Customers have asked for a couple new features when adding layouts to the Rhino model. The Layout command now offers Detail Spacing and Copies controls.
Why is this important?
Prior to the Rhino 9 WIP, when you added a Layout and detail count was set two, three or four, the new layout was added with the details, however the borders were coincidental or overlapping.
To change the scale of the detail, the detail needs to be selected and not active. A user would need to be careful to pick an edge where the details were not overlapping or pick from the list of coincidental items to get the required detail.
The Layout command also only created one layout. Additional layouts would need to be copied from the Layouts panel or command.
How is this used?
By adding an option for spacing, the details are created on the new layout and have padding or a space between them. Now the Rhino user does not need to edit the details to space them out manually. They are create with spacing based on the value in the Detail Spacing control
Also, instead of adding just one layout and having to copy it from the Layouts panels, you can include a number of copies in the Copies control.
Using the New Options
Copies of New Layouts
The Layout command now offers an option to add copies or multiple layouts at one time.
Detail Spacing
The Layout command now offers Detail Spacing which will add a distance between the details. This will make it faster to configure your layout and easier to pick one detail border without interference with a stacked detail border.
Very nice feature, what could be very insteresting is to add an option to use all the objects or to use active selection, then once the layout created the selection is the only object visible in the created viewport
Download DetailFromSelection.py (4.2 KB)
You can load and run it with the RunPythonScript command.
Note: I use the ScriptManager utility in Dale’s Garage. It provides a panel that list scripts in a folder. The scripts in the folder can be easily run from a double-click. If you do not have Dale’s Garage, use the PackageManager to load it. (Tip: try out the WhatPanel too!)
How does it work:
Have a Layout or two already created in the model.
Select objects in the model viewport that you want visible in the detail.
Be in the view that want in the detail to be created with. For example, if you want the Front view in the Detail, select object in the Front view before initialing the script. (The objects that are not selected will be hidden in the detail.)
Pick the layout where the detail will be added.
After the detail is added, you will configure the detail’s location, size, Cplane and scale.
You will need commands ShowSelectedInDetial or ShowInDetail to make the objects visible that were selected and are hidden in the detail.
I fact I was thinking to use the same process than the new section plane, in the properties tab of the detail view frame, you can have the same choice than new section, include/exclude mode, by object or by layer, because actually for students, it is not very easy to understand the way to hide objects in a Detail view..
I already use python script to go faster but if you can improve the native way it is very interesting, because when teaching i always use a “native rhino”.
Many commands are prototyped in scripting before they ever make it into the core. This allows the workflow and options to be tested before the implementation is done.
The request for this command is on a wish list. All requests get reviewed every release cycle for possible implementation in a future Rhino.
But the script you can have today!
Sincerely,
Mary Ann Fugier
I must ask why not go all the way with this and make it more like the Make2D command? You select which objects you want, run the “LayoutFromSelected” command and then get to choose how you want the details to look, e.g. 1 or 4 or whatever, it then makes a layout with the chosen objects and everything else hidden. And then it keeps everything else hidden regardless of what gets added in modelspace, maybe if the default state of objects in this detail is Hidden.
I always thought it was weird that I could create “drawings” with the Make2D command but not a layout or detail from a selection.
And while we are at it, maybe a command that copy’s the Hidden state of objects in a detail so you can apply that to another detail. Because right now the quickest way seems to be:
You have an object you need a quick/simple drawing of, select object and press “New Layout: 4 details” button, getting reminded yet again that everything will be shown in the 4 details, not only your selection.
Deleting 3 of the details, then navigating in the last detail to the object you want, select it, run your “!_Invert _HideInDetail” command and then copying and change view so you end up with a 4 Detail Layout again.
