Bart, you had brought up some good points with your answer, but I think right after your feedback you might have also started to presume a lot of things about your software’s developers.
These McNeel guys are the most honest, calibrated, unbiased and respectful team to its customers I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of software teams in my career as a corporate CAD Diva. And Grandpy Brock is the sweetest tech support grump I’ve ever dealt with. Take the time to get to know their culture and you’ll understand why they don’t do everything that every customer asks for right away. It makes sense.
BTW, I’ve been reading this topic since it bubbled back up and I have some thoughts that might be a good step towards a solution that allows chafed and requires no parametric architecture. I’ll be back with that soon.
G
(PS: RMA team, don’t take my compliments too seriously, I’m just exaggerating for this new kid here. You go and get back to type code now!)
For the ones whose 2D documentation output is for architectural design, I agree with stefannysten and suggest to try the VisualARQ plug-in.
Their tools are very useful to create 2D sections from your 3D models where the sectioned objects can be hatched automatically (actually only the VisualARQ wall objects are hatched, but this is mostly the case in architectural drawings)
Additionally, objects like doors and windows will appear with the correct architectural drafting standards (like the arcs indicating the door opening swing) in the 2D section.
It has been designed to be used together with the native Layout tool from Rhino
You may want to check the way it works as a similar approach could be useful to create documentation for industrial design.
John, thank you for your clear words. You’re absolutely right: time, nor resources are dividable so choices are made with good reason.
It was somewhat snappy of me, I admit, to suggest deliberate advertisement trickery. On the contrary, the Spain team gave me good support the first few weeks I started using Rhino. They too suggested a refund would always be possible if expectations were not met. Absolutely right there.
Good of you, Gusto, to put a finger to the eager horse’s nose…
If not apologising for my earlier comment, at least, let me humbly bow the head for the support and the involvement I received from this forum and from the Rhino team.
And in the meanwhile, ride that pony you’ve been provided with. I’m sure it will surprise me with some more tricks, as it has already done so several times.
I’d like to put on here that we have experimented with just about every design software and nothing else offers the flexibility, speed and easy use of Rhino. Our organization is now about 90% Rhino and we output submittal drawings to Architects, GCs, and other trades. A critical need for us is to have our drawings dynamically derive from the model in the detail views. We have overcome just about all of our hurdles for producing our drawings and are moving forward to test our methods on larger architectural projects.
I’d challenge anyone who thinks Rhino can’t produce your drawings, you need to play with it more. Yes it takes some finesse, and the associativity isn’t like AutoCAD…so what? The lineweight control is a pretty big thing for the OpenGL views, but ultimately we have been able to tell our story differently with Rhino and still get it done.
Export/SaveAs DWG (Sheets)
We do have one struggle that was originally part of the post, exporting our drawings to 2D DWG for delivery to customer. Doing a SaveAs DWG gets us there in every case except where our detail is of a clipped 3D object. In our case it is usually Plan, RCP, or elevation views. Our sections and details have been overcome a different way. Is there a way for that SaveAs to only include the non-clipped geometry? Our solution has been to go to the clipped view, do a Make2D of the geometry.
Issue - Make2D of Mesh
Since a lot of context modeling comes to us from Revit, we pull it in as Mesh. Which is perfect for everything until we do the Make2D trick. We have converted through MeshtoNurbs, but that makes the file size go through the roof.
Wish item - Dynamic Make2D
If it were possible to take a Make2D view that would update through History when the model was modified that would be amazing allowing us to make a wireframe view and giving us lineweight control…
Hopefully the industry will allow for model submission before I retire, but between here and there…drawings and 2D DWGs remain outcomes.
Well, actually we do. We do production jewellery and most pieces need some information provided with the piece. Stone size and colour, dimensions for bale openings for example. Like @BartGo said …
That is why I am on this thread, since I now have layouts with Rhino for Mac, I am trying to streamline my work and maybe have all information in my Rhino file, with the ability to print a 2d copy for my records. Currently I have to Make2D and then change my view to a special Pen display I created then CaptureView to file. This PNG is then imported into InDesign where the information is added then exported to PDF.
So I am going through the video “Introduction to layouts” by Mary Fugier, right after I am done here.
I support your comment. jewellers do have to document their ideas.
I have been teaching my students to document using the workflow of
3d model> make2d> create layout and annotate/dimensions/centre lines.
Mary’s way is a much quicker way but it doesn’t allow users to control line weights and colours and hatching/sectional. @bobmcneel is this something V6 can do? dimensioning straight off the 3D model in the layout view using various detail viewports will be what I hope will be coming in the near future.
