After playing a bit with the latest Rhino 8 WIP, I noticed that there is a lot of room for improvement for the “Fillet surface” tool. So, I made an image with some descriptions of the enhancements I would like to suggest for future development. Hopefully they will be greenlighted and be available in the retail Rhino 8.
Remembering the used values is especially important, because there is virtually no way for someone to remember some random numbers for the next session or after using different values on a bunch of surface edges.
Also, I think that replacing the common “Extend” option by two individual options, “Extend 1” and “Extend 2”, is a better solution for those who want to take advantage of a smarter “Fillet surface” tool.
There is also a bug that occurs while running the “Fillet surface” command in Rhino 8 WIP when the active display mode uses shadows. Rhino 7 works properly with the same display modes. This is the one shown in the video: Bobi X9.ini (13.9 KB)
Environment map for Bobi X9.ini: Bobi X9.rar (170.5 KB)
Thank you, Pascal! Hopefully this will be resolved soon. All of my display modes with real-time shadows encounter the same issue like the one shown in the video above.
I think that there is a bug related to “Fillet surface”, more specifically, inability to snap to a target edge via “Int” (intersection) while trying to extend a surface with active “SetBasePoint” option. The latter only works while shortening a longer surface which already extends past the target edge. In my opinion, Rhino must be smart enough to predict the exact intersection point with the target edge and be able to snap there.
Another bug is related to the Grid in “Ghosted” display mode where it can’t be hidden. However, hiding the Grid works as expected in the rest display modes.
I also would like to see a “ChainSurfaces” option, similar to the “ChainEdges” option used in _FilletEdge. It must be able to do an automatic trimming in-between, while also extending the two edges at either end.
Ooops, I noticed that you edited your comment and added the image and question about the missing environment map. I will add it in my earlier post above.
That bug also occurs on any other display mode with shadows, even on the default “Arctic” and “Rendered” modes. “Ghosted” mode, however, loses transparency for the preview surface.
I would be happy even if the developers only add “Extend 1” and “Extend 2” options. Currently, the user is stuck to choose only between both sides extended or both sides non-extended, which is highly limiting factor in real-life modeling workflow and leads to a lot of extra work to manually trim the excess portion on one end while keeping the opposite end extended.
The developers would get a much better idea of how strong impact these proposed options could do, only if part of their job includes some actual NURBS surfacing on complex models instead of trying some tool on a simple box or a surface. This way, they will really struggle with the limited functionality of the current tools, thus they will better understand the need to further improve them. On theory, many tools in Rhino work if they are applied on a simple box or surface, but they often fail on real models where the circumstances are not ideal. It’s like comparing the range of vehicles in the real-life with those overly-optimistic numbers about the fuel consumption published by the manufacturers made with a 45 kg driver on a perfectly flat surface in a perfect day and no cars and traffic lights around.
Hopefully they will be greenlighted and be available in the retail Rhino 8.
, so hopefully they work on that too. imo. that would be great 
i wonder if that dialogue is just an eto framework 
