The Rhino WIP has several new tools to assist you when drawing or drafting. If you’ve used other software, some of these tools might be familiar to you.
What are the new Drawing Helpers?
The features we will look here at are:
- Cursor Crosshairs
- StretchCrv Command
- Black White Switching
Why were these added?
The goal of these new tools is to make the CAD user more comfortable and more productive when drawing or drafting in Rhino.
1. Cursor Crosshair
What is the Cursor Crosshair?
The Rhino WIP offers an option to display a “cross hair style” cursor, instead of the Rhino style cursor.
The feature offers advanced option to:
- Specify the percentage of the screen the crosshair with display
- Specify the color of the crosshairs that are displayed.
How to enable Cursor Crosshair?
Turn on crosshairs in Options → Modeling Aids → Smart Track and Guide.
Check the option: Display cursor crosshairs
Search in Advanced Settings for CrosshairScreenLength to adjust the length of the cursor crosshairs. The default value, 0, draws crosshairs across the entire screen. Numbers greater than 0 specify the pixel length of the crosshairs.
Do you still not see the crosshairs?
Verify that the crosshair color is different than the background color. For example, if you background is white, you will need to chance the corsshair color to black or gray manually here in Options → Appearance → Color.
RH-89741/Crosshairs-Color-Needs-to-Be-Background-Aware
2. StretchCrv Command
What is the new StretchCrv command?
The new StretchCrv command lets you select a curve’s control points that are off with a crossing window to move them to stretch or modify the geometry. This stretch works like a CAD application stretch, not the Rhino Stretch.
Why add a StretchCrv command?
The CAD Stretch command carries a lot of “muscle memory”. StretchCrv can offer an option to the Rhino Stretch which offers a new but familiar workflow.
StretchCrv is simply a command to move control points on a curve or curves using the implied selection windows or with the use of a polygon selection option.
How to use the StretchCrv command?
- The command operates on all curves that fully inside the selection window.
- The command also offers a polygon window option in the command.
- It is not necessary to turn on the object control points before using the StretchCrv command.
3. Black / White Switching
What is Black / White Switching?
When Black/White Switching is selected, a curve or an object wire whose assigned color is pure black or pure white will display in the opposite color when necessary to remain visible against the viewport background.
Why use Black / White Switching?
Users working in CAD applications are expect white objects to appear black on a white background, and conversely for black objects to appear white on a black background. This switch happens automatically in many CAD applications.
Automatic color display switching has been requested frequently by Rhino users. In previous Rhino versions, setting a layer or object to white against a white display resulted in the curves blending into the white background, and the same for black objects against a black background.
To Enable Black/White Switching:
Go to: Tools → Options → Appearance → Colors. In the resulting Object Display section, enable Black/White Switching.
More Details:
Color switching occurs based on the brightness of the viewport background or layout paper color.
- White curves and wires switch to black when the background brightness exceeds 70%.
- Black curves and wires switch to white when the background brightness falls below 30%.
- Brightness is not a configuration option per se. Rather, it is derived from Viewport Color options found in Tools → Options → Appearance → Colors → Viewport colors.
Also it is better and faster than scale1d or moving control points in many cases.
