Rhino 8 introduce the new Section Style property to Objects and Layers. It includes hatch, fill and boundary settings. With this feature, it is now possible to illustrate different section styles of various objects using one clipping plane.
Workflow: Step One:
Select objects. In the Properties panel and under the Section Styles property, select By Layer (or other options include By Parent , By Clipping Plane and Custom).
Step Three:
Use the ClippingPlane or ClippingSections commands to create a clipping plane.
Enable the clipping plane in model and detail views to display the section with the styles that you configured.
You can set one Section Style across all objects for each clipping plane. To do that, configure the Section Style on the clipping plane object. Then set the Section Style of objects to By Clipping Plane.
Existing Section Styles can be assigned to to new objects using the MatchProperties command.
Thanks! I missed that. The section style’s name just says “custom”. Will you be able to name the section styles almost like you would a material?
A section material, different than the layer material, would open up huge possibilities as well!
Either way it looks pretty amazing based just on what I’ve seen.
A section style manager is on the list of things to take a look at in the future. I’ve added this thread to RH-73683 Named Section Style Manager Request
-wim
This is really important and useful for me. I’ve been using the plugin but testing this now, I am so pleased by the control over the styles, and find it more fluid and fast to implement. Along with presenting sections in drawings, I’m often needing to section and measure models while people are looking over my shoulder. I can turn this on and drag it through the model with a lot less set up. Thank you.
Hi @wim, this feature looks essential to me. The sole fact that you call these Section Styles makes it mandatory to me : anywhere in softwares “styles” are reusable sets of properties. I mean, if you really plan to ship R8 without named section styles, at least call this section properties, or something else ; as is, it kind of look like an half-cooked feature.
Just imagine you want to have multiple objects on different layers sharing section look, I currently have to either customize the “style” of many layers one at a time, or I have to select objects and attribute a "style " to all of them at a time - none of these process is flexible or future-proof. I mean, I shouldn’t even need to argue about this : what’s the point of using a computer if I can’t reuse some settings I set ?
I’m making a different answer, because it’s a different matter.
Regarding section styles, the clipping plane section styles behaviour is not very coherent to me : if I don’t set any custom section style (neither by layer or by object), I don’t really understand why wouldn’t my section plane section style apply to all objects by default ?
If you assign a custom section style to a clipping plane and set the Section Style properties of all objects to By Clipping Plane, the clipping plane’s section style will be used. By default, an object’s section style is set to By Layer.
-wim
funny is that in layers section style is either none or custom. i dont understand why it wasnt the first thing to introduce when imlementing this. i mean named section styles
Yes I know that, and that’s exactly what I am criticizing : if I haven’t set layer custom style, I think it would easier to have clipping planes section styles taking the priority on the styling.
I mean by default, layer section styles are set to “None” : why would my clipping plane section style not apply to objects if no other section style is applied to them ? They are indeed cut by said clipping plane, so it would make sense that my style is applied.
I’m thinking in a teaching context here, and I would find it difficult to explain if it were to stay like this.
Because initially it was only going be a section hatch for v8 and a section style for v9… buuut… the display guys kept pulling out wins and so we ended up feature creeping it.
So yes, we realize that we have a section style that’s shown up to the party early and we also realize it would be nice if the 3dm file had a table for a collection of them. However it’s amazing how quickly that table conversation gets complex due to all of the aspects that it will touch such as the file format, sdk’s and compatibility. Because that seemingly small thing is actually a bigger than you might think thing… that project will come for v9 as originally intended.
