I just spent some time with the new V8 feature of allowing clipping plane object exclusions in different modes. Seems like the hardest part is done, works quite nice and will be very useful in many situations. I am sure this is still an early implementation and UI needs more work, but here is some early feedback:
With the Custom assignments, the clipping planes are always identified as “Clipping Plane 001”, “002” etc., regardless of their object names. I think it would be better to use their names (if defined) or “Unnamed Clipping Plane 001” for not named ones (with many in the file naming them properly is a key)
The custom dialog:
does not remember the current settings, these should stick if I previously picked one of the ClippingPlanes here.
Also, the dialog should say if the selected clipping planes are active (selecting for inclusion) or disabled (selecting for exclusion)
Great to have more settings (All, None, Parent, Layer) - I assume the Clipping for Layer properties are not implemented yet, correct?
Eventually please add command line access in Properties command to be able to set this us via macros. Same with for scripting access to these new clipping properties
MatchProperties command should allow matching the Clipping property between objects, and/or maybe we could have a stand-alone command to just match clipping between objects?
This is a very exciting new feature, thanks for making it available.
I think as long as it is in RhinoCommon it should provide enough flexibility, but command line access for macros is always in the “would be nice to have” category. I realize the Custom settings via command line may be tricky, but maybe at least setting: All/None/ByLayer/ByParent could be controlled via Properties command as well?
(I don’t know what we need until incorporated in our workflow and that won’t happen until V8 is officially out, but learning lessons from the past I try to provide feedback early on).
Seems like block instance clipping edges are not working
Parent or All setting does not stick - always default back to Layer (so can’t test the in-block Parent setting)
Blocks - objects within blocks seem to behave correctly with various clipping settings (again, can’t test Parent to see what happens when the block instance has certain setting). But I think it would be quite useful, if at all possible, for the individual block instances to follow their own object clipping settings, so if we have 2 copies of the same block instance, one could be clipped and one unclipped by the same clipping plane. Is that possible? Or is it the idea that all objects in such blocks should be set to Parent, so then they would react to whatever setting each instance has?
There seems to be a problem with selecting objects that are set to None, or ignoring certain clipping planes. Once the object is fully (not crossing) the zone of the clipping plane where normally it would not be visible, but it is visible, it is impossible to select that object. To repeat:
a) make a box, set clipping to None
b) make vertical clipping plane
c) move the box fully into the “clipped” area of that plane
d) over here, it is impossible to select that box.
And here is one of many areas where I hope these will come really handy:
(this was done in Rhino but impossible with a single clipping plane, had to actually cut the model as needed. If the selective clipping is robust we can have a lot of fun with these)
