Rhino BETA Feature: Clipping Drawings Enhancements

Serengeti (Rhino BETA)
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Clipping Drawings Enhancements

We’re excited to share the new enhancements to dynamic clipping drawings in Rhino WIP to allow better control over the placement of drawings in modeling space. SectionTools also added support to draw curve objects, reflected ceiling projection and set LineType when create the drawings.

Please Download the latest Rhino WIP… and give it a try. We will love to hear your feedback Thank you

Here is a summary of what’s new (please revisit for updates):

  • Project In-Place You can now project sections and elevations on the clipping-plane in their true 3D location.

  • Sectioning Curve Objects section/clipping planes can now section through curves. If the curves are in the background, then those will be projected as well.

  • Set 3D Reference Point for Drawings You can now set a persistent 3D reference point for your drawings and apply same point to multiple drawings to ensue persist and more accurate location of the 2D drawings

  • Elevated Projection It is now possible to set target point of drawings at an elevation from the XY-Plane to enable stacking of drawings

  • Reflective Parallel Projection is now supported

  • Set LineType of drawings ByLayer

Here is a closer look at this new feature set.

Project In-Place
You can now project sections and elevations on the clipping-plane in their true 3D location. This is similar to Make2D CPlane option except that the projection is on the clipping-plane. Drawings update when moving or rotating the clipping-plane and with model changes (run UpdateClippingDrawings).

Sectioning Curve Objects
You can now section through curves when creating clipping drawings. If the curves are in the background, then those will be projected as well.

Set 3D Reference Point for Drawings
You can now set a persistent 3D reference point for your drawings. The 3D point is projected to the clipping-plane and saved as persistent drawing attribute. If multiple clipping-planes are parallel and have similar orientation, using the same reference point ensures same relative locations of the drawings.

Elevated Projection
It is now possible to set target point of drawings at an elevation from the XY-Plane. This enable stacking of drawings. For example, you can stack floor-plans of a building.

Reflective Parallel Projection
Added support to generate reflective (ceiling) projections in drawings. To access it, run ClippingDrawings command and select “Projection” option, then select “Reflective”. This helps generate reflective ceiling drawings.
Known bug: Curves are not currently included in reflective projection. A request is logged for it.

Set Output Properties
Added an option to ClippingDrawings command to set LineType of output by either ByInputObject or ByLayer (output layer).

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Hi @rajaa, it there a plan to send ClippingDrawings to layout space ? In truth, I don’t really understand how those commands are supposed to interact with layout space if at all ? Is dynamic clipping not already what is possible there ?

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I agree, for product design would be much more convenient to have 2d drawings on layouts, like mcad do.

@rajaa there’s a specific limitation on this regards that stopped this request?

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If I understand you right, you are requesting that drawings be added to Page Layout directly (not inside a Detail)? If so, the main reason not to support that is that there is no good way to scale drawings if added directly to Layout (not inside a detail).

If I misunderstood your question, please give an example of the workflow you are suggesting. Thanks.

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This is exactly the request.

If you think about product design the drawing comes always in 1:1 scale or bigger (2:1, 5:1…)
I tried to use the detailed view with technical drawing multiple time (but in V7 without the section style) for product drawing but it result in a complex managment.

In this case would be very handy to have the option to pull the drawing on a specific Page Layout.
As for the scale it could be an option in the Sectiontool?

Of course the best could be to being able to manage all the option associatively.

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Can you please elaborate on where the complexity is when using Detail view (with example)? The issue might have been addressed in V8 or the WIP.

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Is there any chance that in Rhino 9 there will be an option in ClippingDrawings to produce Hatches/Surfaces out of visible faces of geometries?

I also experimented with some Grasshopper solutions to this problem, but it was way to hacky to rely on and it would not be integrated to Rhino command anyway.

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Hi Jakub -

No.

The request to be able to output vector drawings with “shaded” surfaces has been on the wishlist for a long time. Since this one is specific for ClippingDrawings, I’ve created a new feature request: RH-92197 ClippingDrawings: Create Regions and Hatches
-wim

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Hi Rajaa,

I am trying to utilize clipping drawings to make an isometric section drawing that “live updates” with model updates. I have an architecture model that I want to “peel back” different materials to show the complete structure and assembly in 1 drawing.

Screenshot 1: 3d model with a clipping section that is “peeling back” the red layer.

Isometric Drawing 1
Isometric Drawing 12200×1306 99.2 KB

Screenshot 2: I set up a second clipping section that is rotated 45 degrees in the X-axis and 45 degrees in the Z-axis to generate a clipping drawing.

Isometric Drawing 2
Isometric Drawing 22233×1569 117 KB

Screenshot 3: I get the clipping drawing I want except there is no way to get SEC_00 to “recognize” SEC_01 alteration to the model in the clipping drawing.

Isometric Drawing 3
Isometric Drawing 32538×1522 73.4 KB

Is there a way for 1 clipping section’s effect to be registered in a 2nd clipping section’s clipping drawing?

PS: I am working the in current WIP build of Rhino

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At this point, Clipping-Drawings do not support multiple clipping planes affecting the drawing. I can see how useful it is in the case you illustrated, and thank you for elaborating. What it comes down to is that Clipping-Drawings do not take into account if a view is clipped or not by one or more clipping-planes. It always clips by the one clipping-plane associated with the clipping-drawing. Make2D observes clipped-views, but it is not dynamic.

