Rhino 8 Development

ok, I understand that there is more catching up to do on the mac and especially more room for improvement on the new apple silicon.
wouldn’t want to complain about 2d performance on pc anyway, I’m happy. just minor things here and there.

I just use another display for Grasshopper. If I remember Grasshopper is java and impossible to dock into Rhino.

Point cloud improvement is a must.

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I am curious: what specifically do you want improved?

You remember wrong. We don’t use Java anywhere in Rhino. Grasshopper is a .NET plug-in, just as many other plug-ins we have, say Rhino Render plug-in code (to integrate Cycles) is .NET.

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I think this thread has served it’s purpose. @stevebaer I vote to close it because:

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I vote to keep it open.

features being announced does not exclude more to be added.

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Hi Coby - have you had a look at the Veesus point cloud plugin? That allows you to work with very large point clouds in Rhino intuitively. I’m pretty sure that RCP and RCS files are Autodesk specific to REcap, so you wouldn’t be able to work with those outside of the Autodesk Universe anyway. Getting your data as open file formats (.E57/PTS etc) and then convert them to .VPC (Veesus format) is my preferred solution - I’ve worked with large clouds then, no problem in Rhino with a full suite of sectioning, clipping and viz settings, Yes, it is an additional cost, but still way cheaper than a seat of AutoCAD/Recap.

Every time we make a new layer, we have to make it the current layer before we can use it. If Rhino automatically makes every new layer the current layer, it will save us at least one minute every day.

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I frequently create a new layer and then copy geometry to the new layer using Copy Object to Layer without making the new layer the current layer. I do not want a new layer to automatically become the current layer.

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You are a minority, but you may deserve an option to prevent the ‘automatic current layer.’

That makes me a minority too…
I rarely want new layers to be active.

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Well, I’m always very leery about having Rhino (or any other software) decide what’s best for me ‘automatically’. Certainly there many many command option defaults that are set in Rhino because that’s how most people expect them to work, but I’m not sure if this is one of those cases. In order to back up your claim that a “majority of users” want the New Layer button to make the layer current by default, we would need to have some real statistics.

I would say my use of this would be about 25/75 - sometimes I want the new layer to be current but most of the time not. Often I am creating new layers to throw some existing geometry on so I can turn them off temporarily, so exactly the opposite. I also work with customized scripts to do this - such as “Change to new layer” - so I’m maybe not the best person to consult here.

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As @Helvetosaur says you need statistics to back that up. Your opinion does not make it the majority opinion, although the past decade it has been a growing trend to believe that opinion is fact.

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I’m minority too.
:man_shrugging:t2:

I don’t like the idea too but could be useful for beginners.
But learning a bad habit is it a right way to learn?

@nathanletwory I`ve started to learn Rhino about 1 year ago. So not so long ago. After moving from Modo one thing with layers was most confusing for me. I have no indication which layer is empty. So in the beginning I had no idea on which layer my data really is.


Zrzut ekranu 2022-02-23 121642

Above you can see modo layers tab. It`s easy to determine which layer is empty and which is not.
So when you create layers is easy to know which layers wait for their content. It’s easy also to know where are you will be creating your geometry. You know also if you are creating on empty layer now or not.

That type of indication was added as a feature request “To Do” a year ago but I don`t know if it will happen in v8. Do not forget about it, please.

Zrzut ekranu 2022-02-23 120605

Also in that situation above, I didn’t understand if my geometry will be created on the Default layer or Layer 01 (because it’s selected) or maybe on Layer 02 (because it`s the current tick on). It’s confusing IMHO.

Naming one layer Default also didn`t help me much because I hadn’t known if that was always the Default layer or maybe only for this current moment.

The second thing that is strange for me is that I can’t delete the layer if there is a block assigned. That may be really frustrating for new users. In my opinion, you should ask the user if he wants to delete the layer and the block assigned together. The whole idea blocking layer because there is a block without any indication on the layers list is also strange. On the other side if its layer is blocked from delete because there is a block so why I`m still able to add objects on this layer. This was mega strange for me. Still is.

This is all causes I’m making bad moves in the layer tab all the time and it`s the most frustrating part of Rhino for me (together with blocks).

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Another CAD program I (still) have ask if you want to delete the blocks together with the layer or if you want to move them to another layer before deleting that layer. That would be an even better solution than just deleting the layer with the blocks.

It is not strange that you cannot delete a layer right away if there is a block in it, this is to prevent that you accidentally delete blocks that you didn’t intend to delete. Imagine you would not get a warning at all and could just delete the layer andonly then find out you are missing objects because you deleted them with the layer.

It is because the layer is still available in Rhino and in that case it would be rather strange if you couldn’t add objects onto it (unless the layer is locked in a way that would prevent that). This works the same in other CAD programs.

I agree that for some people (mostly new users) it is not always clear on which layer you will be adding objects but this is something they’ll figure out after a short while. That being said, even I get it wrong sometimes when making a quick edit so there is still a little room for improvement.

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Maybe that layer with a block inside should have some other colour or something which indicate: “Do not delete me I own block here”. In Modo (again) instances have other layer types (pink one) to know that is an instance and you are not allowed to put any ordinary geometry on that layer because it`s reserved only for instance.

Don’t get me wrong I don`t want to change Rhino into Modo. There are many areas where Modo should copy Rhino features.

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Totally agree. If you look at the Screenshot of Modo you can also not just tell if it is empty or not, but you can see what’s inside the layer and select things.

I’ve had people in the forum try to explain why this does not exist in Rhino, but it just doesn’t make any sense. I do not know of a single 3D application that does NOT have some way of seeing all your objects in some sort of outliner.

But hey, we are only at major version 8 of Rhino… :man_facepalming:

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