V6 WIP - Mesh Visibility, Loss of Grid in Rendered Viewport

[BW1]

Hello - First, a big ‘thank you’ to all on the development team and all other testers. Rhino made a HUGE leap forward with v5, and it is my hope that it continues to WOW in V6. Rhino is hands down the most versatile design tool in my opinion.

I use Rhino primarily to align and transform digitized data to logical XYZ space and sometimes create additional geometry to boolean - then export it (but quite often the boolean operations fail…I think it needs looser tolerance for artistic/organic shape-type work).

I typically work with STL meshes and set my viewports to ‘rendered’ in order to see the mesh ‘skinned’ - because all other viewport settings make seeing the mesh edges difficult or impossible to see. This works well in R5, but doing the same settings in R6, the grid is gone. If I need to precisely rotate something to align it to XYZ (for CNC work let’s say) - I have to be able to see the mesh, and grid, plus snap to the grid.

The render itself looks fantastic(!)…BUT, why can’t I toggle on the grid? I’ve tried using the command, but no change took place.

I have also opened an existing R5 collection of meshes in R6, and only a few of the meshes displayed in anything but Wireframe or Shaded modes. I have no idea why. Works fine in R5.

Is this a known issue?

While I am here…

I’d like to see some improvements to the 2D/vector drawing tools for artistic type work. The drawing tools are quite cumbersome and unintuitive in this area. Specifically, the polyline tool (or something like it). Quite often I find myself popping out of Rhino and importing work done in another program. It would be nice to have a mix of lines, bezier & arcs along a polyline that could be selected/changed on the fly via shortcut keys when editing at the node level. It is extremely tedious to draw freeform 2D in Rhino (E.G. - digitizing a photo with minimal nodes, using a combination of square corners and bezier curves in between), because you have to keep popping out of the tool to change from lines to curves etc.

I would also like to see some improvements with mesh boolean operations, including split/trim. As you may already know, R5 will often run the command and the finished product is no different than the original meshes selected for the boolean operation. Engineering applications probably want a super-high level of precision here. Artists - not so much.

Thanks!

[wim (Wim Dekeyser)]

@BW1

This works well in R5, but doing the same settings in R6, the grid is gone.

Make sure that the Show grid setting is checked in Rhino Options > View > Display Modes > [Rendered] > Grid > Grid Settings > Grid usage.

@BW1

BUT, why can’t I toggle on the grid?

What does the command macro say for the F7 key under Rhino Options > Keyboard?
On my system, it says noecho -_Grid _ShowGrid _ShowGridAxes _Enter and that seems to work and toggles the grid in all display modes.

@BW1

I have also opened an existing R5 collection of meshes in R6, and only a few of the meshes displayed in anything but Wireframe or Shaded modes. I have no idea why. Works fine in R5.

You’ll have to send a file that demonstrates a problem…



[BW1]

OK - so I looked at the settings and the grid was already toggled on (check boxes) for all viewports under options.

I hit F7 and it did toggle the grid, but I had to do it for each individual viewport. I am hoping/guessing, I can save out a profile for startup where they will already be there ready for work.

Thanks for the help…It’s just curious that this would have changed between R5 and R6. I am wondering if ‘they’ know how hard it is to see a high poly count mesh and work with it when it only shows wireframe

[wim (Wim Dekeyser)]

@BW1

It’s just curious that this would have changed between R5 and R6.

Why would that be curious? Everything display-related is new in RH6. And grid settings have always been confusing apparently - so that would be a clear reason for changing things…

As for what has changed - I’m still not sure (but I never ever use the grid) - I’m waiting to see responses to the following thread:

Grid options changed?

Al, did you ever find out about this one? When answering another query about the grid earlier today, I stumbled over this one: https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/bug-f7-toggle-grid-not-working/39120/30 I’m not sure what the “other way” is… @andy? cc: @margaret, when I compare the help file on grid for RH5 and RH6, they look identical. https://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/6/help/en-us/index.htm#documentproperties/grid.htm http://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/5/help/en-us/index.htm#documentproperties/grid.htm

I’ve added a link in that post to another thread on the topic that has more information.

[BW1]

Thanks for the reply & added info. I rarely use the grid for drawing…but DO use it to align imported components to XYZ space. Without the grid as a reference, it’s pretty tough to get things aligned for machining or 3D printing.

It’s ‘curious’ because the grid has always been present no matter what display mode you were in all the way back to R2 if I remember correctly.

[wim (Wim Dekeyser)]

The grid used to be a document property - with overrides.
Then it was a display mode property exclusively.
Now - based on what you are writing - it is a viewport property with overrides - I know nothing …