I will add a wish to the list, but I have a question. In your workflow, do you need the additional clipping-planes to clip on the background?

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Hi Rajaa,

Thank you for adding this to the wishlist.

It is possible that I am missing something in the program’s functionality, but as I see it now, yes, I think we will need the clipping sections “in the background” for this kind of drawing.

Here is an example of the kind of drawing (isometric to reveal assembly/structural) that I found online. These kind of drawings can be very helpful in explaining assembly details to contractors or summarize a structural system to clients.

826e5b93631efe87f374ba23efb3ec24
826e5b93631efe87f374ba23efb3ec241000×1415 81.3 KB

The WIP updates to the clipping sections and drawings have been great. The are allowing us to model our projects and document them directly from the model in a fashion that updates with changes over the course of the project. However, we have not been able to setup up section isometric drawings, like the one attached above, without resorting to Make2D and other labor-intensive methods that will not auto-update with a change to the project.

I don’t see another way in the current program to set up this kind of drawing without multiple clipping sections for visibility and then one to create the actual drawing (please let me know if I am missing something obvious). The example from my first post is just a portion of a structure, but the clearer issue is when it is a full structure and you are just trying to document a portion of it like a wall section.

Thanks

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Rajaa,

Your comment made me think about inverting the question about which clipping plane is needed. i set up layout with an isometric view port and was able to get the clipping section visibility that I was looking for, but now the issue is that I can only get pixel content upon printing (even if vector is selected).

Screenshot:

Screenshot 2026-10-26 125338
Screenshot 2026-10-26 1253383634×1822 167 KB

Print:

ISOMETRIC
ISOMETRIC2040×1320 311 KB

I could set all of layers display color white in an attempt to “fake” the vector line drawing as an pixel image, but that output is less helpful to us. Is there anyway to have the layout detail view to just have line work populate instead of one of the viewport settings?

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Hi @Neal_Barber ,

I’m totally on your side in your questions.

But Rhino development went the way of ClippingDrawings (which is cool, powerful, but just a great upgrade to Make2D to me) instead of fully customizable parameters of geometry itself and vector output of it with Detail views.

You may find some answers here and below. Also here is my key question answered the next post after. And here, with some fixes already in place since then.

The way it could be helpful for you is to use Technical display mode of the Detail view. This will give a vector output while printing, but with some limitations mentioned above.

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Thank you for the tip about the Technical viewport, unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to allow the same kind of control about line section (hidden, ect…) that you get with clipping drawings or Make2D for that matter.

Maybe it is the way my brain works now after many of years working in AutoCAD, but I actually like the clipping drawing workflow and options available. It allows one to draw over the clipping drawing or add detail like you can in Revit and annotate in model space. I get why clipping drawings might seem like another step though, instead of it feeding directly into a layout viewport.

With that said, the functionality I described above would be greatly appreciated in whatever way works best from a software standpoint. Our goal is to be able to use rhino to deliver and update projects entirely from a single model that we can get “live / updatable” drawings from (and real time rendering once it is out of the WIP). Keeping everything current and coordinated is just too time consuming otherwise.

Cheers

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You are still able to do all this over Layout’s Detail.

You also have possibility to annotate in Layout (I believe this was the intention of developers).

Personally I am trying to keep Model space for model only so any drawing-related objects are isolated on a Layout. That’s why ClippingDrawing objects in model space are just giving a bit of unnecessary extra mess to me. Model space is for 3D, Layout - for 2D. This is my vision.

But everybody is free to choose the workflow they prefer, of cause.

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Is it possible to send the drawings to another file ?

I don’t really like making the workshop drawings on the file of the model itself because I also usually use that same file as block for something else later, so I usually work with layout space and detail views, however, the benefits of Clipping Drawings are starting to get hard to ignore, but I would still prefer to not have all the drawings scattered around the file.

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Can you please elaborate with an example?

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Think of it as if I could have Model.3dm and ModelDrawings.3dm derived from Model.3dm and keep the drawings on the second file still updatable but not having them on the original file..

Kinda like blocks works, but not having the curves/drawings on the original file, only on the derived file.

Solidworks does something similar with two filetypes interconected .sldpt and .slddrt.

This way I could have the 3d model cleaner and lighter to use as a block on other files while having the drawing “conected” to the model so if I do any change I can still update the drawing efortlessly.

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Would the following workflow work for you?

  1. In ModelDrawings.3dm, insert Model.3dm as a linked block (Insert → Link). No drawings in the model file and it stays clean.
  2. Add clipping planes and run ClippingDrawings in ModelDrawings.3dm.
  3. When Model.3dm changes and the linked block is updated during the session and the drawings update.
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Yes, it would work, however in the past I had some problems while using blocks of drawings, small weird behaviors of osnaps not picking up and this kind of stuff. But yes, that would be an acceptable way of working IMO.

Maybe another way of approaching the problem would be if we had a “Drawing space” a separated space for only drawyings in 1:1 scale that the layout space could use to pick up stuff, since we cant send the drawings straight to layout space. But just venting some random idea.