Is it possible to lock an object or curve and still use it for creating other objects or curves? There are some patterns I’ve created that had been inadvertently moved at some point in the modeling and caused problems.
Hi James - no, but it might help for the future to set Preferences > Mouse page > ‘Drag selected objects only’, to avoid accidental ‘click and drag all in one motion’
-Pascal
You can’t use a locked object to create, but you can snap to locked objects if you need to use them for reference.
Thanks for the help. I actually had both those options in play. I found that one of the thumb buttons on my logitech mouse was activating the nudge tool. I wonder if using locked objects for modeling would be a valid feature request. Perhaps an option that would extract curves from a locked object?
I think it would need to be some special mode or command, because one of the uses for locking is to remove the possibility of selecting these objects to begin with. (and getting the ‘select one object’ menu, and needing to answer the question).
-Pascal
There is a tool that allows one to select locked objects to be unlocked (allowing others to remain locked) Wouldn’t this functionality lend itself to this task?
UnlockSelected…
–Mitch
Right, so couldn’t that functionality - unlock selected -which shows only the locked objects be repurposed to extract rather than unlock?
I suppose it could… What it means is you’re making a copy…
Below is a quickie hack which might be what you want…
–Mitch
UnlockCopy.py (394 Bytes)
If there are curves I know I’m going to want to re-use later, I either put them on their own layer, which I leave locked or hidden, or just unlock the curve, copy, lock the original, and paste a duplicate. When I want to make use of one of them, I show/unlock the layer and copy the selected curve to an active layer.
I understand that technique, it’s just that it requires several steps that could be I think programmed into a single command/tool. I suppose it would be something like: select locked / unlock selection / make copy(or extract) / relock selection. I’m not savvy enough yet to use python scripts - I don’t even know where to place them. I’m still climbing the learning curve for what’s already there. I’m glad I’m making the investment however as I appreciate the precision I get that I couldn’t rely on using Sketchup.
Throw them in here:
~/Library/Application/Support/McNeel/Rhinoceros/Scripts
To find the hidden Libraries folder, hit the Alt key and then pull down the Go menu, then navigate along the path to scripts.
You can then create a simple alias in Rhino (Prefrences>Alias):
! _-RunPythonScript "UnlockCopy.py" The script should run from that alias.
Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter where you put the script, your alias just needs to have the full path to the script:
! _-RunPythonScript "FullPathToScript/Scriptname.py"
–Mitch
Wow, very cool! Thanks.
I suppose I can assign this to the popup menu? And by the way, is there a way to make additional popup menus to use with the button on a mouse? ------ Update, no apparently not. Is there a means that I don’t yet understand to add this too a menu?
Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about modifying MacRhino’s standard interface… --Mitch
I just figured it out in the commands preference settings. Very nice. That’s a charming little bit of code you made. Thanks again. It would be even more grand if I could add an icon to it. Is there a library of sanctioned icons for Rhino that’s available?
Here’s your script in action: