spiral connects two curves with matching curvature gradually
-silly stuff
you cant batch plot layouts to pdf in version 7. there are probably more silly things like this which makes look rhino like baby weak rhino.

+UI improvements (dark mode within native new modes maybe)
i think it would be nice if new version would come with cleaned tracked issues from previous version. if that is even possible :smiley:

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GoZ.

Hi Ryan,

Whilst it’s not an official GoZ Solution - I have made a grasshopper plugin to optimize the workflow between Rhino & Zbrush:
https://www.food4rhino.com/app/chameleon

Chameleon - Zbrush Live Link Tutorial from Marc Gibson on Vimeo.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Marc

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I would LOVE to see a native Rhino incremental array (on crv, between crvs, on srf, on crv on srf, etc) that doesn’t require Grasshopper or another plugin.

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Since McNell is using Cycles, better integration with Blender.

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Customize Cycles materials with Grasshopper like node in Blender is my dream

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We would love to have object-specific clipping work in 3D. This would be a game changer for us. Add my vote for this.

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