V6: Making a Better Block Manager

[eobet]

Interesting thread that I wasn’t aware of. And from 2015 too…

Well, I managed to get a bit of traction with developers in this thread recently:

There is a block definition on layer X, delete it before deleting layer

[image] This is the worst UI part of Rhino. I mean, why would you do this to a user, and then, in the BlockManager not show any layers? [image] I bet Block 3 - 9 are also on that layer, but I don’t know. This and filleting is why Rhino currently is only suitable for small surfacing jobs.

Which resulted in something that might completely circumvent the crusty, ancient fossil that is the current BlockManager:

Proposal: Importing STEP assemblies as nested layers, not nested blocks

Moving the conversation from There is a block definition on layer X, delete it before deleting layer… A solution that we’ve been working toward in that thread for bringing in nested assemblies from STEP files, and representing them in Rhino such that: Individual parts can be edited in Rhino simply. Unnecessary parts and subassemblies can be easily deleted The model can be exported back to STEP without losing any of the assembly structure The strategy is to: read in assemblies as layers, w…

So, a bit of a stopgap solution, but it’s better than nothing…

@Pascal said that I was 20 years late to complain about Blocks, so I guess this thread was 15 years late, but I wonder when it’s time to let go of the past and instead try to invent a better future?

At work, we’re currently underway of switching out our PDM/PLM system, so it doesn’t just work with Solidworks, but other CAD software too (except Catia). It’s a monumental task, but finally started actually in (a very small) part due to the introduction of Rhino in our workflow. That’s years of projects and revisions we either have to convert or just accept that we start from rev 0 again, and several people who haven’t worked with versioning before that now will have to learn. Still worth doing!