But just took a look at how Sketchup handles drafting. It has it’s own Layout module.
Seems like there is a lot of good features that us Rhino users are missing…
I think part of the issue is it is unclear what is being wished for from these videos. The first is not narrated and sped up, so it’s hard to appreciate what Rhino is missing. I see some nifty leader justification, and some sort of component referencing system, and the ability to insert material / part call outs in a leader, but nothing defined enough that a developer would say “we should emulate that.” Even as a user I’m not sure what I’m missing in Rhino by watching that.
In the second video I didn’t notice anything specific that Rhino doesn’t do. So if there is something specific that these show, I think it needs to be more clearly requested.
Being able to ‘pull’ leaders off of objects which automatically populate a balloon or lozenge with the part name or user defined data is something I’ve wished for here a few times, and continue to find a need for it, almost daily. Doing it in Rhino, especially shifting stuff around to get things to fit in complex drawings and retaining alignment of balloon to leader, is a very tedious process in Rhino. It’s even worse in Layouts, where I never feel like I’m directly connected to the drawing elements compared to conventional drafting.
As you say Sam, the first of those videos seems to expose some kind of toolset in that respect. Has a third party ever made a plugin of that type for Rhino?
As an aside, I do love the matte-but-shaded visual style that Sketchup offers, as shown off in the second video at around 5:30. Beautifully clear but dense with detail. It looks like something from a high quality book - lifted above being a mere technical drawing.
bump. It would be nice to control options in all detail views in a layout instead of having to select each detail individually. For instance: hiding objects or layers, or selecting display type. But yea I agree with others, drafting in rhino is painful
I know we all want in-built functionality like this, but it was surprisingly easy to script a company specific solution for this based on this example…
It’d be nice if it was a little smarter like solidworks note tool, but the script is perfectly functional and the boss was impressed with the initiative and result.
Obviously the usertext must be present for it to work, so I developed a another script for adding usertext.
Hi, no tuviste problemas al imprimirlo?
yo tuve un problema con la vista tecnica: cuando imprimia ya sea en PDF o el PLOTTER. las lineas me salían mas gruesas de lo solicitado.
Right now we duplicate work in that we develop a ship structural design in Rhino (molded surfaces only, not solids), then export geometry to AutoCAD for detailing. If a change is made to the source Rhino design, someone has to go back and adjust the AutoCAD drawing. It’s horribly inefficient and costly for our customers.
2D drafting standards are a way to interpret 3D geometry in a 2D format. That is not the same as looking at a portion of a 3D model in a 2D orientation. For example, 2D drafting standards require that a non-tight longitudinal bulkhead on the far side of a transverse bulkhead is drawn in section view as two parallel dashed lines. There are a lot of standards like that, so getting from 3D to 2D is not simply a 3D view excised by clipping planes.
Rhino’s “Technical View” is the closest Rhino seems to have for interpreting 3D geometry in a 2D way. Unfortunately, abutting far-side surfaces (not solids) can’t seem to make up their mind whether they are near side or far side (continuous or dotted lines). The only way around that is to move the far geometry slightly away (not in contact with near side surfaces), but that would cause problems when the model is later exported to Ship Constructor. Anyway, we have the linetype issue described above.
Yes, Rhino has tools like Make2D, but that goes against the design efficiency rule of draw-everything-once. Anytime we draw things several times (3D then 2D) we’re being inefficient, and it increases the risk of errors and misinterpretations.
I do not believe this is a failing of Rhino. There’s a lot of on-line commentary about this issue, and I have yet to see a decent solution. Rather it is the result of antiquated 2D drafting standards that cannot be readily applied to 3D ship modeling. Unfortunately, 2D paper drawings are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Therefore, it seems like a new drafting paradigm is necessary. 2D drafting standards were created as a way to understand 3D geometry. If 3D views are used (oriented so you can see perspective), that might get a lot easier. The rule for ship design drawings has always been “don’t scale structural drawings”. Personally I’ve barely used my engineering scales since I stopped doing manual drafting. So perhaps we should be developing a new paradigm instead of trying to fit a round peg (3D) into the proverbial square hole (2D).
So, how has your process changed ? any exciting updates to a perfect workflow ?
Have you tried “sectiontools” ? I’ve been using it recently and although I PERSONALLY love it – there are some visual problems with background objects that my clients do not like. They like the way autocad “looks” when you do, for example viewbase section — although that never updates so i mean, totally useless in my opinion.
I would love for sectiontools to work on a layout view similar to how viewbase works - it only works in model space — you have to do a bunch of set up work to get to your desired view but once you have a process down, it’s not terrible. AND it does work… it DOES update
