VisualARQ Sections/Section View Properties in Grasshopper

VisualARQ
1

Is it possible to do anything with these in Grasshopper? I’m able to get as far as shown below:
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What I’m specifically trying to do is “override” the appearance of the section arrows. I will have an annotation symbol (or a block) that contains the section’s reference text that I can manipulate independently from the section itself. Eventually I want to do something similar with both plan and section titles. A separate object would work so much better. This is my tentative section arrowhead shown below:
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Basically, it’s very cumbersome to move the text’s grip. And that line extending into the bubble is unavoidable (I can get one side looking correct, but the other side will just look worse). If I have an annotation symbol or block, I can just stick them on the ends of the section line (or jog them or whatever) and get things looking perfect.
I was hoping that I could go into grasshopper and somehow do this, but I don’t think it’s possible; I can’t seem to do anything with the properties list, or reference the section’s text; I’m not able to use the section as a “host”.
I might resort to using RhinoCommon and a block with an attribute. And hopefully I can access the reference text from the API. I’m not so sure that’s possible right now but would be welcome in the future if it isn’t.
From the Grasshopper approach, if you were able to use any VA object as a host for an annotation symbol, it would open up so much potential. Maybe we already can and I’m just missing something; that would be a nice surprise!!

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Also, not directly related but I didn’t want to start a new topic:

Pen and Artistic display modes aren’t handling section cuts properly (easiest to see with “artistic”):
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Fills aren’t showing.

Everything looks fine in the other display modes I’ve tried:

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Hi @keithscadservices,

This is still not possible with Grasshopper but you can do it from Rhino. In the section style panel you can select block as a “mark type”.

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Anyway, the arrowhead you are showing is already in the “mark type” list, so you don’t need to use a block for that. This is the mark type called “Circle”:

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This mark type is also available in Grasshopper when you create a Section style:

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4

Thanks Alfonso

My block is slightly different. It has a white hatch so that it will mask out anything behind the text. And I would be able to choose different hatch options for the arrow shading. The system arrow is a bit limiting. And the text is still off to the side (and it’s a pain to move inside the bubble each time).

With a few extra options things would work great if not perfect, but as-is I cannot use it. I’ll have to simply turn off section lines and manually draw the section marks, at least until I find a better solution.

Detaching the actual section mark from the section itself solves a lot of problems (provided I can somehow get the reference text into my block, maybe with RhinoCommon?).

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5

Hi @keithscadservices,

Did you try the option to use a block as a mark type as I suggested in my last post? I think that option might work.

What you can do is not showing the text just by deleting it in the section properties. Then, you can create the text in the block you are using.

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6

Hi @keithscadservices this is just to inform you that VisualARQ 3 fixes this issue with the Pen and Artistic display modes.

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