Show/Hide Layers in Details

Hi @Andrew,

With a detail active, right-click on a layer in the Layers panel and pick Layer On in this Detail only.

Does this help?

– Dale

3 Likes

Hi @dale,

This worked perfectly! Thank you, I didn’t notice that new command in v6. Very handy!
Are there other related commands?

(now to find the What’s New in v6 doc…)

Here are some scripts to hide or show layers in several page layouts.

HideLayerInLayoutDetails.py (1.1 KB)
ShowLayerInLayoutDetails.py (1.1 KB)

As an aside, they were a bit obtuse to write - I still can’t work out what scriptcontext is about, and there aren’t many rhino python functions for layouts and details.

4 Likes

So happy to see this, thanks!

Eric

Sorry to revive old an old topic. Has this been solved in V7?

Hi @benjamin - no, this item is still open and on the Future list - RH-19685.
-wim

Hi @dale,
is this possible on mac? I cannot find it.

This is still a very relevant issue. Perhaps if viewports could have two modes, a “Universal Layers” mode where object visibility was determined by ‘Modelspace’ visibility, and an “Independent Layers Assignment” mode, where visibility was completely independent of the global setting.

Then, with the viewport selected, the layers menu would allow the “Independent layer visibility” to be changed (Maybe a different coloured light globe or something could be used to show the different mode). Importantly, new layers should have visibility off by default for ‘Independent Layers Assignment’ mode, so adding layers of information to the document doesn’t mess with existing viewports.

For the one additional option (that could be located in the viewport properties) you have a setting that adds control for advanced users but doesn’t increase complexity for new users. It would give experienced users the freedome to model and Layout documents without one activity interfereing with another as well as the flexibility to stick to the ‘Universal Layers’ method for quick jobs. I’d be interested to hear what some of the Rhino veterans think


[The image mockup is an example only].

3 Likes

As you know, the tools just aren’t designed for that sort of control.
The main Layers control is global, meaning if a layer is off there, it’s off everywhere.
When you’re in a Layout , then the Layers Panel get’s additional Layout related controls.
Additionally there is HideInDetail

https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-19685

Hi Dale,
Re your comment:
https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-25711
I am moving this off to “Future” with the intent of working on this in V7.

Gives me hope! Can we expect we might get this feature sometime in V7?

Then please change the design of those tools to facilitate our work. This “global” layer behaviour tremendously complicates the documentation process in Rhino. In order to make sure that all the layer states in your layouts are functioning the way we’ve configured them to work, you have to turn on all layers on model space Who works like that? Imagine you have a coworker that needs to make a change to an specific part of the model, so he opens the file, turn every layer off but the layers he needs for the modification and once done he saves the file and closes it. Then, another member of the team opens the file and goes straight to the layouts to print without realising that many layers are off, and he/she only finds out after all the documentation has been printed!!

Another big problem is once you have configured all your layouts, and due to some revisions, you have to create a few new layers, suddenly you have all those new layers populated in every single detail!! Yes, I know there is a new feature in V6, only for Windows, that lets you activate a layer just in one detail, but still you have to make sure to navigate to those details and configure them manually.

All this problems would vanish away if layouts layers visibility wouldn’t be affected by model layers. Once a detail/layout has been configured let the layers configuration for that detail frozen.

I hope this makes sense,
José

6 Likes

Tbh the layout system is one of the more complicated systems to explain to my students. I like the idea of freezing the layer states for a certain detail once it is created. This would solve a lot of issues.

2 Likes

Hi -

That was written in 2017. In 2018, the target was moved to Future again. So, no, this is not currently on the Rhino 7 list.

That’s the intent of RH-19685.

That particular one is on the list as RH-10770.

I think that we all agree on that.

But also understand that it will likely create new issues. A coworker needs to do a last-minute change to a model and lets you know when he’s done with that. You print the layout and send it off to the producer only to find out two months later that nobody refreshed the details.
As long as there are no strict rules and workflows in an organization, there will never be enough safeguards against errors.

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I’m simply wondering if (as asked more or less above) that layer states for layouts should be completely decoupled from model space layer states. As in having two separate independent layer panels - one for model space, one for layout space. Just an idea - call me crazy.

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Hi Mitch -

That’s RH-19685, isn’t it?

In a way, we have that. There are separate columns for details in the Layers panel.
On the Mac, those are moved into a separate panel.
-wim

I wasn’t talking about a model freeze, just a layer state freeze. Normally I expect that the modified geometry stays on the same layer as the original, replacing the original.

If the coworker didn’t add any new layer to the file, everything should just work. If he/she created new layers, then it’ll be necessary to check where do you want those new layers to show. But yes, I agree with you Wim that nothing is 100% secure and there might be situations in which something unexpected might happens. Still I think the proposed workflow would facilitate the process in most situations.

Not crazy at all! Why would I want to see all my layout specific layers mixed with my model space layers.

And I think this is better UX than what exists on Windows. I started to use Rhino on Windows, and it took me a long time to discover than when double clicking a detail, the modification to those layer configurations were just for that specific detail, it was very confusing to me, and every time I explain how layout works in Rhino, people are usually very confused.

Well, not really. In Windows they’re still part of the same panel, and they’re still interrelated as far as I can tell. I’m talking about two separate controls and what you do in one is absolutely not pushed over to the other. That might create more work for some however, if you want to turn on or off the same series of layers in both the model and layout space for example.

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What if instead of managing the details visibility via the layers panel, we could be able to access Layer States within the properties panel and also Named Views. Something like this:

If there would be no saved layers states the detail would show the current model state layer configuration. Once stablished a layer state, it’ll stay frozen and unaffected from the model configuration, meaning that we could have layers turned off on model space while turned on on the details. With this solution we could also be able to select multiple details at once on the same layout, and apply the same layer states, scale and views to those details.

This possibility of applying the same layer state to multiple details was just implemented in the latest WIP, so there is already something like what I’m proposing “under the hood”.

The other change would be for the Layout Layer Panel. In this panel there would only be layers created for layouts and they shouldn’t appear on the Model Layer Panel. For example layers for the details, texts, title blocks, images…

What do you think?

Enjoy the weekend,
José

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Hi Dale

“Layer On in this Detail” turns the layer off in the other (not activated) detail views. See screen shot, is this a bug or am I using it wrong?