You can now create Geometric Tolerancing control frames in Rhino WIP.
Interview with the Developer
What is this feature?
Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) is a system that uses symbols on engineering drawings to define and communicate the acceptable variation in a part’s geometry.
This ensures it will function as designed if manufactured to the specifications detailed by the symbols.
Users familiar with other applications that have this capability have requested this feature in Rhino.
Those involved in manufacturing will now be able to produce drawings with these GD&T annotations in Rhino WIP.
What you need to know:
The new GeometricTolerance command builds a feature control frame to display the special text.
The feature control frame is made up of a simple text entity that is assigned to the annotation style Geometric Tolerance.
The annotation style Geometric Tolerance is configured with a GD&T font that is specifically designed for use in geometric dimensioning & tolerancing. This font is capable of producing a boxed basic frame.
This font uses metrics to create boxes around characters, align these boxes and build special strings that control the display of the GeometricTolerance.
The GeometricTolerance object can be edited by double-clicking. The existing text will be displayed in the command dialog for editing. Edit and pick OK. The GeometricTolerance will be updated.
See the geometric tolerance in use here.
Try it:
Download and open file in the Rhino WIP: GeoTol Try it.3dm (94.6 KB)
Use the suggested Geometric Tolerance on the light gray Try it layer as a guide to create your own control frame
This is huge for anyone in mechanical/manufacturing engineering. It was one of my most wanted features when I made a post some time ago about improvements I would like to see to layouts
GD&T Basics also offer a free symbols chart on their website which you can get access to by signing up with an email. They also offer a master poster for a price, though it’s a little steep
Their website is still a good place to begin for anyone interested in learning more about GD&T
Hi, I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I’d like to suggest another small feature that would be really useful.
It would be great to be able to define a thousands separator in annotation styles, or at least have an option to group digits using a space. For example, instead of displaying 13200 mm, the annotation could display 13200 mm.
Ideally this would use a non-breaking space, and even better a narrow non-breaking space (U+202F), which is commonly used in technical and European typographic standards for digit grouping, to avoid line breaks and keep the spacing visually compact.
It is commendable that an effort has been made to implement a GD&T annotation tool for drawings—an element that is more and more essential in industrial design and widely available in many MCAD (mechanical CAD) systems.
However, the promotional video and the information provided in the tutorial are misleading, as they present an incorrect use of tolerance specifications.
Flatness tolerance applies only to planar surfaces and does not accept the Ø (diameter) symbol to define the tolerance zone. Moreover, flatness is a form tolerance, so it does not reference datums. For this reason, it is not associated with a Datum Reference Frame (DRF) and should not appear in a feature control frame that includes datum references.
A truly useful tool should even prevent users from entering specifications that do not comply with international standards (ASME and ISO).
I am attaching a consistent image that could replace the original one used in the video.
Hi @Salvatore_Gerbino,
This is more an intriguing image to get our WIP testers to try the new Geometric Tolerance feature.
It was designed to show a lot of the controls can be added to the Geometric tolerance frame, but not to be 100% accurate, realistic, or machinable.
Now that we have your attention, this is where you come in.
We want to see what you can do with this feature.
It would be great if you or any other tester can use the feature to build a frame that communicates an accurate finish for a surface or part. Please share that image or model.
If you can not do a frame that you need, let us know so we can make a YT that will add the additional control.
Thanks again for testing with Rhino 9 WIP.
Sincerely,
Mary Ann Fugier
